b'LEADERSHIP SPOTLIGHTThat realization sparked a shift in DeGagns vision for educational leadership: what if the university could go to the student, instead of the other way around? Why is it that we still expect people to leave their communities, travel far, and be dislo-cated from their cultural supports just to attend university? he asks. What Michigan State showed me is that you can bring the university to the community. Its still rigorous, From left: Kate Espina, Indspires VP of Development; Mallory Rose, VP of Communications and Marketing;still builds capacity and skills, just Brandon Meawasige, COO; Mike DeGagn, CEO (outgoing); Dr. Nima Dehghansai, VP of Research and Impact delivered differently.encountered at home was striking.would you like to have in a centreThose lessons about access, flex-Of the 4,000 students enrolled atlike this?ibility, and community-defined the time, he recalls, there weresuccess would go on to inform probably no more than two or threeThat awareness of the gap betweenevery organization DeGagn has Indigenous students on the wholeintention and impact directlyled. From the healing lodges of the campus. There was no Indigenousshaped DeGagns later leadershipAboriginal Healing Foundation to focus or community presence. Weapproach. Whether at the AboriginalIndspires nationwide network of werent there yet, he says. WeHealing Foundation or Indspire,student supports, his philosophy has were just trying to find our way intohe has worked to ensure thatremained consistent: education, like the institution. structures of support are built withleadership, must meet people where communities, not just for them.they are, and grow from there.Decades later, when he returned toWe went from a time when we had that same campus as a professor,few resources, he says, to a timeHEALING AS EDUCATIONDeGagn saw just how much hadwhen we had them but werentDeGagns vision for education as changed, and how much of thatsure what to do with them, to now:a tool of collective healing found its change was born from the ques- matching the tools with the needs offullest expression during his 17 years tions he began asking as a doctoralIndigenous students. And thats whyas Executive Director of the Aboriginal student in the 1990s. His PhD workwere seeing things take off.Healing Foundation, a national focused not on why Indigenousorganization created to address the students were failing, but why theyStill, progress remains uneven. Weintergenerational impacts of residen-were succeeding. There was lotsrepresent maybe 1.5 per cent oftial schools. of literature on why we werentPhDs and professors, DeGagn successful, DeGagn says, but verynotes. And considering IndigenousWe funded 1,500 community little on why we succeeded. people make up roughly six to sevenprojects from one end of Canada per cent of the country, we have ato the other, he recalls. If you What he found was that connectionlong way to go. look at 15 years of evaluations, to culture, one another, and placeyou can see what communities was key. Many of the students heIt was during his doctoral studiesthought would help them heal. A interviewed pointed to Indigenousat Michigan State University thatlot was land-based: going back on Student Centres as vital sources ofDeGagns ideas about education,the land and reconnecting with belonging and support. In the earlyand its role in reconciliation, beganculture. Culture is healing became a 90s, it wasnt common for everyto fully crystallize. The program,fundamental model.university to have an Indigenousdelivered in Toronto through flexible, Student Centre, DeGagn reflects.blended learning formats, challengedThrough extensive consultations A couple of progressive ones did,his assumptions about what higherwith survivors, the Foundation also but by the late 90s it became theeducation could be. It taught mediscovered that language, something thing to do. Everybody had one. that we have this rigid sense of whatinitially outside its program mandate, a university isset up hundredsemerged as a central pillar of healing. Yet even then, institutions were stillof years agoand holding firm toEven though our programs werent learning how to listen. We built thethose formats hasnt served lifelongsupposed to be language programs, in centres first, he admits. We didntlearners, or Indigenous people,a three-year consultation with survi-spend as much time asking, Whatparticularly well, he says. vors, the number one thing they said 18indspiration2025'