Intergenerational Indigenous Resilience and Navigating Academic Administration

Abstract

The author has been asked a number of times about how she arrived at the role of an academic administrative leader in postsecondary education. Queries and interviews on questions such as these have provided her with an opportunity to reflect on her path into academic administration and to think more deeply about her own values and understandings about academic leadership. This chapter provides critical reflections of her experiences, understandings, and knowings from an Indigenous women's leadership lens and provides a perspective on navigating academic administration in the postsecondary environment. She intentionally weaves personal narratives as well as relevant literature to discuss the challenges and successes of navigating academic administration as an Indigenous woman. She does this because of the nature of this book and also because women in academia continue to be oppressed. Importantly, she situates the importance of staying true to core values and her own Indigeneity drawing on her own intergenerational resilience.