Bridging Cultures Over-Under - A unique collaboration between two Indigenous academic enabling programs in Canada and Australia

The First Nations’ Transition Program at the University of Lethbridge has the underpinning ‘Two-Eyed Seeing’ philosophy, pedagogy and practice that closely parallels the ‘Both-Ways’ philosophy, pedagogy and practice of the Preparation for Tertiary Success (PTS) program delivered by Batchelor Institute located at Charles Darwin University (Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia). The cohorts in both programs comprise exclusively Indigenous students wishing to pursue university studies but who need to further develop their academic and skill foundation before moving forward into their chosen program. Fascinated by our extraordinarily similar and parallel experiences, we recognized that we, as educators, and our students could learn much from each other by sharing our experiences and philosophical approach, pedagogy and practice. This vision initiated the building of relationships and collaborations between ourselves and the students through educator exchanges, numerous classroom Skype sessions, and the development of a closed Facebook website. In this chapter, we share outcomes of our collaborative co-learning project Bridging Cultures Over-Under and our decolonizing strategies and best practices, as one frame for enabling Indigenous academic university success that works to decolonize the academy and turn the tide on the negative discourse and practice that perpetuates ‘Indigenous academic disadvantage’.