Patricia Doyle-Bedwell

Patricia Doyle-Bedwell is a Mi’kmaq woman, lawyer and writer. She has a BA with Honours in Sociology, a Juris Doctor, and a Masters in Law degree from Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law. She works on equity issues on campus and in the broader community. She served as TYP director from 1998-2014. She believes in education and hopes that all TYP students succeed in reaching their goals.

She has published several papers on Aboriginal women, employment equity, education and leadership. She has also presented papers at conferences around the world.

Along with serving as the Chair of the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women for ten years, Patricia’s community work also includes working closely with:

• Mi'kmaq communities
• Native Women Association of Canada
• Women and the Law
• the United Nations on Women and Aboriginal rights. 

For her LLM thesis, Patricia focused on compensation for residential school victims. She directed the Indigenous Black and Mi'kmaq Initiative at Dalhousie Law School and became the first MI'kmaq woman to teach there. She is also the only Mi'kmaq woman to earn tenure at Dalhousie University. Patricia has taught Indigenous Peoples and International Human rights, Indigenous Peoples and Natural Resources, Constitutional Law, Public Law, and Aboriginal Peoples and the Law. During her most recent sabbatical, she researched issues of Aboriginal education, Indigenous knowledge, barriers that prevent Aboriginal peoples from gaining access to post secondary education. CBC also featured Patricia as one of the "Best Minds of our Time." Dalhousie nominated her for the Diamond Jubilee award which she received in 2012. Patricia has worked on many boards and commissions during her career.

Patricia believes strongly in education and creating a safe space for Aboriginal students to learn and to thrive while at University. Teaching Native studies from a MI'kmaq perspective offers students the opportunity to develop strong academic skills while learning about the history of Indigenous peoples. Patricia recently had her paper on Employment equity included in Canadian Women Studies: An Introductory Reader published by InAnna Publications, Toronto Ont, 2015. Patricia has also done extensive media interviews as an expert on Aboriginal Law, Human Rights, and education to name a few. Patricia is married to George Doyle-Bedwell and they have one son.