Stephanie Inglis is a linguist who has been a professor at Cape Breton University since 1986. She was integral in creating the first Native Studies courses in the university and has had a hand in the successful integration of Indigenous knowledge into curricula for the last three decades. She is the director of the Mi’kmaw Language Lab, responsible for engaging the local Mi’kmaq communities with a variety of ongoing projects
In her lecture, Inglis explained that when she started working at Cape Breton University in the late 1980s, there were only one or two university-level courses across Canada that focused on Indigenous Peoples. At Cape Breton University, there were none. Throughout her lecture, she discussed her experiences creating a Native Studies program at Cape Breton University, including her struggle against the idea that it was not a valid topic for academic settings. By 2012, Inglis’ work had contributed to the establishment of a full degree program in Mi’kmaq studies and a growing number of Indigenous students, from a handful to more than 10% of the undergraduate student body. Inglis described the processes that were employed by Cape Breton University to ensure this success and described the strategies Queen’s could employ to continue their Indigenization. Her talk was of particular note because it came just a few weeks after the first Indigenous language courses – Mohawk and Inuktitut – commenced at Queen’s.
Inglis’ lecture was jointly funded with the Brockington Visitorship at Queen’s.