Improving Academic Success for Indigenous Students

How can listening to Indigenous lived experiences reshape the way we think about supporting student success in research spaces?

In this episode of The EDII Catalyst, Genievieve Borg (Anishinaabe PhD Candidate in Chemistry, University of Guelph) joins us to share her journey toward academic success as an Indigenous student in STEM.

Hosted by Dr. Emily Albright, this episode explores Gen’s path into chemistry, the systemic and personal barriers Indigenous students may face in postsecondary education, and the importance of community, mentorship, and cultural reconnection in fostering belonging, resilience, and inclusive research environments.

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The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. This episode was originally filmed in October 2023. Please note that references to current events, roles, and/or project statuses may no longer be accurate.

Welcome back to The EDII Catalyst, where we explore topics of equity, diversity, inclusion and Indigenization in STEM. In today's talk, we're going to discuss academic success for Indigenous students. I'm honoured to welcome our special guest, Genievieve Borg, who is a PhD student in chemistry at the University of Guelph.

Could you start by telling us about yourself and your journey so far?

As you mentioned, I'm currently completing my PhD in inorganic chemistry at the University of Guelph. My research is focused on molecule-based magnetic materials, so we're interested in making molecules that have interesting magnetic properties and applications in technological advancement.

As for my background: I've been at Guelph for a very long time; I completed my undergrad here, then started my Master's, but then switched into my PhD. I'm from Brantford, Ontario and I am Ojibwe First Nations. I am a status member of Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island. That said, I did grow up off reserve.

What motivated you and inspired you to pursue a career in STEM?

It all happened by accident back in high school; I always found science interesting, and we were required to take Grade 9 and Grade 10 science. For Grade 11, when we were picking our electives, I saw chemistry and thought it was cool. I thought of it as a really difficult subject and I wanted to challenge myself to get a 90% average in that course. I achieved my goal and was very excited, which helped me realize I really like the subject matter. I’ve always thought of chemistry as a way of understanding the universe.

When I was in Grade 12, I took a physics course as well. Our teacher assigned us a culminating project where we had to read a book by a physicist and then recap what we learned. I chose a book by Stephen Hawking, and I thought it was just super cool, reading about these physicists and their research and again, a path to understanding the universe. It just so happened that everyone I knew in high school was going to university, so I felt like that was my natural next step. I just picked the subject I was the most interested in, and that was chemistry. That’s kind of how it all started!

Many chemists seem to have a similar story of their interest in STEM, where we all at some point decide, ‘well, I like chemistry the best!’ and continue with whichever area we’re most passionate about. On that note, did you find that your culture, community, or family influenced your next steps decision in high school?

I would say my culture and my family didn't really have much of a role in my decision because I only started reconnecting with my culture around 2019~2020. I always knew I was Ojibwe, but that was all I knew. My mom left the reserve when she was really young, so I didn't learn much about my culture growing up.

In terms of my family: of five children, I'm the first to graduate high school, let alone obtain a post-secondary education. This was mainly because I was lucky enough that by the time I was born, my parents were living in a good neighbourhood, and at the high school I went to, everyone was going to university. It made me feel like that’s what everyone else was doing, so that’s what I would do as well. That’s really how I ended up where I am today.

Growing up off reserve, what challenges or barriers did you face or encounter as an Indigenous student, and how did that affect your path here?

It wasn't until I started reconnecting with my culture that I really put into context my experiences in undergrad and understood that barriers I had encountered were related to the fact that I'm Indigenous. The first related barrier was that I came to university not knowing a single person that had been to university, which meant I didn't have any sort of support system. I didn't know what to do. Even to this day, I'm the first to do university, let alone receive a PhD. I'm still in a space where I'm just doing things and hoping I'm succeeding. So far it's been going well, but it’s definitely been a barrier to overcome.

Another challenge I faced was related to mental health. Mental health is a big issue among Indigenous people, given Canada’s history with Indigenous people and the intergenerational trauma that has come from that. It wasn't until I got to university that I really started to see that some of the things I experienced growing up were not the experience of any of my peers. It really started getting me to think about these differences.

The biggest challenge was, when I was in first and second year [of my undergraduate degree], I was probably having around five or six panic attacks every day. They all seemed to happen during class, and this meant that rather than paying attention, I was stuck in my head the whole time. That was challenging because chemistry is already a hard subject, and now I also had to go back to my dorm room or my house and try and teach myself the material that I wasn't able to focus on in class. That was tricky.

As a result, because chemistry is a hard subject and I was afraid to talk to my professors at the time, I wasn't doing the best. I was passing, I was doing fine, but in terms of scholarships—because financial insecurity was another big challenge for me—it was always evident that I could apply to scholarships, but I wasn’t going to get them.

