UNews - Dr. Jan Newberry

Kaitlynn Weaver found her niche in Child & Youth Studies

caroline.zentner — Wed, 29 May 2019 21:53:55 +0000

When Kaitlynn Weaver (BA ’16) walks across the stage to receive her Master of Arts, she’ll do so knowing she took every opportunity available to learn and develop as a person and as a scholar.

“What has made my master’s experience so great are the people I’ve met here and elsewhere and the opportunities I’ve been given,” she says. “My supervisor, Dr. Kristine Alexander, and my committee (Drs. Caroline Hodes, Jan Newberry and Amy von Heyking) actively sought opportunities for me in places I wouldn’t even have thought to look. The level of investment they had in me, my experiences, my ability to network, to gain confidence in myself, my research and my public speaking skills has been so valuable. The last three years have been so formative for me in ways that I can’t even explain.”

Originally from Rocky Mountain House, Weaver followed in her older sister, Sarah’s, footsteps in continuing her education at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge. Right from the start, Weaver felt at home at the U of L.

“I was able to shadow Sarah as a university student over my spring break in high school,” says Weaver. “I sat in on a philosophy and a sociology class. I was excited and engaged and the philosophy professor asked me questions in class and had me participate like I was a university student. That was really impactful and being here has been awesome.”

When she first arrived in 2012, Weaver studied New Media. As part of the U of L’s liberal education requirements, she also took a class in sociology.

“I really liked it and I liked the way they were talking about people’s identities and power structures, and I wanted to pursue it further,” she says. “I decided to switch my major to sociology and do a minor in Women & Gender Studies, which was a huge part of my university experience.”

As she was nearing the completion of her bachelor’s, Dr. Carol Williams (Women & Gender Studies) asked her if she was considering graduate school and told her that Alexander, who’s also a Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Child and Youth Studies and director of the U of L’s Institute for Child and Youth Studies (I-CYS), was looking for graduate students.

Weaver knew she wanted to focus on youth during graduate school, as she had been a volunteer at the Boys & Girls Club of Lethbridge and District and had completed an independent study about youth unemployment with Dr. Muriel Mellow. She obtained a Canada Graduate Scholarship through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), which later led to receiving a Michael Smith Foreign Studies Supplement Award.

“When I started my master’s, I was a graduate assistant for a project called Elders of the Future, which was a 10-year project on Blackfoot child-rearing practices in southern Alberta,” says Weaver. “I was asked to run children and youth programming to create photos and artworks for an eventual exhibit at Casa.”

The project, a collaboration between the Opokaa’sin Early Intervention Society and I-CYS, celebrated the resiliency of local Blackfoot communities through their family and child-rearing practices. Weaver worked with children and youth at Opokaa’sin and helped organize events around the exhibit.

“I got to work with Blackfoot youth and children at Opokaa’sin and that’s not something I would have otherwise been able to do,” she says.

The foreign studies award allowed Weaver to spend three months studying at Rutgers ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Camden in New Jersey, the first American institution to have a childhood studies department. Supervised by Dr. Lauren Silver, Weaver lived in Philadelphia, just across the Delaware River from the university, from January to April, 2018. She attended Silver’s classes and met other faculty members in the department.

“I grew more as a person and as a professional in those three months than I ever have in my life,” she says. “I was completely taken out of my comfort zone and immersed in a different lifestyle. I presented in a class, got to talk to every professor in the department and gained lifelong friendships.”

For her thesis, Weaver spoke to Faculty of Education alums, asking them to focus on their childhood experiences and their experiences being adults. Her thesis, titled “Growing the Finest Teachers Possible”: Theorizing how Young Teachers Challenge, (Re)produce, and are Subject to Discourses of Childhood, Adolescence, and Adulthood, examined the expectations of new teachers and the reality they found in the classroom.

“These teachers focused a lot on their own experience as educators and expected a lot more freedom and autonomy in their classrooms to “shape” the children they’re working with,” Weaver says. “They found out that actually, just because they’re adults and just because they’re educators, doesn’t give them complete freedom. The expectations of adulthood and the realities didn’t really match up.”

Now setting off on her life as a professional, Weaver continues to be involved with youth. She recently began employment with Family and Community Support Services (Barons-Eureka-Warner) and the Boys & Girls Club of Lethbridge and District.

