Joanne Brown

Joanne Brown is the co-ordinator of services for Aboriginal students at Thompson Rivers University. She’s been working in and around post-secondary institutions for the last 20 years including working at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George. She’s from around Burns Lake and is Carrier from the Frog Clan.

Her goal in her work is simple.

“What I work at is to build capacity in the aboriginal community,” she said. She wants to educate First Nations people to become doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs or whatever career they want in life.

“Everything that we need and we need so much,” she said sitting in her office.

The room is filled with boxes, evidence of the department’s upcoming move into the newly built House of Learning. On her wall is a bright green stuffed frog who sits beside photos and keepsakes. In the reception area of the Aboriginal Student Services office is a drum. It’s was bought as part of the university’s permanent collection of art.

Having pieces of art like that drum is part of what Brown has been doing for the last two years. She’s been indigenizing the institution with some funding from the provincial government. In that work, she’s been trying to raise the awareness about the First Nations perspective through art and changes in curriculum and education.

“It’s time to take our place with everyone else,” she said. “We’ve been ignored for so long.”

Even the land that the campus sits on, she considers differently. It’s about territory and not just a series of highways connecting places.

“Every inch of North America is somebody’s territory,” said Brown.

She doesn’t have a huge amount of one to one contact in her role now, but in the past she was the sole Aboriginal educational support in the school and had contact with students in all their aspects of life from personal to academic. 

That engagement in the students’ lives is part of the university’s commitment to First Nations Students. When the school promotes itself as the aboriginal institution of choice, you have to take responsibly if they falter, she said. 

“You take responsibility for them when you welcome them into the community of TRU.”

That support also comes in the form of more resources.

“There was a huge need for support,” she said, but even though the support has improved, she’d like still more. She’d like more tutors and an onsite wellness centre. 

For her, First Nations students need that extra support because they matter.

 “We have been looked down upon. We have been discriminated against,” she said.

“We’re still trying to mend ourselves because we matter”

She still sees discrimination playing out in the campus. First Nations student still come into her office crying because of how they’ve been treated. But in her time at the university, she’s seen things change for the better and she’s helped it change though that was not her initial intent. It’s been a byproduct of trying to help people understand the aboriginal perspective.

“Aboriginal education is a two way street,” she said.