Greetings in nsyilxcən and secwepemctsin (the language of Syilx Okanagan and Secwepemc peoples, respectively). Way' is the Syilx Okanagan greeting and connotes an acknowledgement that what has happened is done and everything is now a possibility. Weytk is the Secwepemc greeting meaning hello or welcome.
Okanagan College respectfully acknowledges that the Penticton, Kelowna and Vernon campuses are located on the lands of the Syilx Okanagan People and the Salmon Arm campus is located on the lands of the Secwépemc People. We honour our relations and hold up their knowledge, welcoming all to our house of learning.
The Syilx Okanagan and Secwepemc peoples have taken care of their homelands for thousands of years. Okanagan College is respectful of the Syilx Okanagan and Secwepemc peoples, their knowledge, language, and history, as well as their ongoing relationship to the land and natural world. Learn more about Syilx Okanagan and Secwepemc peoples, their homelands and governance.
Okanagan College leadership and broader College community are committed to working with, and learning from, the Indigenous community.
The Okanagan College Board of Governors is committed to participating and contributing to Okanagan College’s responsibility and goals related to Indigenization, Decolonization, and Reconciliation. The Board is committed to explore and gain an understanding of Indigenized decision-making processes that support and honour Indigenous guiding principles behind informed practice. The Board commits to further learning and training that is inclusive of key principles that bring together the traditions of the Okanagan Syilx and Secwépemc Nations.
Okanagan College has developed an informed practice model for working with Indigenous communities and learners. The guideline, called Guided by Community: Okanagan College’s Informed Practice Guidelines for Working with Indigenous Communities and Learners is based on building authentic, reciprocal relationships, listening to and acting on the priorities of Indigenous communities, and respecting distinct community and land-based protocols.
Read OC's Informed Practice Guidelines for Working with Indigenous Communities and Learners
As part of the College's Strategic Plan and other strategic directions (Indigenous Education Protocol, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and BC Ministry of Advanced Education's mandate letter), Okanagan College created the Indigenization Task Force to foster input and direction towards our Indigenization planning and activities. The Indigenization Task Force consists of faculty and staff from various departments and all campuses.
The Indigenization plan aims to engage and enhance our ties with our Indigenous community members; strengthen the physical, cultural and spiritual spaces at OC; increase Indigenous knowledge and culture within our curriculum, as well as identify potential changes to College policies, structure and processes.
Indigenization at Okanagan College involves rejecting past colonizing patterns of homogenization, exclusion and erasure of Indigenous peoples’ knowledge, languages, identities as well as cultural and educational aspirations. Accordingly, where and when possible, Indigenous ways of being and doing, as well as methodologies that lend themselves to bringing Indigenous knowledge to the fore, will guide the Indigenization planning process.
A key tenet of this planning process is to form and strengthen respectful and inclusive knowledge relationships that will converge with the College's Strategic Plan, helping to create meaningful, inclusive projects and programming that look to the future. Accordingly, the College looks to foster meaningful relationships across departments, for projects, programs and courses with specific Indigenous content, especially Syilx Okanagan and Secwepemc.
This enhanced knowledge base, presence on campus and diversity will extend outward to welcome and acknowledge all Indigenous students, staff and faculty, while also ensuring that everyone who is connected to Okanagan College is aware of the languages, knowledge and ways of the Indigenous peoples.
Okanagan College is striving to be a place where all students, staff, faculty and visitors can recognize and appreciate the history and the ongoing contribution that Indigenous knowledge and relationships make to our institution, to Canada and to the communities around us.
Indigenization will foster a greater understanding of how we can contribute to ensuring that the College becomes a place where Indigenous knowledge, ways of teaching and learning, and responsibility to the land and environment are learned, celebrated and respected.
At this point, the Okanagan College Indigenization planning process is in its engagement phase and looks to respectfully and inclusively engage Indigenous communities and organizations to meet their educational needs and aspirations. This Indigenization journey begins with meaningful relationships with the Indigenous people in whose homeland each campus is situated.
Accordingly, starting with our discussions with Syilx Okanagan and Secwepemc communities, extending out into a comprehensive list of internal and external groups, what we hope to achieve is a deeper understanding of our role as a College within the web of people, animals and the natural world. The actions that we will take will contribute to our relationships within our community of learners and will help establish a stronger and more inclusive extended family network.
We have taken some steps forward already as we continue to work with and learn from Indigenous communities and we will now be looking at what other concepts we need to understand and what actions we can take to develop a larger strategic plan. To do this, we will engage further with Indigenous communities, students, staff, faculty, leadership and all of our partners in education.
During the upcoming phases of the Okanagan College Indigenization plan there will be meetings and community gatherings to discuss the needs of Indigenous communities. These meetings and community gatherings will help shape the direction that Okanagan College Indigenization will take.
Educational institutions have been predicated on knowledge production and reproduction in a way that has been exclusive, and in many ways destructive to Indigenous peoples. Okanagan College respectfully recognizes that our Indigenization planning process is primarily a summary of thoughts and perspectives to date. Ultimately, it is intended to be a starting place for further dialogue and engagement as we expand and elaborate. We anticipate that as our knowledge and understanding grows as an institution, so too will relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous faculty, staff, students, and community members. In short, Okanagan College can be a site where Indigenous knowledge, languages and cultures are respected, alive and dynamic.
The Four Pillars Model represents a traditional Q’wc’i?, C7iskten (Pit House), embodying Indigenous principles, ways of being, and ways of knowing. It reflects the strength of many coming together as one, with Okanagan College serving as a house of learning. The four pillars represent the College’s commitment to Indigenization, aligned with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, and the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls final report. Indigenization is an ongoing, collaborative process that will evolve as we journey toward reconciliation.