“It’s a partnership position funded by the Government of Canada. It’s a full-time position and I work in southern Alberta rural communities and get youth from Grades 9 to 12 involved in volunteering and civic engagement in some way.”

U of L grad student creates database of missing and murdered Indigenous women

caroline.zentner — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 17:14:39 +0000

As a survivor of domestic and sexual violence and with hundreds of new cases of missing Indigenous women every year, Annita Lucchesi, a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge doctoral student, started a database of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW).

“The domestic violence almost killed me and I almost became one of the women on this list,” she says. “If that had happened to me, I would want my story to have meaning; I would want it to be used in the struggle to make sure that other women and girls don’t experience that, too.”

Started three years ago, Lucchesi continually adds more names and information. The database contains almost 3,000 entries of MMIW, including their names, where they lived, if they were a mother, if other women in their family went missing or were murdered, if they experienced domestic violence and any other pertinent details.

“The idea is to have a comprehensive resource for not just researchers like me, but also for policy makers and service providers who are doing the on-the-ground work to address the issue,” she says. “In Canada and the United States, but particularly in Canada, the issue of missing and murdered native women is something that gets talked about quite a bit but there’s no reliable data or analytics for it. That’s the gap that I’m trying to fill.

So far, Lucchesi says the database does a better job of showing the holes in the data rather than providing any new conclusions. Sometimes information about missing women contained in federal or national databases isn’t shared with local forces that have jurisdiction over missing persons cases.

“In terms of a unifying trend, if anything, the database shows the diversity of cases,” says Lucchesi. “There’s no one path that puts somebody at risk or one intervention to make because these thousands of women have very different stories.”

Lucchesi learns about MMIW cases from news articles, missing persons databases, social media accounts, archival sources and family members. She also requests records from law enforcement offices.

“That’s been a really challenging and also illuminating process of seeing just how poor the records are to begin with and the kind of negligence, racism and sexism that existed in police departments,” she says.

Lucchesi hopes that making state and provincial leaders aware of the scope of the problem will eventually lead to changes.

“I don’t think I’d be doing this work if I thought nothing would ever change,” she says. “But I also understand it’s going to take a long time and the likelihood of any immense change in rates of violence anytime soon is not high. People have asked me when I’m going to be done and I say ‘When native women stop getting murdered.’”

Lucchesi is working on a doctorate in Cultural, Social and Political Thought under the supervision of Dr. Jan Newberry. Coursework completed, Lucchesi is now planning to do fieldwork in native communities, on and off reserve, in Canada and the U.S. She plans to host workshops where people will create community maps to tell stories about MMIW and how they are affected.

“The idea for the final product is to have a beautiful atlas of thematic maps created by community members telling their perspective on the issue,” she says. “This work is important because women are dying. It shouldn’t be that way and I hope it’s healing not just for native communities but all of our communities as they grapple with this in a substantive way and create something healthier and safer.”

Additional information about Lucchesi and her work can be found on UNews.

Making a difference one name at a time

caroline.zentner — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 16:28:52 +0000

When Annita Lucchesi describes herself, she will tell you her Indian name is Hetoevėhotohke’e, which means Evening Star Woman, and that she is a Heévȧhetané'e, a Southern Cheyenne woman. She’s a direct descendant of the people who come from the place where the Ho'honáéva (Rocky Mountains) meet the tóhtoo'éšé'e (prairie). Her life has been marked by abuse, but she is a survivor and is proud to be a mé’êśko’áe, a hellraiser girl —one who is always stirring things up.

Having a firm grasp on who she is and her roots has not only formed a foundation for Lucchesi personally, but has been invaluable in directing her research as a PhD student in the Cultural, Social, and Political Thought program at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge.

After earning a Bachelor of Arts in geography from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of California-Berkeley, Lucchesi graduated from Washington State ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in 2016 with a Master of Arts in American Studies. Several years ago, while working as an activist and advocate, Lucchesi found herself frustrated with the lack of comprehensive information regarding missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW).

While there were many lists and sources, there was no central database that was routinely updated and shared with the general public. Those that did exist often were formed on narrow, exclusive criteria with missing gaps. As a response, Lucchesi herself began to log the names of MMIW in Canada and the United States, from 1900 to the present, gathering information from news articles, online databases, family members, social media, federal and state missing persons databases, law enforcement records and lists compiled by Indigenous advocates and community members.

