Elisa Manning teaches business courses at a small liberal arts university located on the prairies. Since roughly 12% of the students attending her university are Indigenous, she has been asked to adjust her first-year introductory business course so that it reflects the lives and business interest of Indigenous people, as well as members of the mainstream culture. She has many ideas about how to do this. For example, in her unit on the role of government in business, she plans to add content on treaties and legislation that has been used to control and regulate business activity on reserve lands. In her unit on leadership, she plans to profile a famous band leader who helped turn around the local reserve economy through entrepreneurship. Elisa is very excited about her ideas, but she wants to make sure Indigenous voices are represented. She decides that local Indigenous business leaders should make videos introducing key aspects of Indigenous industry, so that their voice is reflected. Elisa makes an appointment with the Indigenous Affairs Office on her campus. This office serves as a community hub for Indigenous students. The staff members of this office advocate for Indigenous students, provide support, educate the broader public, and help make sure that Indigenous views are included on campus.

Elisa booked her initial appointment and met the Office Director for the first time. She had a plan for her course laid out ahead of time. At the meeting, she informed the Director that she needed a series of six videos created by elders. Each video needed to be 10 minutes long and Elisa provided a list of learning objectives and key content area for each one. The Director listened to her but did not say much. He said he would see if anyone was interested, and Elisa left the meeting confident that her videos would be produced soon. Weeks later, she still had not heard anything back, and she started to wonder if she had done something wrong.

Using the material from the supplemental readings “The Seven Teachings” and “Values in North American Indigenous Cultures”, answer the following question about the case above.

1. Why do you think Elisa’s project has failed to move forward?
2. Did Elisa use a culturally appropriate method for initiating, planning, and launching per project? Why or why not?
3. What could she have done differently to make a positive outcome more likely?

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1 Elisas projects failed and met a stalemate as she just handed over her requirements to the directo... View the full answer