Session #1: Indigenous Role Model Event with Dr. Kimberly Murray (for Indigenous students, faculty and staff)

Indigenous students, faculty and staff are invited to join Gdoo-maawnjidimi Mompii Indigenous Student Services for the Indigenous Role Model Event featuring Dr. Kimberly Murray. 

Dr. Murray, a member of the Kanehsatake Mohawk Nation, has devoted her career to challenging systemic barriers and seeking justice for Indigenous communities in Canada. Since 2022, she has served as the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites related to Indian Residential Schools. In 2023, she received an honorary Doctors of Law degree from TMU’s Lincoln Alexander School of Law.

Indigenous community members will have the opportunity to engage with Dr. Murray, gain insights to support their own goals and learn how she embodies TMU’s values of excellence, EDI, mutual respect, shared success, wellbeing and access.

A light meal and refreshments will be provided.

Agenda

• 12 p.m. to 12:45 p.m. - Lunch  
• 12:45 p.m. to 1 p.m. - Welcome from Gdoo-maawnjidimi Mompii Indigenous Student Services
• 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. - Talking circle with Dr. Kimberly Murray followed by Q&A and discussion

About Dr. Kimberly Murray

Dr. Kimberly Murray is a member of the Kanehsatake Mohawk Nation. Since June 2022, she has held the role of Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools. 

Prior to this role, Dr. Murray was the Executive Lead for the Survivors’ Secretariat at the Six Nations of the Grand River, working to recover the missing children and unmarked burials at the Mohawk Institute. She was also Ontario’s first ever Assistant Deputy Attorney General for Indigenous Justice from 2015 to 2021, where she was responsible for creating a unit to work with Indigenous communities on revitalizing their Indigenous laws and legal orders. 

In 2018 and 2019, Dr. Murray chaired the expert panel on policing in Indigenous communities, which produced the report Toward Peace Harmony, and Well-Being: Policing in Indigenous Communities. (external link)  From 2010 to 2015, she was the Executive Director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada where she worked to ensure that survivors of Canada’s Indian Residential School System were heard and remembered, and to promote reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. 

From 1995 to 2010, Dr. Murray was a staff lawyer and then Executive Director of Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto. She has appeared before all levels of courts on Indigenous legal issues. She has acted as counsel at several coroner inquests and public inquiries, including the Ipperwash Inquiry in Ontario and the Frank Paul Inquiry in British Columbia. 

Dr. Murray is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2017 National  Aboriginal Achievement Award for Law and Justice. In 2015, the Indigenous Bar Association granted Ms. Murray the Indigenous Peoples’ Counsel (IPC) designation. In 2023, Toronto Metropolitan University’s Lincoln Alexander School of Law conferred an honorary Doctors of Law degree to Dr. Murray.

This event is wheelchair accessible

The university is committed to the accessibility and inclusion of persons with disabilities. If you require any additional accessibility accommodations to ensure your full participation, let us know in the registration form or email Sloan Miller, Outreach and Recruitment Officer, at sloan.miller@torontomu.ca. 

Questions?

If you have any questions, please email Sloan Miller, Outreach and Recruitment Officer, at sloan.miller@torontomu.ca.