As the lines of names multiplied, it grew to be a spiritual process for Lucchesi and her research became a form of ceremony.

“I came to understand myself not just as a data collector, but as a caretaker for the data and the spirits,” she says. “Maintaining the database is a process of prayer in the sense that there’s so much unhealed trauma and so much unhealed grief around these pieces; if we’re able to document and honour them and help their stories and the violence they experienced have meaning, then we may be able to resolve some of that grief and trauma.”

Lucchesi's work has garnered significant attention internationally as it has been covered by NPR in the United States, The Daily Mail in the United Kingdom and on The Stream through Al Jazeera.

For Lucchesi, the work is deeply personal. Many of the names, including those of family, friends and former students, are familiar. What’s more, as a survivor of domestic and sexual abuse, she recognizes how easily she could have been one of the almost 3,000 names recorded.

“I came to this work as a woman who almost became a victim on lists of missing and murdered native women myself,” Lucchesi writes in her thesis proposal. “If any of the men who almost killed me had succeeded, I would want to be honoured and remembered. I would want my story and the violence that I experienced to have meaning. I would want to be part of the fight for future generations of native girls to not have to go through such violence.”

Now taking her work further, Lucchesi is using the continually evolving database as a springboard for a PhD thesis — a project in which she hopes to take the information and transform it for even greater healing.

Lucchesi plans to gather stories and create an atlas of maps recognizing, honouring and addressing the geographies in which Indigenous women live and die. And while she will be a contributor as a cartographer, the intent is to create a wide collection of maps by bringing others into the process.

“Individually, each map tells its own story, but collectively they also tell a much bigger story,” she says.

Waiting first for an invitation, Lucchesi will work with local anti-violence organizations in various tribal communities in Canada and the U.S. — both on reservations and in urban areas — to host voluntary workshops. Participants will be given opportunities to share their stories, and ultimately be involved in mapping.

“People think maps are super technical, difficult to do and that you need all sorts of training, but that’s really not the case,” says Lucchesi. “When people think of Indigenous mapping they think of something pre-contact, super traditional. Certainly, it can be those things, but I’m giving people glitter glue. Mapping doesn’t have to be super fancy or historical; as long as it represents our cultures and experiences, it’s Indigenous mapping.”

Her work aligns with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's description of research creation as "an approach to research that combines creative and academic research practices, and supports the development of knowledge and innovation through artistic expression, scholarly investigation and experimentation."

As Lucchesi explains, we encounter maps every day in everything from directions on our iPhones to news articles. They are regarded as scientific and authoritative and held with respect. But mapping also provides the opportunity to create a platform where community members can tell their experiences and interpretations of what violence looks like in their community.

Lucchesi points to current examples such as a map that analyzes the life paths of individual victims in Montreal and Thunder Bay, and the changes in geography that put them at risk, or a series of maps of the night sky from varying locations, with constellations representing stories from the people indigenous to that area and the murder victims represented as stars. The possibilities are endless.In this way, mapping is highly adaptable and can build bridges that humanize narratives while staying true to statistics and numbers.

“It is designed to empower Indigenous people to tell their stories in ways that are meaningful to them and to collectively use this storytelling to organize against continued violence,” she says.

In cartography, a field dominated by white men, Lucchesi is an outlier (there were a record-breaking two Indigenous cartographers at the International Cartographic Association conference last year and Lucchesi was one of them), so the mentorship she’s received from Dr. Jan Newberry, her PhD supervisor at uLethbridge, has been immeasurable.

“Jan’s been a wonderful advocate for me,” says Lucchesi. “All of my experiences with geography have been with male faculty and male mentors, so having a woman mentor with a background in geography, mapping and space has been a really good fit. She’s been amazing.”

In that same spirit, Lucchesi is supporting other young, native women, helping them find their own roots and the personal definitions that will steer the course of their lives. As Lucchesi explains, knowing her research presents the capacity for change motivates her, even in the face of trauma and obstacles.

