In an effort to emphasize and embrace indigenous ways of living and knowing, the University of Calgary has partnered with architecture firm WalterFedy for five years of scholarshps.
The Canadian architecture firm has pledged $50,000 total, to be awarded to two students each year in the Bachelor of Design in City innovations program.
Indigenous students entering their second, third or fourth year of the program can apply for the award. Recipients will be announced in the fall.
The Dean of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, John Brown, said that the grant will help break barriers in the workforce.
“We have a very low percentage of professionals (in architecture) who are indigenous across the country, and we have a number of Indigenous students who are interested in these city building professions, but the economic barriers are significant,” he said.
Awarded students will each receive $5,000 annually, with the year-over-year commitment helping students focus on academics instead of finances said Brown.
The Indigenous Pathways program has been an important part of the school’s equity program, he said, with an enormous need for Indigenous culture and voice as a part of the creation of natural environments.
Brown called the scholarship a visionary gift from the firm, “to promote the future of the architectural profession across Canada.”
Building in parallel: UCalgary explores Indigenous and colonial approaches to design
Mike Brady, Vice President of Operations, Western Canada, WalterFedy, said in an article released by the University of Calgary on the scholarship, that the award was the firm’s commitment to empowering the next generation of leaders who will bring invaluable insights and perspectives to the design of our urban landscapes.
“Together, we can foster a more inclusive and vibrant future for all,” Brady told the University of Calgary.
Brown said that the Indigenous Pathways effort will help foster Indigenous ways of making and European ways of making simultaneously.
“There are indigenous ways of thinking, of knowing the world and of making, (and) there are colonial, European ways of thinking and knowing and making. At the University of Calgary, our our indigenous strategy talks about those two ways moving together, side by side in parallel but separate paths,” he said.
“It’s important that as the dominant European culture, that we empower the voices of indigenous practitioners to be able to bring that perspective into the built environment.”
Looking back, indigenous peoples lived on the land of southern Alberta for millennia, stewarding the natural environment and building structures that were sustainable and didn’t have any impact, Brown said.
“European culture has created a context now with climate change and food insecurity and all of these things, and so there is a holistic understanding of a world, of a worldview that I think is very valuable to bring to the table as part of the conversation around how we create a world that is more sustainable and that resists climate action because, we’re in a in a pretty bad way.”
