The governing body of the Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) has removed Vianne Timmons from her positions as president and vice chancellor after a CBC investigation suggested she overemphasized a claim to indigenous ancestry.. Vianne Timmons .Board of Regents chair Glenn Barnes announced Timmons was let go in a statement to MUN’s gazette on Thursday afternoon..“As per the terms of her contract, Dr. Timmons' appointment is being ended on a without cause basis.”.“The board appreciates Dr. Timmons' contributions to the university during her time with Memorial, particularly her efforts to advance the university's strategic priorities. We extend our best wishes in all her future endeavours.”.Timmons was appointed president and vice chancellor of MUN on April 1, 2020. She served the same roles at the University of Regina from 2008 to 2019. Her departure followed a CBC investigation published on March 8 that challenged her identification with the Bras d’Or Mi’kmaq First Nation. The group formed in 2007 but is not recognized by the Union of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq or the federal government..Timmons told CBC she did not claim to be indigenous but that her great-great-great-grandmother, Marie Benoit, was Mi’kmaw..A genealogist consulted by the CBC concluded that Benoit was one-sixteenth Mi’kmaw and was descended from two Mi’kmaw ancestors born in Nova Scotia in the 1600s. According to CBC, Mothers of Acadia, a group that works to test descendants of the maternal forebears in Acadia, carried out Mitochondrial DNA testing that showed Benoit was of European descent..The investigation prompted a statement from MUN’s board of regents on March 13 saying it would form a roundtable of indigenous leaders..“While our initial understanding was that president Timmons did not claim indigenous identity, we have received a lot of feedback from the community,” said Barnes in the statement..“We have received important questions about the president's actions, and we believe we have a responsibility to indigenous peoples and a fiduciary duty as a board to explore these questions further.” The board told the CBC in an emailed statement Thursday that it would maintain the roundtable to aid the university’s indigenization process. Meanwhile, MUN’s faculty association called on the board to hire an expert on indigenous identity to look into the matter..“Memorial cannot investigate itself,” said the faculty association release..“The administration and the Board of Regents have yet to apologize for what has happened here.”.The release endorsed efforts by the Office of Indigenous Affairs and the Indigenous Advisory Committee “to address the harms this situation is causing for indigenous members of the Memorial community and the province more broadly.”.The Innu Nation issued a press release to say broader issues of diversity and indigenous participation needed to be addressed..“This includes the need for a process to address the growing problem of people and groups who wrongly claim to be indigenous and how. It is clear that MUN can no longer sit on the sidelines on this issue and must, like other academic institutions in Canada, take proactive steps to address this problem.”.Before her appointment to the U of R, Timmons was a professor and vice president at the University of Prince Edward Island. She was appointed as an officer of the Officer of Canada in 2017. In 2018, she was appointed to the independent advisory board for Senate appointments as a Saskatchewan representative. In March 2019, she was appointed to the board of VIA Rail Canada..Because Timmons was fired without cause from her positions at MUN, she will receive severance. Neil Bose, former academic vice president, is succeeding Timmons for a two-year term or until a permanent replacement is recruited.
