"As the Elder said, some knowledges we can’t know." — Margaret Kovach (2006)
Ionah M. Elaine Scully is Cree-Métis and Irish of the Michel First Nation whose traditional land encompasses areas east of Jasper National Park (pictured left) in what is now referred to as Alberta, Canada in Treaty 6 territory.
A recipient of Syracuse University's (SU) competitive Graduate Fellowship, Scully is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Cultural Foundations of Education (CFE) in the School of Education at SU on unceded Onondaga lands in what is now commonly known as Syracuse, New York.
Scully's research involves public scholarship, storytelling, Indigenous methodologies, land pedagogy, and Two Spirit critiques. Their dissertation research excavates Two Spirit narratives of land-based relationships to ask questions about Indigenous concepts of time and futurity in Indigenous, decolonizing, and land pedagogies. It informs resurgent practices in education for gender justice and for Indigenous youth, communities, and nation (re)building.
This passion for liberatory, antiracist, land-based, and collaborative education informs their classroom and other teaching philosophy and style. Applying Indigenous epistemologies of collaboration, Scully's teaching style is holistic to encourage multi-sensory learning, mitigates classroom hierarchies, and directly addresses equity issues and power dynamics to move learning toward antiracist ends. Scully believes education is a practice of freedom (hooks, 1994, Teaching to Transgress) and encourages students to think critically by asking questions about assumptions, resisting binary debates, and merging theory with practice to take action for a more just and equitable future in the field of education. This praxis in teaching has been met receptively. Scully has been recently nominated for a Teaching Assistant Award (2021) and a number of students from Scully's classes continue to reach out for letters of recommendation, mentorship, and other support. Of note, Scully is currently supervising a student from a prior semester on an independent study project that examines Indigenous feminist thought in educational practices.
Scully's research and other work is mentored by Dr. Gretchen Lopez, Director of SU's Intergroup Dialogue Program and Tenured Faculty in SU's Women's and Gender Studies (WGS) Department as well as in CFE. Dr. Danika Medak-Saltzman, Assistant Professor and Dr. Himika Bhattacharya, Tenured Faculty in WGS also advise Scully's research and related projects. Under the supervision of Dr. Lopez, Scully is a facilitator and member of the Intergroup Dialogue Team and most recently developed a new curriculum for the program, the first in a number of years, that employs land, Two Spirit, and other Indigenous pedagogies to cultivate communities of care and learning across difference. This work and related research has been highly valued and Scully's research on it was invited for publication in the Seneca Falls Dialogue Journal, a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal as well as keynote for presentation at the 2020 New York Six Spectrum LGBT Conference.
Awarded the 2019-2020 Publicly Active Graduate Education (PAGE) fellowship and SU's LGBT Resource Center Social Justice Award in 2016, Scully's research is public-facing, community-based, and praxis-oriented. A long time community organizer on labor struggles, antiracist work including with Black Lives Matter in Syracuse, and on nation rebuilding efforts within their community of the Michel First Nation, Scully's research bridges scholarship with community knowledge and wealth. Scully now Co-Directs the 2020-2021 PAGE Fellowship and is a Co-Founder and organizer of the Resilient Indigenous Action Collective.
Scully graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a Bachelor of Arts in Labor History and Writing with an emphasis on Native Women's History. Scully also holds Graduate Certificates in Advanced Study in WGS from SU and Conflict Resolution from the Maxwell School at SU.
For over a decade, Scully has been a professional dancer and dance instructor who has been one of the most sought-after teachers and performers in the region, coaching students to excel in their own dance goals or to join Scully's dance company. In Scully's spare time, dancing, hiking, decorating, and spending time with Carmine and Lily (two other-than-human feline kin) are their favorite activities.