Acknowledgements

McMaster University is located on the territory of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee. These lands are subject to the Dish with One Spoon wampum. Originally an agreement between the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee, this wampum outlines our responsibility to take only as much as we need and to leave enough behind for our neighbours. In preparing “An Introduction to Equity in the Classroom” for the MacPherson Institute’s Student Partners Program, Emily and Aisha recognize that we can work, learn, and live in this space due to an ongoing history of Indigenous dispossession. We cannot reckon with the full weight of settler colonialism in these pages, but with the resources available to us, we have tried to honour our obligations as treaty people in our collaborative approach to the project and our ongoing engagement with Indigenous scholarship; however, we welcome the opportunity for further learning as we work to enact the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action in our work. We see this book as a starting point and a work-in-progress because the best practices in equity take shape in relation to the communities that we create in the classroom and those that we encounter every day on campus.

Emily and Aisha would like to extend our thanks to Dr. Beth Marquis, Dr. Alise de Bie, and Professor Rita Cossa for their leadership throughout the Student Partners Program as well as AccessMac Program Manager Kate Brown, Educational Developer Katrina Espanol-Miller, and Digital Media Specialist Chris Lombardo for their support and feedback. The Introduction to Equity would not have been possible without this incredible team.