That fuelled the idea in my head that I wasn't good enough to be here and I didn't belong here. Especially given that everyone I went to school with didn't have to work as hard; they worked less than me in terms of studying and got significantly better grades than me, which then set them up for awards, scholarships, and networking. I was just in the background, struggling through undergrad. I think that was the biggest barrier, and it was definitely a trauma-induced barrier.

That's important context to understand: Indigenous students are at a disadvantage from the get-go because of the history they’ve experienced, and that isn't fair. We need to understand this in order to improve our support and do better.

Indigenous students may also relate to lacking a knowledgeable support system as well. Getting your Master's and PhD as a first-generation student is not easy, and you do need a strong support system. When you have a network that hasn't gone through that experience and is unable to help you, you then need to rely heavily on the resources that your school and your community can present for you.

The other tricky part was that my school has a wonderful Indigenous student centre, and they have tons of great resources. But given that I didn't know anything about my culture—I just knew I was Ojibwe and that was it—I did not access any of those resources as an undergrad student. I was here for four and a half years, and I stepped in there maybe twice.

The two times I did go, I was highly intimidated by the students there because I thought, ‘oh, they're super Indigenous, they know their culture way better than I do.’ I always I felt like I wasn't native enough to go, and that was highly influenced by the stereotypes of Indigenous people in media and in movies and on TV. I genuinely thought that's what Indigenous people were like, and I wasn't that, so I didn't belong in that place. But really, all of the students that are there are exactly like me.

It's unfortunate that I didn't figure that out until grad school, but I am happy that I did figure it out while I’m still here [at the University of Guelph] because that has been an invaluable resource to me.

That leads into our next question: since you didn't discover that resource until later, what were some of the resources that helped you reach the next stages of your academic path?

Honestly, it was just my stubbornness (laughs). I felt like, ‘I sought out to do this. I'm going to do it.’ Once I got to third year, I did have some Teaching Assistants (TAs) that were quite wonderful—they were the first TAs that genuinely cared about me as a person. I saw myself in them, in that they were the first TAs to be real with me and say, “things don't always work out and that's fine. But I've failed tests, I've struggled through undergrad, I wasn't a 90s student, and I'm doing my PhD now.” That made me think, ‘okay, well, if she can do it, I think I can do it.’

One of my TAs was the person that got me into my research group for undergrad. If I didn't have her, I would have still ended up in research, but I likely wouldn't have ended up in the group I'm in and would have faced more struggles. Having one person that I already knew made my research group feel a bit safer.

The whole process of getting into research was absolutely terrifying for me. Come third year, I was lucky in that my program was really small. I started to get to know the people in my major and we formed a big group that leaned on each other for support. Having that community was really important to me. It allowed me to see that I wasn't the only person struggling to understand difficult material.

Realizing you're not alone and leaning on your peers is a big part of feeling secure as a student. This is a valuable lesson for our viewers today, who are most likely grad students and postdocs: we've all been the student in this situation before; as you take on that role as a TA, it's important to know that small things that show you care about your students can make a huge difference.

This leads into our next question: what do you think we can do? We touched on peers leaning on each other, but as researchers, what can we do to help reduce these barriers and make Indigenous students feel more welcome and set them up for success?

The first step before anything meaningful can happen is that people must listen to and understand Indigenous stories. People will hear what they want in the news, but it's not the same as listening to an Indigenous person speak their truth on what's happened in their life and what's happened to their family. I think it's hard to try and fix a problem if you don't know anything about it, and to learn more, we really just need people to understand and listen.

We can talk all we want about making more inclusive environments, but until you really understand the barriers Indigenous students face and the thoughts that we fight with every day, it'll be quite difficult to try and create those inclusive environments because you don't really know what you're looking to do.

As Canadians, it’s important for us to celebrate Indigenous peoples and their culture but also to take the time to learn about the darker history that you’ve mentioned. As you’ve said, it’s really important for people to learn and listen to ensure Indigenous voices are included.

Yes. It's really not difficult to learn about the topics; when I first started learning more about my culture, because I didn't know who to reach out to, the first thing I did was buy books by Indigenous authors. One book that I always recommend is 21 Things You May Not Know About The Indian Act by Bob Joseph. In it, he goes through what the Indian Act is and how it's a piece of legislation that still discriminates against Indigenous people today.

There are a lot of nonfiction Indigenous experiences, and then there are also some fictional stories by Indigenous authors who weave in different elements of our history and teachings and culture, which I've found really interesting to read. In saying that: if you're grabbing a book, make sure it's by an Indigenous author to avoid bias.

You had an article published in Inorganic Chemistry titled, “An Indigenous Journey to Belonging.” Can you tell us a little bit about your article and how you found this opportunity?

The American Chemical Society (ACS) was doing a Diversity & Inclusion Cover Art Series to highlight marginalized voices in chemistry. If you were an artist, you could make cover art that would go on a journal. I didn't find out about it myself, but my professor heard about it and pushed me to do this because I’m an artist, from a minority group, and a chemist.

