About

Indigenous Commitments

Commitment to Reconciliation

As a community King's is open to seeking a good way forward with our Aboriginal sisters and brothers. We will advocate for justice and dignity for residential school survivors.

We will speak out against racism, marginalization and systemic injustices faced by all Indigenous peoples. We will strive to make our campus a hospitable place of training for social transformation, where all are welcome, where each one’s gift is celebrated, and each person’s life is respected as a sacred response to the Creator’s life in us all.

Specifically, King's commits to:

  • Humbly listening to and learning from Indigenous community members and leaders who so graciously share their guidance with us.
  • Working to make King's a welcoming, accessible and hospitable place for Indigenous students, staff and faculty.
  • Equipping our learning community to understand the ongoing legacy of settler colonialism, and our responsibility to help set things right.
  • Supporting our staff and faculty to discern how, in their professional roles, they can contribute to transformed and just relationships.
  • Working for just, renewed, and reconciled relationships between peoples and between people and the land, and advocating against ongoing white supremacy and systemic racism.

Indigenous Initiatives at The King's University

In the spirit of reconciliation and a deep desire to integrate indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing into the university community and curriculum, King's has embarked upon the following initiatives:

  • Reciprocity Fund
  • The King's University Land Acknowledgement
  • Commitment to Reconciliation
  • Truth and Reconciliation Commemorative Bench and Garden
  • Bachelor of Education Indigenous Advisor
  • Indigenization of King's curriculum; incorporating indigenous knowledge, world views, stories, and subject matter experts where possible.
  • Indigenous curricular and co-curricular learning opportunities
  • Research partnerships with Indigenous scholars, organizations, and communities.

Land Acknowledgement

Amiskwaciy-waskahikan, Edmonton, is located where the prairie and boreal forest meet, a gathering place and home for many Indigenous peoples since time immemorial – including the Nehiyawak (neh-HEE-oh-wuk), Niitsitapi (Knee-tsit-da-be), Tsuu T'ina (SOO-tih-nah), and Michif Piyii peoples. It is now part of Treaty Six and the Métis homeland.

The King's University was founded by newcomers and settlers to this land who immigrated from the Netherlands, and has since grown to welcome students and staff from many places and cultures. We are grateful to live, learn, teach, and worship in this place.

At the same time, we grieve the historical and ongoing injustices that have resulted from settler colonialism on this land. We grieve for broken Treaty promises, forced displacements and land thefts, Residential Schools, bans on traditional language and cultural practices, and ongoing systemic racism. We grieve for our failure to live up to the best of our own spiritual tradition, and the subsequent broken relationships with others, the land, and our Creator.   

This mixture of gratitude and grief unsettles us, as it should. We commit ourselves to living into this discomfort and learning from it, allowing it to help us discern what our role may be in helping to set things right. We commit to continuing the work we began as a King’s community in 2014 in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, “learning, listening, and telling the truth so that we can walk a life-affirming journey together.” We recognize that by our presence here, we too have become Treaty people. We commit ourselves to learning what this means, and how to be good neighbours with the original peoples of this land and with all our relations in Creation.