First female Aboriginal Dean appointed at Lakehead

Lakehead University’s recent selection of Angelique EagleWoman as Canada’s first female Aboriginal dean of law is an encouraging sign for First Nation leaders.

“I met the new dean and I think she is extremely brilliant and smart and charismatic,” says Deputy Grand Chief Derek Fox. “I think she is going to do a good job with the school. Overall, it is not just the Aboriginal students, I think (of) the law school as part of the community, part of the NAN community, part of the First Nations, part of Thunder Bay, so I think she is going to bring all of those people together and make a great law school.”

EagleWoman was introduced on Jan. 12 to a packed gathering at the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law’s John N. Paterson Auditorium. A law professor and legal scholar at the University of Idaho College of Law in the United States, EagleWoman previously served as a tribal judge in four Tribal Court systems and as general counsel for her own tribe, the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in Dakota. She officially begins her role as law school dean in May.

Fox says the presence of the new dean will encourage First Nations students to apply at the law school.

“And I think it’s going to inspire them to reach for the same kinds of goals,” Fox says. “With a new dean there with an Aboriginal focus, there is going to be more focus on recruitment and just the way the law school functions.”
Fox says the presence of an Aboriginal law school dean would have encouraged him to study in Thunder Bay. He studied law at the University of Manitoba.

“I would have applied in Thunder Bay for sure if this law school was here,” Fox says. “You know, with an Aboriginal dean, I always felt comfortable going to First Nations people for advice or any kind of help I could get, especially in those kinds of institutions.”

EagleWoman says her grandmother told her that First Nations people needed law-trained people for the tribal court system and government.

“At a very early age I wanted to be a lawyer,” EagleWoman says. “And my family supported that. They had ceremonies for me and they stood behind me as I did that. And I have always tried to encourage others to think about a career in law.”

EagleWoman hopes her position as law school dean will encourage First Nations people to pursue a career in law. A Youtube video about her as a law student is available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=npchS8f14NI.

“Law touches every aspect of our lives and it is important that our voices be heard in forming that law and in responding to that law and in making that law,” EagleWoman says.

EagleWoman says her traditional beliefs have led her on her journey and allowed her to be a role model and to operate in two worlds.

“We want to reach out to the community and to get to know everyone in the area,” EagleWoman says. “In the US, my colleagues are a lot of Native people who have law degrees or are officials in government. We are a very small committed community, and I plan to build those relationships with the Aboriginal governments, the First Nation governments, the Metis Nation and Ontario and then beyond that. I want to meet and be a source of assistance in any way I can. I believe strongly in raising the quality of life for Indigenous peoples.”

Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services Corporation executive director Celina Reitberger was thrilled at EagleWoman’s election.

“I was completely overcome with emotion actually at the fact that we now have the first female Aboriginal dean of a law school in Canada and it’s here in Thunder Bay,” Reitberger says. “It’s cutting edge and I can’t imagine anything but good things happening from here on in.”

EagleWoman, her husband and her son all do beadwork.