“I love, love, love seeing youth getting involved. For example, I’ve been able to Skype with a girls’ basketball team in Montana that is working on raising awareness of this issue by doing a community project and petitioning their tribe for change. It’s just amazing to see these girls who don’t have to do that, but choose to. To be able to talk and support them in what they’re doing is really exciting; it makes me feel like I’m doing something useful,” says Lucchesi. “Cheyenne women are known for being resilient, beautiful and immensely strong and brave. It is my aim to continue that legacy.”

Social Justice Symposium to touch on democracy, art, environment and more

caroline.zentner — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 16:29:18 +0000

The School of Liberal Education at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge is hosting a Social Justice Symposium to bring together interested students, faculty, staff and community members for an afternoon of talks devoted to various aspects of social justice.

The symposium begins at noon on Friday, Sept. 22 in the Markin Hall Atrium with a keynote talk by Dr. Bryan Kolb, a U of L neuroscientist, titled Brain Development: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. His hour-long talk is followed by three blocks of 10-minute talks by U of L faculty members.

The first block starts at 1:20 p.m. and includes Dr. Harold Jansen (Political Science)—Education for Democracy; Paula Cardozo (Library)—Libraries for Social Justice;Dr. Josephine Mills (Fine Arts/Art Gallery)—Art and Activism.

The second block begins at 2:20 p.m. with Don McIntyre (Management)—The TRC; Dr. Jan Newberry (Anthropology)—Raising Spirit; and Dr. Tom Johnston (Geography)—Two Geographical Perspectives on Justice.

The third and final block begins at 3:20 p.m. with Dr. Anne Dymond (Fine Arts)—U of L’s Refugee Work; Dr. Maura Hanrahan (Native American Studies)—FNMI Issues in the Academy; and Dr. Cheryl Currie (Health Sciences)—Understanding the Social in Epidemiology.

The symposium provides plenty of time for discussion to spark a community-wide conversation. In addition, a booth fair will feature representatives from various campus and community groups interested in social justice.

Please RSVP at http://teachingcentre.anyvite.com/vvegbzngm8.

Raising Spirit project receives Canada 150 grant

caroline.zentner — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 17:08:07 +0000

The Raising Spirit project by the Opokaa’sin Early Intervention Society, and supported by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Institute for Child and Youth Studies (I-CYS), has received a Canada 150 grant worth $10,000 that will allow it to undertake a series of workshops that will culminate in a public exhibit at Casa in September.

“The purpose of the exhibit is to showcase the creative work of southern Alberta Blackfoot children and youth,” says Dr. Erin Spring, a post-doctoral fellow with the I-CYS and Raising Spirit project manager. “They’re not only going to be creating the exhibit in terms of doing the art, they’re also going to be curating the exhibit. It’s going to feature their voices, their stories, their creative capacities.”

From left to right are Kaitlynn Weaver, Tesla Heavy Runner, Dr. Jan Newberry, Amy Mack, Taylor Little Mustache, Dr. Erin Spring and Hudson Eagle Bear.

The Canada 150 Grant, awarded by the Community Foundation of Lethbridge and Southwestern Alberta, is designed to encourage participation in Canada 150 activities and to inspire a deeper understanding of the people and places that shape the country. Raising Spirit is a project to help ensure Blackfoot history, language and values endure and help build future generations. The Canada 150 funding will be directed toward a series of art workshops for Blackfoot children and youth.

“It’s kind of a sub-project within Raising Spirit called Elders of the Future,” says Kaitlynn Weaver, a master’s student working with Dr. Kristine Alexander, a history professor and one of the principal investigators on the Raising Spirit project.

For older youth, Weaver organized a zine workshop that focused on art as a form of activism and resistance. Three- to six-year olds participated in a storytelling and art workshop. A collage-making workshop for older youth is scheduled for March and others will be held at Opokaa’sin, the U of L and Casa. As part of the curating exercise, youth will learn how to mat and frame a photo and how to create an exhibit.

“Our exhibit will mark the anniversary of Confederation by celebrating the resilience of Indigenous families and communities. It speaks to colonialism but also is a way of looking forward and talking about reconciliation, resurgence and resilience to show that their community is strong, that their culture is strong and that their people are strong,” says Spring.

