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About Andrea: 

Andrea Menard LLB, LLM, she/they/ᐃᐧᔭᐋᐧᐤ wiyawâw is Métis from the abolished Red River Settlement on Treaty 1 (Métis family names are: Bruneau, Carrière, Landry, Guerin, LaRoque); her great grandmother attended Roman Catholic Residential Day School with her siblings. Andrea also has settler origins and is English, French and Scottish. She is a white-passing Indigenous person, and a Métis Nation of Alberta citizen. As a Lead Educational Developer at the University of Alberta’s Centre for Teaching and Learning and Office of the Vice Provost, she is entrusted with the critical task of transforming and Indigenizing academic spaces by applying Indigenous ethics, teachings, practises and laws. Drawing from over 25 years of experience working with Indigenous Nations across Treaties 4, 6, 7, 8, and 10, the Métis Nation of Alberta, the Métis Settlements, the T’exelc Nation, and the Northern Secwēpemc te Qelmūcw on unceded lands in British Columbia, as well as her own lived experiences as a Métis person living between two worlds, she guides other professionals towards how to build relationships with local Indigenous communities and how to Indigenize and decolonize structures that currently hold systems that are not equitable. As a professor at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law, she designed the groundbreaking course, “Reconciliation and Lawyers” which became an Indigenous model on how to apply Indigenous laws ethically into legal practise and how to represent Indigenous clients effectively with respect. Additionally, she is a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, where she co-leads and co-designed a new Indigenous dispute resolution course entitled, “In Search of Reconciliation Through Dispute Resolution” where students explore how Indigenous legal traditions and values can be incorporated into dispute resolution practises and how to respect the importance of Indigenous worldviews. Andrea's expertise extends beyond post-secondary academic spheres, as she also designed “The Path (Alberta)- Your Journey Through Indigenous Canada” with NVision Insight Group Inc. which is a mandatory online Indigenous cultural competency course for all lawyers across Alberta through the Law Society of Alberta; as well as co-created another education module called, “Indigenous Peoples and the Criminal Legal System” that is an online course for lawyers to take across the nation through the Canadian Bar Association. Andrea was named the Top 25 Most Influential Lawyer for Canadian Lawyer Magazine, 2022 and Best in Law across Canada, New Zealand and Australia, 2022.

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