Doctoral student Jennifer Ward remembered for enduring influence and inspiration

By Chelsea Novak

Tommy Mayberry remembers their colleague Jennifer Ward once saying she was born to break down the system.

“We had many conversations around this idea of not choosing to become an activist or an ally or an accomplice in this work, but having it be the only way you know how to do this work,” says the executive director of the University of Alberta’s Centre for Teaching and Learning.

That work — Indigenizing and decolonizing the academy and post-secondary education — is something Ward, an Umpqua woman, excelled at in her role as an educational developer for CTL and as a doctoral student in the Faculty of Native Studies.

Sadly, Ward passed away on March 16, 2022. To honour her contributions to the academy and Indigenous studies research, she will be awarded a posthumous PhD at the convocation ceremony for FNS on Thursday, June 16, at 3 p.m.

But Ward is remembered at the U of A for more than her work at the CTL and her doctoral research. She was also an instructor, a friend and a sister.

“Jen put a lot of time into supporting other people … and that caused a lot of really amazing stuff to happen around campus,” says Adam Gaudry, Ward’s thesis supervisor and FNS vice-dean.

He first met Ward in 2017 through CTL. She supported Gaudry in creating a blended online and in-class format for the faculty’s Indigenous Governance and Partnership Program.

“[She] built a lot of important relationships and brought people into a different way of thinking about Indigenization, how Indigenous content is taught, how Indigenous knowledges are engaged, and what kind of responsibilities were at the university in engaging Indigenous communities respectfully,” he says.

Those relationships and responsibilities extended to learners outside the traditional university framework. As a member of the Unruly Women’s Group, Ward collaborated to create the U of A’s Walls to Bridges program, where incarcerated students and on-campus students learn alongside one another while taking a university course. The program’s mandate is to make post-secondary education accessible to all, but especially incarcerated women who are Indigenous.

Ward started her PhD in September 2018, pursuing educational development as a field of study — one Gaudry says she was already an expert in. In fact, according to Mayberry, she was one of the first educational developers to pursue the Indigenization and decolonization of post-secondary education.

“Jen was our first educational developer and then our first lead educational developer for our Indigenizing portfolio in the Centre for Teaching and Learning,” Mayberry says. “In that role, she also was one of the very first in this kind of role across Canada in teaching centres as well.”

Mayberry adds that teaching centres across the country have looked to Ward’s work when creating similar roles at their institutions.

“She was such a trailblazer and someone who was an incredible model of how to do this work and what it could look like.”

As part of her role at CTL, Ward also joined the Indigenous Health Course working group. The group worked to implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s call for medical and nursing schools to introduce a mandatory course dealing with Indigenous health issues. Through the group, Ward met Dr. Cindy Gaudet, who would become her friend and collaborator.

In 2018, Ward, Gaudet and Dr. Tricia McGuire-Adams started a project called “The Privilege of Not Walking Away.” It brought together Indigenous women scholars to discuss what reconciliation meant to them, how they were navigating it and what demands come with reconciliation.

Gaudet and McGuire-Adams write, in a joint statement, that “The Privilege of Not Walking Away” continues to inform their work. Another paper Ward co-authored with them, “The Emotional Labour of Reconciliation and Indigenization,” is still forthcoming. A poem Ward wrote for the piece, “Nîci-iskwêwak (my fellow sisters),” was shared at her celebration of life.

“Jennifer cared deeply about amplifying Indigenous voices and brought an unshakeable commitment to centring Indigenous folks’ strength, beauty, and power. Her work with the Centre for Teaching and Learning shows this commitment, particularly the Territorial Acknowledgments: Going Beyond the Script video she created. Her drive to integrate Indigenous knowledge systems within curriculums, research, and community-engaged pedagogy will forever inform our ongoing research program,” they write.

But their loss goes far beyond the academic.

“She is part of us. We are part of her. We love and miss her deeply,” Gaudet and McGuire-Adams add, signing off as “her sister scholars.”