The Alumni Association supports internationally renowned poet Ishion Hutchinson to present a public reading and Q&A from his November 2023 collection School of Instructions, which commemorates the experiences of Black Jamaican soldiers in the British West Indies Regiment during the First World War.
The public reading was held at Currie Hall and was open to the entire RMC community. Mr Hutchinson also provided a Q&As session with individual sections of core courses in the ECC department..
Mr Hutchinson, born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, is a distinguished poet and faculty member at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, USA. His acclaimed new collection, which draws on autobiographical and archival sources, including at the Imperial War Museum in London, UK, engages with complex themes of heroism, patriotism, and racism, in the context of military service during wartime. Given the prominence of the Great War in Canada’s national memory, Mr Hutchinson’s book is ideally placed to spark conversations and reflection about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Commonwealth militaries, against the backdrop of ongoing conversations about culture change at RMC.
The English Culture and Communications Department has for many years provided Indigenous Knowledge and Learning (IKL) workshops for students in all sections of our first-year core English courses.
These workshops are held at RMC during class time and normally over a 4-6 week period in the Winter term, now in the recently re-numbered ENE112 (SSH) and ENE122 (Science and Engineering) classes.
The workshops provide students with an opportunity to engage with Indigenous Elder Bernard Nelson and spouse Tammy of the Eabametoong First Nation. These IKL workshops help to further the College’s aims to promote Indigenous knowledge and learning and further support the English, Culture, and Communication Department’s commitment to expanding students’ cultural intelligence and sensitivity.