New faculty member in Arts: Dr. Erin Millions
Wed. Mar. 20, 2024
Congratulations to our new faculty members in the Faculty of Arts! We look forward to introducing each of them to you in the coming weeks.
Here we feature Dr. Erin Millions, Assistant Professor in the Department of History.
“I'm delighted she’s returned to the University of Winnipeg,” states Dr. Tracy Whalen, Acting Dean of Arts, speaking of Dr. Erin Millions, new tenure-track professor in History.
Dr. Tracy Whalen, Acting Dean of Arts, speaks highly of Dr. Millions contributions in academia to date. “Dr. Millions is dedicated to community-engaged research and communication, a commitment that makes her a tremendous teacher, researcher, and participant in public life. I’m delighted she’s returned to the University of Winnipeg, this time as a tenure-track professor in History!”
Welcome Dr. Millions and thank you for sharing about yourself with us!
Dr. Erin Millions (Bio)
Dr. Erin Millions (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Winnipeg. Originally from north-central Saskatchewan, Dr. Millions attended the University of Saskatchewan and University of Calgary before relocating to Winnipeg to complete her PhD at the University of Manitoba. She is a settler historian whose research centers on Indigenous children and families to explore histories of Indigenous education and health in 19th- and 20th-century Canada and the larger British Empire. Her current research projects include a study of the 19th-century education of Métis children in western Canada, Central Canada, and England and Scotland, which will be published as a book by the University of Manitoba Press. A newer project assesses the work of Barbara Johnstone, a Winnipeg museum curator and heritage practitioner who leveraged her own ‘fur trade’ kin and communities ties in the 1950s and 1960s to make significant contributions to Métis, First Nations, and fur trade archival and material culture collections in Manitoba and Ottawa.
Dr. Millions’ work also includes translating Indigenous histories to public audiences through community-engaged public history projects like the Manitoba Indigenous Tuberculosis History Project (awarded the Public History Prize by the Canadian Historical Association in 2023), Indigenous Afternoons in the Archive (awarded a 2021 Manitoba Day Award), the Welcoming Winnipeg Initiative, and the Canadian Geographic Paths to Reconciliation website. In addition to past work as a contract instructor at the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba in the Departments of History and Indigenous Studies, Dr. Millions has worked as a public historian and historical consultant for Parks Canada, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and the BBC.
We've invited our new faculty members to answer some questions of their choice. Here is what Dr. Millions had to say!
Arts: What course are you most looking forward to teaching at UWinnipeg – and why?
I was looking forward to getting back to teaching, period! Before returning to the University of Winnipeg to take up my current role in July 2023, I was working for the federal government and had stepped away from teaching for the past two years. I really missed teaching and it’s delightful to be back in the classroom with students. I teach primarily Indigenous history courses that fulfill the university ICR requirement and I enjoy exploring different ways to engage in learning with students in those first-year and second-year courses. I’m also looking to teach an honours/grad level course in the next few years about Commemorating Indigenous Histories that will bring together my research background in Indigenous histories, my teaching experience, and public history practice in the classroom. I’m thinking through how the class output for the course might be group public history project.
Arts: What was one thing you learned as an undergraduate that was/has been really important to you – and why?
I would say there were two key things that I learned as an undergraduate about being an historian, but they are connected. The first was to write clearly, engagingly, and with minimal academic jargon. In other words, to write for audiences both inside and outside of the university. This has come in handy when applying for grants and scholarships, when I had to explain my research to people who might not know anything about my field. It also connects to teaching, and being able to explain verbally and in writing complex ideas in clear and accessible language. And this has been central to my employment as an historian outside of academia, where most often my work involved writing about history for the public or for non-historians.
The second key thing that I learned in my undergraduate studies is that academic historians need to take the initiative to share their research outside of the university. This is more common now, but certainly was not understood as a key role of academics when I was an undergrad. I have always carried that lesson with me. As a settler scholar who researches and teaches Indigenous histories, and particularly Indigenous histories that exist at the intersections of Indigenous worlds and European/Canadian colonialism, my work is rooted in relationships and accountability to the peoples whose histories I research and teach. I have a responsibility go where I am invited and share what I have learned.