Office of the Dean

Dr. Jan Stewart brings a wealth of knowledge from over 30 years of experience working in the Manitoba education system; she has worked as a teacher and counsellor in the K-12 public school system, a contract curriculum writer and consultant for the Province of Manitoba, and an educator for pre-service teachers and school counsellors. 

Dr. Stewart is also a renowned researcher in the areas of children and youth affected by conflict, trauma, violence, abuse, mental health issues, and human rights violations. As a community-engaged scholar, Dr. Stewart partners with educators, settlement services, and government and non-government organizations to develop innovative programs and support services to meet the mental health and settlement needs of children, youth, and postsecondary students.  

Dr. Marti Ford is of mixed heritage with Inuit and settler roots. She is the past President and Board Chair of the Manitoba Inuit Association. She is an educator and has been a teacher, principal, Director of Education, School Superintendent at Frontier School Division, and Dean of Indigenous Education at Red River College. Dr. Ford most recently worked for Frontier School Division recruiting teachers. Dr. Ford has worked locally throughout the province of Manitoba in First Nations and Métis communities. She has worked internationally in Botswana as a school principal, and with community-based projects with Mapuche in Chile, and Indigenous communities in Roraima and Macieo in Brazil. She received her Doctorate in Education in Teaching and Learning at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Dr. Ford volunteers with United Way's Community Indigenous Relations Committee, The Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada, and the Canadian Forces Liaison Committee.

The office of the Associate Dean Indigenous Education (ADIE) will build on the existing mandates of the University of Manitoba Indigenous Senior Leadership Plan and the Faculty of Education's Strategic Plan supporting Indigenous engagement and achievement. In response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's Calls to Action 62-65, Education for reconciliation, the ADIE will support initiatives focused on such areas of concern as Indigenous history, epistemology, and perspectives. The ADIE, in consultation with the Dean, the Associate Dean Graduate and Research (ADGR) and the Associate Dean Undergraduate & Partnerships (ADUP), will support the Faculty of Education's work as it improves our undergraduate and graduate programmes. The ADIE will support faculty and staff who seek to engage in work that involves Indigenous knowledges, histories and perspectives. This support will include overseeing such things as budget considerations, program delivery, curricular issues, admissions and student services relating to all aspects of Indigenous Education. The Associate Dean Indigenous Education will also engage with the Office of the Vice-President Indigenous and Senior Administration at the University of Manitoba. 

Faculty of Education Reconciliation Action Plan

Dr. Merli Tamtik is Associate Dean, Graduate Programs and Research (ADGR) of the Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba. She is also an Associate Professor in Educational Administration, Foundations & Psychology (EAF&P). Dr. Tamtik's areas of specialization are post-secondary education, higher education administration, internationalization, comparative and international education, education policy. She is also the Vice-President of Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education (CSSHE). 

Working alongside the Associate Dean, Indigenous Education and other community partners, she will support efforts and develop programs that foster Indigenous-focused graduate programming, cohorts, and community relationships.
 
The Faculty of Education has a large and robust graduate program that includes Masters and PhD programs and that serves local and international students. Dr. Tamtik will build on our community partnerships to better serve our rural and Northern communities through meaningful and accessible graduate programming. Our faculty members’ research interests are vast and contribute to academic and professional conversations locally, nationally and internationally. As researchers and teachers, our faculty members are committed to working with graduate students and to developing reciprocal research partnerships with individuals and organizations. Please feel free to contact Dr. Tamtik if you are interested in finding out more about graduate programs or research partnerships.

Dr. Serebrin is a relational learner, teacher, and leader. For nearly three decades as a teacher educator, he engaged in language and literacy education co-inquires with undergraduate and graduate students, faculty colleagues, PreK-12 educators, and children and youth (in mostly school-based, collaborative partnership programs). Since 2019, Dr. Serebrin's teaching, scholarship, and service inquires have been refocused on contemplative, decolonial, and counter-oppressive education - as a way of visioning/revisioning a more caring and just world. Dr. Serebrin is committed to co-creating "relational culture" - care, connection, and belonging - in educational communities. Presently, he is collaborating with PreK-12 teachers, staff and faculty colleagues, and national and international educators exploring the potentials of contemplative, holistic, integrative, and transformative educational practices, research, and theory. This complex pedagogical, embodied, creative, and playful work invites conscientization and interruption of modernist/colonial denials and complicity in ongoing habits of oppression, domination, and violence; holding the complex and difficult challenges we face without becoming overwhelmed and without urgently seeking "immediate solutions"; trauma-informed, intrapersonal, interpersonal, systemic, and cultural levels. 

As Associate Dean, Undergraduate and Partnerships, Dr. Serebrin seeks to "lift up" the importance and the quality of the craft of teaching; build collaborative partnerships with multiple and diverse communities; and cultivate practices and discourses of care and justice in the work we do together as a university and larger education system.