Election of Indigenous Senators to the University of Manitoba Senate (2025)

Dr. Leo Baskatawang is an Anishinaabe scholar from Lac Des Mille Lacs First Nation in Treaty #3 territory.  He currently serves as an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba.  In that role, Dr. Baskatawang reaches several courses, including "Treaties and Land Claims in Canada", "A Seminar in Truth and Reconciliation", "Oral History, Indigenous Peoples, and the Law", and he also co-teaches the new Indigenous course requirement "Indigenous Methodologies and Perspectives". In 2023, Dr. Baskatawang published his first book, Reclaiming Anishinaabe Law: Kinamaadiwin Inaakonigewin and the Treaty Right to Education. That work was published by the University of Manitoba Press, and is the culmination of his doctoral research, for which he earned his PhD from the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba in 2021.  Dr. Baskatawang's next research project will be broadly focused on the topic of restorative justice, in terms of delivering culturally responsive justice for crimes committed by and against Indigenous peoples in Canada. 

In 2012, Leo marched across Canada, from Vancouver to Ottawa, to raise awareness about the injustice of the Indian Act.  Throughout the march, Leo chained a copy of the Indian Act as both a symbolic and literal gesture of the oppression the Indian Act continues to inflict upon Indigenous Peoples. 

When Leo is not teaching or working on his research projects, he enjoys watching and playing sports, and attending live concerts.  He is married and the proud father of three young boys. 

Dr. Jeremy Patzer is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology, adjunct faculty within the Department of Indigenous Studies, and Canada Research Chair in Comparative Indigenous Rights.  He is Metis, Saulteaux, and German with roots in the West Interlake region of Manitoba. (Indigenous family names are Spence, Monkman, Pottinger, and Dumas).  A citizen of the MMF, Patzer still co-owns the family farm in the Vogar Metis Local, just outside Lake Manitoba First Nation, and has family ties to members of Peguis and Sagkeeng First Nations. His research focuses on Indigenous rights and the law.  While much of his past research has centred on Indigenous rights within Canada, his contemporary extension into international and comparative work led to the award of the CRC in Comparative Indigenous Rights. Work at the local level has not abated, however, as Dr. Patzer is currently engaged in treaty rights research within Manitoba. 

Since his appointment in 2016, Dr. Patzer has accrued an extensive record of serve at the departmental, faculty, and university levels - such that only a partial selection can be listed here.  He has served on Senate as one of the inaugural Indigenous Senators (2022-2025_, on the Senate Committee on Honorary Degrees, the Ad Hoc Committee of Senate Executive to Review the Summer Term Academic Schedule, the UM Truth and Reconciliation Framework Implementation Advisory Committee, and the Indigenous Content Committee within the Faculty of Arts.  In addition, he has served on eleven search advisory committees for academic appointments and three for administrative appointments. 

Dr. Vanessa Van Bewer, RN, MN, PhD, is a graduate of the University of Calgary’s Bachelor of Nursing program, and has diverse clinical experiences in adolescent mental health, maternal-child health, sexually transmitted infections clinic, and at Health Links/Info Santé. She began her academic career as an instructor at the Université de Saint-Boniface and the College of Nursing at the University of Manitoba. Currently, she holds the position of assistant professor in the College of Nursing. Weaving her background as a Métis spoken word artist and storyteller into her career as a scholar, Vanessa is passionate about encouraging others to use art to think creatively about social justice in their own lives and in their own communities. 

Vanessa’s research program is focused on exploring the inclusion of Indigenous perspectives, methodologies and approaches in education, practice, leadership and governance. Past research activities have included identifying the promise and importance of integrating Indigenous perspectives in nursing; developing an Indigenous and arts-informed framework for anti-racist practice in nursing education; illuminating Indigenous health care provider perspectives of nursing education and practice; examining the personal, academic and community impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Indigenous students; and identifying intersectional experiences of discrimination among undergraduate nursing students. Her current research is focused on Métis leadership in healthcare and the inclusion of Indigenous storytelling in leadership development.