Indigenous Storyteller-in-Residence receives Robbins-Ollivier Award
October 23, 2025
One year after the beginning of its inaugural term, the 樱花影视’s Indigenous Storyteller-in-Residence program (ISIR) has received the prestigious Robbins-Ollivier Award for Excellence in Equity. Awarded through the federal Canada Research Chairs Program, the $100,000 award funds bold institutional-level initiatives that will challenge the status quo to address persistent systemic barriers in academia. The UVic Humanities project integrates Indigenous storytelling and ways of knowing into classrooms and research across the university.
Dismantling barriers in the classroom
In 2024, the program’s first year, award-winning Tłı̨chǫ Dene author Richard Van Camp taught two undergraduate courses on Recovering Family Medicine Through Story. Jointly offered through UVic’s Department of English and Division of Continuing Studies, the courses brought together over 200 for-credit and community learners for a multi-faceted exploration of the power of storytelling. Assignments were designed to reward the learning process, rather than product.
“The Robbins-Ollivier Equity Award means we can extend our efforts for one more year as we work to consolidate the ISIR program and ensure its long-term sustainability,” says Stephen Ross, professor of English and the named recipient of the Robbins-Ollivier. “Equally, the award signals the ISIR’s importance institutionally, regionally, nationally, and across Turtle Island.”
Ross’s hope is that the ISIR begins to dismantle key systemic barriers to Indigenous student participation in postsecondary education. Through online, asynchronous course structure, assignment design, and reduced costs for community learners, the courses challenged barriers to post-secondary education in colonial contexts.
“This class helped me rethink the way learning in a university setting can be. I deepened relationships with my family and friends, but also with myself. I gained a new appreciation for storytelling that I didn’t know was possible before taking this class.” —Community course participant
Foundations for the future
“The Indigenous Storyteller-in-Residence program (ISIR) originated from the simple desire to take concrete steps towards decolonizing the study of English, and to introduce truly Indigenous pedagogy to literary study, rather than simply teaching Indigenous stories through Western approaches,” Ross says.
That impact was felt by students in the courses. “Richard’s approach to teaching was incredibly eye-opening,” said an undergraduate course participant. “The decolonial teaching method and encouragement to apply ideas to our own lives made this course the favourite of my degree. The class is a valuable and necessary reminder of how much we have to learn from Indigenous storytellers and the practice of storytelling.”
Beyond classrooms, the ISIR engaged community through public events, including an evening of storytelling, which raised funds for student bursaries at the Indigenous-led post-secondary En’owkin Centre, and an Indigenous Short Film Series screening.
The level of engagement and enthusiasm highlighted for Ross and the team how valuable the program is, so they have welcomed Van Camp back to UVic. During the 2025-26 academic year, he’ll continue his important work as Storyteller-in-Residence, offering undergraduate and public courses, facilitating faculty workshops and visiting labs and research centres to help researchers across disciplines effectively integrate storytelling and Indigenous ways of knowing into their research practices.
“For me,” Ross says, “it’s an enormous validation of what can happen when you assemble a passionate team and let them lead the way. I coordinated the effort, but it was the leadership of Qwul'sih'yah'maht, Dr. Robina Thomas, Dr. Ry Moran, and Dr. Jean-Paul Restoule that gave my vague intentions real direction and focus.”
Student-led change
In the fall of 2025, the ISIR team—including students Stephanie Erickson, Christina Thomas, Riley Campbell and Tilda Bron alongside Ross—received the 2025 Faculty of Humanities Həuistəŋ Award, recognizing the significance of the program in integrating Indigenous pedagogies into UVic’s course offerings.
“The ISIR simply would not have happened without the incredible work of our Indigenous research assistants and teaching assistants: Stephanie Erickson and Christina Thomas,” says Ross. “I learned so much just from watching them work, hearing what they thought was important, and letting them show the rest of us how it should be done.
“The ISIR was conceived to benefit students, so it only seemed right that we let the students take the lead.”