UBC updates website to include land acknowledgement

On July 5, UBC updated its main website to include a land acknowledgement.

The change comes after Morteza Rezaei, a recent archival studies masters graduate, reached out to the university after finding it did not include land acknowledgements on every university website.

In an interview with The Ubyssey, Rezaei said, as an international student, he didn’t know much about Canadian Indigenous communities until Musqueam Elder Larry Grant gave a land acknowledgment at a UBC orientation.

“The first time I heard about the Indigenous people of Canada … was when I participated in the graduate studies orientation,” he said.

One of the goals in UBC’s Indigenous Strategic Plan is to facilitate and encourage UBC community members to be aware of the unceded status of the lands UBC operates on. The footer now acknowledges the ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people and Syilx Okanagan Nation that the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses are located on, respectively.

Rezaei said some UBC subdomain websites, like the School of Information, already include land acknowledgements.

Associate Vice-president Communications Rick Hart, wrote in a statement to The Ubyssey that “these decisions must be made respectfully and in consultation with the representative communities, which is what we are in the process of doing.”

Hart also wrote that including land acknowledgements across thousands of UBC’s decentralized websites requires an upgrade for all pages using UBC’s CLF (Common Look and Feel) design principle.

The CLF describes the interfaces basic elements like colours, layout, buttons and menus.

“This is a complex endeavour. We are actively supporting website owners in their creation of land acknowledgements on an individual basis while we work through those larger technical issues,” wrote Hart.

After this interaction with UBC, Rezaei is hopeful for things going forward.

“It is a good starting point,” said Rezaei.

“When there are some simple things you can do … just do it ... and try to make it better every day.”