After the University? Braiding a Path Forward

Around the world, universities are in crisis. Some argue that we’re witnessing the slow collapse of the system as we’ve known it—whether due to political interference, marketization, austerity, or AI’s redefinition of what it means to teach and learn (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004; Noble, 2018).

As an L’nu (Mi’kmaw) woman and an educator, I feel this crisis deeply. But for many Indigenous Peoples, this isn’t the first time we’ve faced a collapsing system. Universities were never built for us in the first place (Smith, 2021). And yet—we are still here. Still teaching. Still learning. Still imagining.

In the research project I’m leading—Braiding a Path Forward: My Journey of Reclamation as a L’nu Woman in Education—I explore my own journey of reclamation as an Indigenous woman in education and insight about possibilities of how we can—and indeed need to—do education better. So as we look forward, what does come after colonial education systems as we have known them? The short version? It’s not just about saving higher education. It’s about transforming it.

From Crisis to Reclamation

When people talk about the crisis in higher ed, they often point to things like the decline of tenure, the corporatization of learning, or the collapse of the liberal arts. But these are just symptoms of a deeper problem: a system that propagates the status quo, breeds competition, and is disconnected from land, from community, from story, and from relationships with each other and planet (Coulthard, 2014; Simpson, 2014).

In Mi’kma’ki (specifically the colonial province that is now known as Newfoundland and Labrador), where I live and work, Mi’kmaw communities have long fought for recognition, land rights, and educational sovereignty. Universities were never designed with us in mind. But still, like so many Indigenous peoples, we’re advocating to embed our language, ceremonies, and stories into institutions that once tried to erase us.

What would it mean to take seriously these acts of reclamation? To see Indigenous education not as an “add-on” to a broken university system, but as a viable way forward (Battiste, 2013)?

Three Braided Strands

In Braiding a Path Forward, I offer three interwoven pathways for reimagining education. I call them Head, Heart, and Hands.

1. Head: Rethinking Knowledge and Curriculum

Universities still cling tightly to Eurocentric models of knowledge. We talk about “interdisciplinarity,” but too often exclude land-based, oral, or relational knowledges (Wilson, 2008; Kovach, 2021). What if we treated Indigenous knowledge systems not as supplementary, but as foundational?

What does it mean to teach law through oral history? To learn governance through consensus-building? To understand science through the cycles of the seasons? These aren’t abstract ideas—they’re real pedagogies that have existed since time immemorial, and they could revitalize higher education as a whole (Simpson, 2014; Battiste, 2013).

2. Heart: Healing Relationships

Universities are often sites of harm—especially for Indigenous, racialized, and first-generation students. If we don’t take this seriously, no amount of curriculum reform will matter.

Healing must become central. That means trauma-informed practices, spaces for storytelling, sharing and celebrating our languages and cultures, and a culture of wellness—emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual (Brayboy, 2005; Tuck, 2009). Education isn’t just a mental exercise. It’s about connection: to self, to others, to land, and all creation.

Universities love to talk about “community,” but rarely ask: who defines it? What would it mean to center kinship, care, and responsibility, not just competition, productivity, and prestige?

3. Hands: Reimagining Governance and Practice

Even the most progressive classrooms can’t undo the harm of institutions still governed by corporate and colonial logic. Too many universities are run like businesses—top-down, metrics-obsessed, extractive (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004).

Real transformation means rethinking governance itself. That includes shared leadership, community consultation, ceremony as practice, and Indigenous self-determination (Alfred, 2005; Smith, 2021).

This is not about tokenizing Indigenous people on committees or hiring one “Indigenization lead.” It’s about remaking how decisions get made and by whom.

Not Just for Indigenous Peoples

Some might say this vision is too idealistic. After all, universities are facing financial collapse, political backlash, and culture wars.

But Indigenous Peoples have survived far worse. Our ancestors kept our languages, ceremonies, and teachings alive through genocide and assimilation. That spirit of survivance—not just surviving, but thriving—is what sustains us (Vizenor, 2008).

And here’s the thing: this isn’t just about Indigenous Peoples. The crisis in higher education affects everyone. Students are burned out. Faculty are struggling and feeling uncertain. Communities are disillusioned. What we need isn’t just reform—we need transformative change.

If we braid together head, heart, and hands, we can reimagine universities that are less about extraction and more about relationships. Less about production, more about presence. Places where we can heal, grow, and learn together—on and in good relationship with the land.

After the University?

So, what comes after the university?

Maybe we let go of the fantasy that universities can “go back” to some golden age of public trust and prestige. Instead, we turn toward a different vision—one rooted in land, story, and relationship.

The crisis we face may be an ending … But it could also be the start of a beautiful new beginning.

And beginnings—if you know anything about our stories—are sacred.

References

Alfred, T. (2005). Wasáse: Indigenous pathways of action and freedom. University of Toronto Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt2tv496

Battiste, M. (2013). Decolonizing education: Nourishing the learning spirit. Purich Publishing.

Brayboy, B. M. J. (2005). Toward a tribal critical race theory in education. The Urban Review, 37(5), 425–446. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-005-0018-y

Coulthard, G. S. (2014). Red skin, white masks: Rejecting the colonial politics of recognition. University of Minnesota Press.

Kovach, M. (2021). Indigenous methodologies: Characteristics, conversations, and contexts (2nd ed.). University of Toronto Press.

Noble, D. F. (2018). Digital diploma mills: The automation of higher education. Monthly Review Press.

Simpson, L. B. (2014). Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 3(3), 1–25.

Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Smith, L. T. (2021). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples (3rd ed.). Zed Books.

Tuck, E. (2009). Suspending damage: A letter to communities. Harvard Educational Review, 79(3), 409–428. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.79.3.n0016675661t3n15

Vizenor, G. (2008). Survivance: Narratives of Native presence. University of Nebraska Press.

Wilson, S. (2008). Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Fernwood Publishing.

Bio

Sherra is a Mi’kmaw woman of mixed ancestry from the Mekap’sk (Northern Peninsula) Band and a member of the Newfoundland Indigenous Peoples Alliance. She is an assistant professor of L’nu education in the School of Education and Health at Cape Breton University, with over 20 years of experience in education.

Her background includes teaching English, drama, and technology, and serving as a program implementation specialist for Indigenous education with the Department of Education (K–12 Branch) in Newfoundland and Labrador. Sherra is a dedicated advocate for Indigenous education, student voice and agency, storytelling, relationality, and culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy.

She is currently leading a Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council-funded research project, Braiding a Path Forward: My Journey of Reclamation as an L’nu Woman in Education, which explores personal and collective pathways of reclamation, identity, and Indigenous knowledge within educational contexts.