During the exhibit, the digital library created from the Raising Spirit project will be launched to the public, along with a mobile application for the library. In addition to the materials generated from the Elders of the Future workshops, the library will contain photos from principal investigator Dr. Jan Newberry’s photo elicitation project and people’s responses to them, and storytelling sessions with elders and youth at Opokaa’sin.

Raising Spirit has been supported by funds from the Urban Aboriginal Knowledge Network, PolicyWise for Children and Families and the U of L Office of Research Services. Funding from the Summer Temporary Employment Program enabled the hiring of two Blackfoot high school students, Tesla Heavy Runner and Hudson Eagle Bear, as ethnographers and curators.

Along with Newberry and Alexander, Tanya Pace-Crosschild (BSc ’98), executive director at Opokaa’sin and member of the U of L Board of Governors, has served as a community principal investigator. She is joined by Francis First Charger, project elder, and Dr. Michelle Hogue, research consultant and U of L professor in the First Nations Transition Program. Others who have been involved in the project include Ashley Henrickson, a master’s student; Taylor Little Mustache, an undergraduate student; and Amy Mack, lead researcher.

Dr. Shelly Wismath receives prestigious 3M National Teaching Fellowship

caroline.zentner — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 22:46:23 +0000

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge professor Dr. Shelly Wismath can count herself among the best university teachers in Canada. She is one of 10 university teachers to receive the 3M National Teaching Fellowship, an award that recognizes exceptional teachers in post-secondary education.

Dr. Jan Newberry, Wismath’s nominator and U of L anthropology professor, describes her as a “teaching ninja” who possesses a subtle and diplomatic style.

“Shelly has served as mentor and inspiration to me and to many other colleagues and students,” Newberry wrote in her letter of nomination. “She represents the best of what teaching can be as a career, a vocation and a model for life and learning.”

Wismath spent many years as a mathematics professor and researcher in abstract algebra. In 2009, she moved to the Liberal Education program and began focusing her research on the scholarship of teaching and learning. She played a key leadership role in building and sustaining the U of L Teaching Centre and became the inaugural Board of Governors Teaching Chair in 2007. Wismath is currently spearheading the revitalization of Liberal Education. In addition, Wismath initiated and secured funding for the long-standing Women Scholars Speaker Series.

“My reaction was stunned silence on the phone. I couldn’t believe it,” says Wismath. “It’s a huge honour to be in that group. I love teaching; it’s always been a part of what I do. It’s amazing to have that kind of recognition.”

Wismath’s philosophy of teaching arises from her experience in both mathematics and liberal education. She combines the logical reasoning and search for pattern that characterizes mathematics and the critical thinking and problem solving that mark liberal education into a philosophy that hones in on how people think, learn and reason.

“My goal is to share with my students the interactive process of asking questions and formulating and testing out answers, and engaging in vibrant discussion to learn more about ourselves and the world around us,” she says.

Wismath works hard to build relationships with her students so they feel comfortable in the learning environment and the approach works. One student wrote “I recall the many thought-provoking articles she assigned with the hopes that we, as students, would question the content of. She did not want us to merely read and accept blindly what the authors had argued, but to come to our own conclusions and situate the information within our own understandings of the world.”

“The great thing about teaching is that we learn as much from our students as they learn from us and that’s been really true for me in the last few years with a problem-solving course I designed,” she says. “That course has been the capstone of my teaching career. I’ve learned that you don’t teach people problem solving. You facilitate their learning. It was a steep learning curve for me but the students were just tremendous. They taught me a lot and were very generous with their reflections, their attention and their thoughtfulness about their learning.”

Wismath also credits the U of L for providing her with the flexibility to continue her education and to pursue topics she’s passionate about.

“The U of L has been a great place to nurture teaching as well as research,” she says. “I’ve been very lucky to have had the flexibility that I’ve had to spend time on teaching instead of research at certain points in my career or to combine them or to take on projects.”

The 3M National Teaching Fellowship brings several opportunities. In addition to becoming a life member of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and the Council of 3M Teaching Fellows, Wismath will be invited to attend the annual conference in Halifax and a teaching and learning retreat. This is the second time a U of L professor has been awarded a 3M National Teaching Fellowship. Dr. Patricia Chuchryk, a sociology professor, received the award in 1999.

UNews - Dr. Jan Newberry

Kaitlynn Weaver found her niche in Child & Youth Studies

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