Faculty Professional Development

• Five in-person two-hour (2 - 4 p.m.) 'Sacred Space Studio Sessions' over a three-week period culminating in an optional sweat lodge ceremony

• Because of the relationship building involved in this learning series, participants will be expected to attend all sessions

• For those interested in participating, please submit an expression of interest by Mon., May 4

• For further information, please contact Dr. Christopher Grignard (cgrignard@mtroyal.ca)

🟠 Session 1 Thurs., May 14: 

Group Intro., meet Joe, and watch Joe's Tipi video in Immersion Studio

🟠 Session 2 Tues., May 19: 

View, reflect, and discuss Belly Buttes & Chief Mountain videos

🟠 Session 3 Thurs., May 21: 

View, reflect, and discuss Little Plume & Heart Butte videos

🟠 Session 4 Tues., May 26: 

View, reflect, and discuss Sweet Grass Hills & Logan Pass videos

🟠 Session 5 Thurs., May 28: 

Concluding reflection and discussion with Joe

🟠 (Optional) Sat. May 16 & Sat. May 30 - all day: 

 Ceremonial opportunity (Sweat Lodge) for Group at Joe's ceremonial grounds

On the Blackfoot Odyssey website, odyssey is defined as "a series of experiences that give knowledge or understanding to someone." In the context of Joe Eagle Tail Feathers' spiritual journey, the sacred sites he visited are at the heart of the Blackfoot Odyssey learning series. Through his stories, participants will learn about his experiences at these places that provided him with knowledge and understanding. In turn, participants may discover something about themselves — as through the specific, a universal can emerge. The video series, Joe's in-person involvement, and the ceremonial opportunity are forms of Indigenous knowledge transfer that allows for understanding to occur. In each studio session, learners will reflect on the stories in which they have been immersed and the locations to which they have been transported.

Learners will literally be immersed in these videos as they watch them in MRU's Immersion Studio. When they are not watching videos in the room, they are surrounded by images of the various sacred sites projected on the walls. Even if the learners are not Indigenous (or Blackfoot), they are still experiencing a Blackfoot Odyssey. 

Learners will be registered in the Blackfoot Odyssey D2L Brightspace course — one that has been intentionally designed as a sacred, Indigenized, and ethical space. Through their navigation of Brightspace, participants can explore and learn from the course's digital learning space. 

Joe will attend in person the first and last sessions of the learning series. Participants will learn further about the stories they heard. They will have the opportunity to share with Joe what they experienced and ask any questions they may have for him. Through Joe and Christopher's working relationship, participants will witness how ethical spaces have been created and maintained.

In addition to attending the 'Sacred Space Studio Sessions' and meeting with Joe, participants will be invited to partake in a ceremony run by Joe on his property on the Blood Reserve — a ceremony that will be specifically coordinated for the participating group. Other ceremonial opportunities will be made available for the participants.

In recognition of their reflections not only on the videos but also on their own individual experiences viewing them, participants will receive a distinct, custom-designed D2L badge for each experience — culminating in a 'Journey of Completion' certificate that is issued to them. This reward system is evidence they have been informed by Indigenous knowledge. 

Blackfoot Odyssey is a learning unit developed by Dr. Christopher Grignard and Mount Royal University's Academic Development Centre (ADC) for a course taught every Winter semester, ENGL 3353: North American Indigenous Literatures. Upon starting at MRU in 2022 as an Assistant Professor of Indigenous Literatures, Christopher desired to re-conceptualize the course, placing an emphasis on taking a ceremonial and sacred approach to the subject matter. In 2022, he received an ADC eLearning and Curriculum Redesign Project Support for his proposal to begin this work.

To formally make the request for the use of Blackfoot (Kainai) Elder and ceremonialist Joe Eagle Tail Feathers' tipi design for his courses, Grignard followed traditional protocol and sponsored a pipe ceremony on the Blood Reserve in 2023. This ceremony was funded by MRU's Opportunity Fund.

Grignard then began the next phase of the curriculum redesign project. In the spirit of the oral tradition, new curriculum was created from the stories and life experiences of Eagle Tail Feathers. As a result of a Provost's Teaching-Learning Enhancement Grant (TLEG) Grignard received in 2023, ADC’s Academic Media Group created videos of Joe in which he talks about six Blackfoot sacred sites where he was taught through vision traditional protocol to conduct ceremony. ADC’s eLearning developer Khethwen Woo created the course’s D2L Brightspace based on Joe’s materials, such as his tipi design, and Chris' conceptual vision for the course. 

This curriculum is grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing and being, Indigenous pedagogy, land-based learning, as well as Indigenous languages and ceremonies. There is an Indigenous-informed experiential learning component to this work, and that uniqueness has to do with its sacred and ceremonial nature through the involvement of a ceremonial elder. Experiential learning for the Blackfoot Odyssey also occurs in MRU's Immersion Studio — a place Grignard, Eagle Tail Feathers, and Woo regard as being an enrichment of the Brightspace course, as they further leverage the digital learning environment.

Everything was developed in consultation with Joe, and he offered his approval for the use of his material on a permission form created with MRU’s legal team and completed in a signing ceremony (March 2025) held in the Immersion Studio. MRU's Office of Indigenization and Decolonization sponsored the event.

Through the Blackfoot Odyssey course, D2L Brightspace moves away from being a learning management system and becomes a personalized learning platform. At MRU, the course plays a significant role not just serving as a site of a revived treaty relationship but becoming a knowledge bundle for the learners to explore. Chris’ vision of the Indigenous Literary Lodge involves conceptualizing Brightspace as being informed and designed by Joe’s vision. In Brightspace, now transformed into an Indigenous literary lodge, learners are presented with Joe’s stories as he experienced them through his personal learning journey and odyssey, many involving the guidance of both his visions and his elders. The digital learning environment offers learners an experience to look through another lens to experience a different way of seeing from the ones to which they have been accustomed. Thus, learners have the chance to see through both a decolonized and indigenized lens.

In April 2026, Dr. Grignard was selected as a recipient of the Innovative Pedagogies Award as part of MRU's 2026 Faculty Excellence Awards. 

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