Joyce Schneider weaves together reconciliation and education

The Department of First Nations Studies is excited to announce its newest tenure-track faculty member, Assistant Professor Joyce Schneider (Kicya7), who is passionate about mobilizing Indigenous pedagogies as an all-my-relations approach to reconciling education. Guided by her ancestral name, which means “Mother to All,” and the many contributions of Samahquamicw, Kicya7 (pronounced Kee-kee-yah) strives to work from within Ucwalmicw protocols and processes that facilitate respectful ways in which to deliver anticolonial curricula.

Prof. Schneider completed her Ph.D. at UBC's Faculty of Education in 2018. Her dissertation, The Warp and Weft of it all: Ucwalmicw Education Emerging out of the Aboriginal Education Tapestry, centers on the teachings shared with her by her Samahquamicw Nation, an hour east of Whistler, B.C.
Despite only recently completing her doctoral work, Kicya7 has significant experience teaching university-level classes from bridging programs such as SFU’s Aboriginal University Transition Program and Fraser International College to fourth-year classes within the disciplines of First Nations Studies and Education. Kicya7 has already begun mentoring a new generation of instructors through her work teaching core courses in First Nations Studies. 

Taking an Indigenist approach to her Ph.D. program required Kicya7 to learn to weave. Weaving became one of her main passions as it allows her to continue to connect with her ancestors in a very spiritual way. She is also passionate about learning her Ucwalmicts language to contribute to staving off its extinction and to further her becoming Samahquamicw. Each of these is vital to keeping her connected to her community, to that which is central to everything that she does and that is maintaining her Ucwalmicwness.  

One of Kicya7’s first goals is to write a holistically informed and accessible monograph on Indigenous teaching styles. She also looks forward to further developing the Tákem nsnek ̓ wnúk ̓ w7a, pedagogical approach to reconciling education through her ongoing engagement with her Samahquamicw Nation. Kicya7sees this as being directly aligned with her aspirations to contribute to SFU's growing capacity to realize certain Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples recommendations, the Association of Canadian Deans of Education’s Accord on Indigenous Education principles, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s and SFU’s Aboriginal Reconciliation Council’s Calls to Action. 

Kicya7 looks forward to contributing to the growth of First Nations Studies and anticipates developing a graduate Indigenist approach to a knowledge seeking, making and sharing course as part of the vision for a Master’s program in First Nations Studies.