Aboriginal issues to be addressed at coming lecture

Posted by admin on Jan 19, 2010 in News | 0 comments

Angela Voght, an Aboriginal Trinity Western Alumni who holds a master’s degree in counselling psychology will speak on campus on Jan. 28. Voght’s lecture is titled Stories of Skill & Knowledge: Narrative Therapy in a First Nations Community, and will be happening between 1:10-2:00 p.m. in Fraser Lounge. The lecture is open to everyone.

With her experience in narrative therapy among different indigenous people groups, Voght is eager to come back to her former school and share her knowledge.

According to Jennifer Doede, professor of English at TWU, the whole idea for having this event started last year when a number of Trinity Western staff, including two Aboriginal grad students, got together to form the Indigenous People’s Task Force. Doede stated that the purpose of forming this task force was to “build mutually beneficial relationships between First Nation’s communities and the University…with the hopes of it being profoundly dialogical.” As a whole, she said, “we [the task force] are all coming at it from different angles but with an interest in aboriginal people.”

Speaking on her goals surrounding the event, Doede modestly elaborated, stating her goal as “[bringing] awareness to Trinity Western of First Nations concerns and issues.”

When asked about the choice in topic for the upcoming talk and her passion for being apart of the Indigenous People’s Task Force, Doede stated, “I am an English professor, thus I am very interested in narrative, and through narrative I believe we can start understanding, indentifying, and empathizing with others when we hear someone else’s story.” It is her belief that “story has a way of changing our perspective on how we understand ourselves and how we understand others.” Doede’s hope, and the rest of the task force, is really just the beginning of building a strong and lasting relationship with the Aboriginal communities.