I submitted my application; because I don't really do cover art, I submitted a photo of a drum and a pair of earrings that I've made as well as a dreamcatcher—this photo is actually included in the editorial. ACS got back to me and said, ‘we'd love to feature you and hear your story. What if we set you up to create something together with a graphic designer who's already done a few journal covers for us, and then we'll feature that?’

I got to work together with Jeffery Tao, who’s done some covers for Analytical Chemistry. I explained my story to him and what I wanted to convey, and that I wanted the pieces of my art to be exhibited on this journal cover. It was really awesome how I didn't really have an idea in my head at the time, I just told him about myself and my story, and he somehow turned this into a picture. We then worked together on refining it.

Once I had been given this platform, I saw it as an international opportunity to educate not just readers, but in particular chemists, about Indigenous issues, what being an Indigenous chemist looks like, and that Indigenous people still exist. Globally, Canada is known as this really wonderful country, but in other places around the world, there are people that don't think the Indigenous peoples of Canada still exist. There are people that don't know anything about the history between Canada and Indigenous people, or they know about the policies we have now, but not the reason why those policies exist, and also the fact that many of these policies are still failing Indigenous communities today. I wanted to encapsulate all of that.

The other thing I really wanted to achieve was increased visibility. Throughout the entirety of my academic journey, I've felt alone. Once I really started understanding my heritage, I realized that it's tricky to talk about; I can talk to people of non-Indigenous descent that I look up to about my experiences, but sometimes it's like despite the fact we're both speaking English, we're not speaking the same language. That's been frustrating because it's been a barrier where I come to realize, ‘cool, I gotta figure this out myself, I guess.’ I just wanted to show Indigenous students feeling the way I feel, now or in the future, that there is another person going through the same things. I think that's something that's really important to have.

To explain the cover art: I'm pictured in front of an illustration of a dreamcatcher that I've made. In my culture, the dreamcatcher is an item which you place it above your bed. When you sleep, the dreamcatcher web captures everything—good and bad. Spirits, energies, feelings, thoughts… everything. The good is passed down to the sleeper through the feathers, while the bad is captured within the web and then is released into the morning sunlight. I thought this would be a really cool way to illustrate what I'm experiencing. Especially because the only piece of my culture I ever really had was a dreamcatcher I’ve had since I was a baby, so it's really cool that it ended up being the heart of my story.

I'm pictured in front with the good things that I've worked for and that have come my way. I'm wearing a graduation cap, signifying my undergrad degree in chemistry, and one day my PhD. I'm also featured wearing the first pair of earrings that I've ever made, to represent me reconnecting with my culture. I'm also wearing a lab coat to represent my journey as a chemist and my accomplishments here.

Within the web are the things I'm still reconciling with: there’s an image of the unmarked graves at residential school, to represent reconciling with and still dealing with the feelings of how that has affected my family as a first generation survivor. The Canadian flag is also there; I have a really weird perspective where on one hand, I feel really, really lucky to have been born in Canada and be educated in the Canadian education system. I’ve been privileged because that has set me up for success in some ways, but at the same time, I’m reconciling with all of the trauma and pain that this country has inflicted on my family, my people, and myself.

Also in the web is a little image of a person surrounded by a crowd of people, and this is meant to represent feeling like I don't belong and trying to reconcile with that. The idea is that these elements are trapped within the web because I'm still dealing with them, but hopefully one day they'll be released into the sunlight.

Your editorial is fantastic, and I love the cover art even more after hearing your story behind all the elements—it really brings it to life.

As we approach the end of our time here, I want to ask: what advice would you give to Indigenous students who are interested in STEM? And could you give a main takeaway you’d like researchers to remember from today?

My advice for future Indigenous youth is that honestly, it's going to be really hard. But don't give up, and always believe in yourself when no one else will. That is something important not just for STEM, but for life.

If you're in university or in college and there is a resource centre for Indigenous students, go there and access the resources—even if you feel like you're not Indigenous enough, I will tell you that you are. You will find not only a community there, but access to so many resources. If you feel like you don't know enough about your culture, you will likely learn about if not your culture, then another culture might help you feel more connected to your heritage, your culture, and your spirit.

In terms of like a takeaway for listeners: listen to Indigenous stories and don’t make assumptions based on what you've heard in passing or in the news. Speak with an Indigenous person and learn about our experiences so you can understand how to effectively be a good ally.

That's wonderful, thank you so much. I'll end with one final question: what is your favorite chemistry element?

I want to say dysprosium, because complexes with dysprosium are known make really good magnetic materials with great magnetic properties.

Thank you to Genievieve Borg for joining us today and for sharing in this important discussion, and thank you so much to our audience for listening in on today's episode.