Knowledge. Be a college where all students, staff, faculty, and visitors can recognize and appreciate Indigenous history and the fundamental contribution of Indigenous knowledge and relationships to the College. Be a College where Indigenous knowledge, languages, and cultures are respected and are valued elements of the College’s culture grounded in an urgency to embed them in all elements of the College.
Language & Culture. Create opportunities for students, employees, and visitors to enhance individual and collective knowledge about Indigenous Cultural Protocols, Land Acknowledgement, Indigenous history and culture, and language that is inclusive of the traditional and unceded territories on which Okanagan College delivers services.
Programs & Courses. Working with Indigenous community focus groups, Mentors, and Knowledge Keepers, develop culturally appropriate curricula inclusive of Indigenous language that transform learning into a collaborative process which enriches and promotes healing, sense of belonging, identity, embraces diversity, and improves education attainment levels and success rates. Weave trauma informed teaching and learning practices into college program and course development.
Experiential & Land Based Learning. Work with Elders and Knowledge keepers to engage OC students and employees in land-based learning experiences and protocols of the local Indigenous Peoples of the Syilx Okanagan and Secwepemc Territory.
TRC Calls to Action #7 - To develop with Indigenous groups a joint strategy to eliminate educational and employment gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians.
TRC Calls to Action #10 – We call on the federal government to draft a new Indigenous education legislation with the full participation and informed consent of Indigenous peoples. The new legislation would include a commitment to sufficient funding and would incorporate the following principles:
TRC Calls to Action #11 - We call upon the federal government to provide adequate funding to end the backlog of First Nations students seeking a post-secondary education.
TRC Calls to Action #12 - We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal governments to develop culturally appropriate early childhood education programs for Aboriginal families.
TRC Calls to Action #14 – To enact an Indigenous Languages Act that incorporates the following principles:
TRC Calls to Action #16 – Post-secondary institutions to create university and college degree and diploma programs in Indigenous languages.
TRC Calls to Action #24 - We call upon medical and nursing schools in Canada to require all students to take a course dealing with Aboriginal health issues, including the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, and Indigenous teachings and practices. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism.
TRC Calls to Action #62 – Federal, provincial, and territorial governments, in consultation and collaboration with Survivors, Indigenous peoples, and educators, to:
TRC Calls to Action #63 - We call upon the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada to maintain an annual commitment to Aboriginal education issues, including:
UNDRIP Article 13. 1 - Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons.
UNDRIP Article 14. 1 - Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.
MMIWG Call for Justice 11.1 - We call upon all elementary, secondary, and post-secondary institutions and education authorities to educate and provide awareness to the public about missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, and about the issues and root causes of violence they experience. All curriculum development and programming should be done in partnership with Indigenous Peoples, especially Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people. Such education and awareness must include historical and current truths about the genocide against Indigenous Peoples through state laws, policies, and colonial practices. It should include, but not be limited to, teaching Indigenous history, law, and practices from Indigenous perspectives and the use of Their Voices Will Guide Us with children and youth.
Wondering what the best practices are for land acknowledgements, event welcome ceremonies and Elder visits? Check out these guidelines and protocols as you incorporate Indigenous culture into your classroom and campus setting.
Explore protocol and guidelines
As a part of Okanagan College’s commitment to enhancing the participation of Indigenous learners, the College provides culturally relevant support services at each of the four campuses.
As part of the Indigenous OC initiative, Okanagan College is gifting Indigenous graduates with commemorative convocation stoles designed with pictographs from both the Syilx Okanagan and Secwepemc nations.
Indigenous Services collaborated with local Syilx Okanagan and Secwepemc Knowledge Keeper and Artist Les Louis to create beautiful Indigenous-designed stoles. With family lineage to both Lower Similkameen and Bonaparte Indian Bands, Louis says, “My creativity stems from many influences, but none so important as my culture, language, traditions and mother nature.”
Respectively, these stoles were created with local Syilx Okanagan and Secwepemc designs, including pictographs of a canoe family and three eagles.
The three people in the canoe are symbolic of the three Okanagan College campuses that exist on the traditional and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan people.
These three campuses, Penticton, Kelowna and Vernon, are connected by Okanagan Lake. The canoe family illustrates the collaboration and connection of faculty, staff and students at all campuses, paddling together on an educational journey.
The three eagles are a Secwepemc design, representative of the Salmon Arm campus residing on the traditional and unceded territory of the Secwepemc nation.
The three eagles carry a special significance as eagles, and their feathers, are honoured and revered with the utmost respect. Eagles are also considered messengers, bridging a sacred and spiritual connection to the Creator.
For all Okanagan College convocation ceremonies, students and employees with Indigenous ancestry may choose to wear their traditional Indigenous regalia, in lieu of a gown and hood.
Traditional regalia refers to the traditional and sacred clothing, accessories and pieces worn or carried by Indigenous peoples during various ceremonies, such as powwows, celebrations and pan-national gatherings. As regalia are personal and sacred outfits, it is appropriate to approach and inquire, however, please refrain from touching without consent.
Okanagan College welcomes your transformative energy on this Indigenization journey. If you would like to have a facilitated planning workshop, or if you have thoughts, ideas, questions, concerns or recommendations, please connect with us.
Learn how you, as a student, can take part in Indigenization at Okanagan College.
Tools and information for instructors and staff to support Indigenization.
OC invites the community to join and contribute to our Indigenization journey.
