'Who Built This Fence?' Regenerating Faculty Landscapes for Lasting Education Reform

'Who Built This Fence?' Regenerating Faculty Landscapes for Lasting Education Reform

One of the challenges we face in incorporating Indigenous perspectives and building First Nations student support is the difficulty of ensuring that initiatives endure. It seems that a critical early step in achieving sustainable pedagogical advances is to reform the university structures and landscapes that in various ways tie us to the old exclusionary habits of law and education. This task can be embraced at the grassroots level in law schools – early, efficiently, collaboratively, and somewhat irrespective of shifting priorities above. Beyond the self-evidently important work of acknowledging country and developing staff understanding and student support, there is much more that can be done to contribute to the necessary ‘regeneration’ of law school structures. This can include building and enhancing relevant connections and reciprocal collaborations (with communities, the profession, alumni and other parts of the university), collecting and curating resources, ensuring First Nations’ visibility in physical and digital spaces, illustrating sustained commitment to First Nations issues in public lectures and seminars, identifying new pathways and opportunities for students, embracing the inter-disciplinary nature of many First Nations issues, and understanding where expert First Nations advice and leadership is required (and ensuring that it is appropriately embedded in school structures). This paper seeks to explore the importance of structural change to pedagogical reform, drawing on practical examples and noting the particular challenges and opportunities that can arise for regional law schools.