Election of Indigenous Senators to the University of Manitoba Senate (2024)

Katherine is a proud Métis woman and member of the Manitoba Métis Federation Bison Locale. She is an instructor and faculty member at the Asper School of Business, where she is designing and piloting the Indigenous Peoples & Canadian Business course requirement for the new undergraduate curriculum.

Her education journey includes a Bachelor of Arts in Global Political Economy and completion of her MBA from the Asper School of Business, with a specialization in Leadership & Organization. She pursued her own path within the MBA program by enrolling in a course in Indigenous studies and concentrating on Indigenous business projects.

She was a member of Indigenous Leadership and Community Committee during the development of the Office of the Vice President Indigenous. She also served as a board director for the Alternative Dispute Resolution Institute of Manitoba (ADRIM), demonstrating her commitment to conflict resolution.

Katherine has worked in International Education for the Louis Riel School Division and has experience advising Indigenous students in her student services role during her tenure at the Indigenous Business Education partners (IBEP). She has worked as an Improvement Specialist in the Change Management department at the University of Manitoba, where she gained experience working across faculties, staff, and senior leaders.

Throughout her career, Katherine has exhibited a passion for education and a strong desire to collaborate with students, staff, faculty, and administration at the University of Manitoba to drive meaningful change and create more equitable opportunities in education.

Lucy Fowler, PhD, is a Two-Spirit Métis woman, born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her family were Sinclairs, Cummings, Prudens, some of whom took scrip in St Andrews and St Johns, and she also has other family and ancestors from Red River, Oxford House, Norway House, and Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, and settler family from Ireland and the Orkney Islands.

Lucy is a community organizer, involved in a variety of local and national groups, and is actively involved with the Two-Spirit Michif Local of the Manitoba Métis Federation. She also serves on several boards, including the board of directors of Two-Spirit Manitoba and Full Circle for Indigenous Education. Lucy is one of the creators and Circle of Editors of Pawaatamihk: Journal of Métis Thinkers, an open-access academic journal focusing on lifting up the voices of Métis scholars, artists, and community members.

Lucy is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba, with a research and teaching focus on Métis youth identity, Indigenous education, queer theory, hip-hop pedagogies, and youth cultures.

A sixties scoop survivor, Dr. Miller is Anishinaabe and descends from St. Croix and Leech Lake communities in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Hired as a faculty member in the History Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2002, from 2013 she served as the Director of American Indian Studies there.  In 2017 she made the move to Winnipeg as the Head of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba and served as the Associate Vice President Indigenous – Scholarship, Research, and Curriculum (AVP-SRC) from 2021-2023. Her book Ogimag: Anishinaabeg leadership 1760-1845 was published with the University of Nebraska Press in 2010 and she is one of the editors of the most recent edition of Indigenous Peoples within Canada textbook from Oxford press (2023).  Her research is in Anishinaabe leadership in the early 19th century, Anishinaabe women’s history, Treaties and sovereignty, Cultures of the Great Lakes Region, and university Indigenization and decolonization.  She is particularly interested in 18th and 19th century transborder North American Indigenous histories that centre narratives of sovereign Indigenous land use, kinship and diplomacy. 

She previously served on UM Faculty senate 2019-2021 after which she served on that body ex officio as AVP-SRC 2021-2023. She has also served on Senate Executive Committee, Senate Planning and Priorities Committee, the UM Budget Allocation Committee (representing SPPC), the Faculty of Arts Budget Review Committee, Faculty of Arts Executive Committee, Faculty of Arts Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and the Faculty of Arts Indigenous Content Committee.