Dean of IKERAS and Professor
BEd, BA, MEd (Saskatchewan); PhD (Regina)
Dr. Angelina Weenie, who is Cree (nehiyaw) and speaks Cree (y) dialect fluently, is Dean of the UPEI Faculty of Indigenous Knowledge, Education, Research, and Applied Studies (IKERAS) and a tenured associate professor at the First Nations University of Canada, where she served as a department head from 2002–2012 and program coordinator of Indigenous education from 2016–2018. Her research and teaching interests lie in Indigenous epistemology, culturally responsive pedagogy, approaches to Indigenous language reclamation, land-based pedagogy, and research methods with Indigenous peoples.
As part of a Global Academic Teacher Education (GATE) partnership, Dr. Weenie and representatives from nine countries are exploring changes to teacher education from a global Indigenous perspective. She was an invited speaker at the GATE conference in 2023 in Belgium to share recent advances in this work. Among her leadership contributions, Dr. Weenie has co-developed a Master of Indigenous Language Education (MILED) program in partnership with the University of Regina. She has also contributed to the development of a new Master of Indigenous Education (MIED).
Dr. Weenie has recently co-authored a book, Dance Your Style: Cree Pedagogy. It outlines how Indigenous people can successfully advance Indigenous knowledge in education and research. The book analyses the various roles of First Nations communities and Elders in making space for Indigenous knowledge in universities. Dr. Weenie holds a BEd (1979), BA (1989) in English, postgraduate diploma (1996) in Indian and Northern Education, and MEd (2002), all from the University of Saskatchewan, and a PhD (2010) in Education from the University of Regina.