{"id":85699,"date":"2020-10-08T15:03:21","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T12:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-yukonu-the-first-university-in-northern-canada-is-finding-its-way\/"},"modified":"2020-10-08T15:03:21","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T12:03:21","slug":"how-yukonu-the-first-university-in-northern-canada-is-finding-its-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-yukonu-the-first-university-in-northern-canada-is-finding-its-way\/","title":{"rendered":"#How YukonU, the first university in northern Canada, is finding its way"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#How YukonU, the first university in northern Canada, is finding its way<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n This year, 17-year-old Brooklyn Massie had to make a choice that was previously unavailable to Yukon residents: whether to earn her degree at a university in southern Canada or right at home in Whitehorse.<\/p>\n

She decided to join the incoming class of Yukon University, the former vocational school and college that last spring became Canada\u2019s first university north of the 60th parallel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels great to be part of the first year of the first university in northern Canada,\u201d says Massie, who is a member of the Ta\u2019an Kw\u00e4ch\u2019\u00e4n Council, one of 11 self-governing First Nations in Yukon. Her grandmother is a former chief of Ta\u2019an Kw\u00e4ch\u2019\u00e4n and her father serves on its council. A summer job with Ta\u2019an Kw\u00e4ch\u2019\u00e4n wildlife officials sparked Massie\u2019s interest in a possible career with her Whitehorse-based First Nation. \u201cI want to help my people,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Both Massie and her father, Jay Massie, see her liberal arts program at YukonU, which includes a course on First Nations governance, as a step toward that goal. \u201cI am hoping my daughters get the education they need to be part of the broader community, the Yukon and, of course, our First Nation,\u201d says Jay. \u201cWe [at Ta\u2019an Kw\u00e4ch\u2019\u00e4n] are not any different than most First Nations [that see] youth as the key to success going forward. Now we have a strong resource here in Whitehorse where we can give them the tools to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0The Auntie who helps Indigenous students adjust to college life<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Defined by its \u201cin the North, by the North, for the North\u201d identity, YukonU\u2019s ambitions range from tackling climate change and sustainable resource extraction to Indigenous reconciliation. The school has a collaborative relationship with the territory\u2019s First Nations, and Indigenous students account for 28 per cent of 1,250 full- and part-time students. The First Nations name three of 17 university governing board members, and the academic senate must ensure 30 per cent First Nations, M\u00e9tis or Inuit membership. University staff and for-credit students complete a mandatory course in Indigenous knowledge, history and culture, while First Nations representatives advise the president on support programs and curriculum. This fall, James Allen, former chief of Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, was named YukonU\u2019s chancellor, a position that includes voting rights on the board.<\/p>\n

But consultation between the school and Yukon\u2019s First Nations has not always gone smoothly. When Karen Barnes joined then-Yukon College in 2008 as a vice-president, her academic colleagues were at an impasse with the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, who had proposed a for-credit program to strengthen the managerial capacity of Indigenous-run governments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was quite a bit of tension; the [two] groups were very positional,\u201d recalls Barnes, later a two-term president who campaigned for university status. \u201cOur group was very insistent that they had full academic control, and the First Nations representatives were saying, \u2018We need to have input into this, and flexibility.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n

Risking ruffled feathers, Barnes took over the negotiations from her staff. Over 18 months, she met with a top education representative of Champagne and Aishihik and a senior official of the Yukon government (which had oversight over the college) until the three hammered out a certificate in First Nations governance and public administration in 2010.<\/p>\n

The certificate represented a powerful tool for Indigenous leaders and managers to breathe life into hard-won self-governing agreements. \u201cWe saw we were losing bench strength at the senior [government administration] level,\u201d says Champagne and Aishihik chief Steve Smith, whose father, Elijah Smith, led a lands-claim delegation of Yukon First Nations chiefs to Ottawa in 1973.<\/p>\n

In addition, the certificate provided flexible learning for working adults, short periods of in-classroom learning and tutor support at home. The certificate later became the foundation for a signature YukonU program, a three-year bachelor of arts in Indigenous governance that yielded its first two graduates last spring.<\/p>\n

One of them is Teresa Samson, the heritage manager of the Nacho Nyak Dun First Nation\u2019s government, who completed the certificate and later returned to pursue the bachelor\u2019s degree. The 41-year-old mother of two studied from home in Mayo (one of 12 community campuses), describing it as a \u201cvery empowering\u201d experience. \u201cI have got an education with relevant information I can use in my own First Nation,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Barnes says the discussions between First Nations leaders and the school on curricula reflect a \u201csymbiotic\u201d relationship rarely seen in Canadian post-secondary education. Smith agrees. \u201cWe are far beyond the rest of Canada in terms of our co-management [of programs],\u201d he says. He adds: \u201cIf you want to involve us, you need to at least app<\/a>reciate we have a different way in which we look at the world\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Yes, we want to have a good contemporary education, but it also has to be grounded in our way.\u201d<\/p>\n

In September, Michael DeGagn\u00e9 resigned after only three months as YukonU president to become head of Indspire, a national charity for Indigenous education. Stating it was \u201cdisappointed\u201d at the news<\/a>, Yukon named Maggie Matear, vice-president of university services, as interim president pending the selection of a new leader in a year. \u201cThere is a lot to look forward to and a lot to still be excited about,\u201d says Matear. \u201cThis is a blip.\u201d<\/p>\n

One priority is a new strategic plan to be drafted with Indigenous and other stakeholders to identify where YukonU should focus its energy over the next five years. \u201cWe are developing a reputation for doing really innovative research around climate, sustainability issues and Indigenous reconciliation,\u201d says Matear. \u201cI hope our elevation to university status will attract attention from others [in Canada] so they will see what we are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, university designation also matters to Yukon\u2019s future economic development.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The entrance to the main campus (Photograph by Crystal Schick)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the missing thing we have been looking for,\u201d says Michael Hale, president and chief operating officer of Northern Vision Development, a private real estate partnership that was founded in 2004 and has 40 per cent First Nations ownership. \u201c[Yukon has] been very much about mining, tourism and government, but we have always been looking for other sustainable drivers that will have a material impact on how we forecast our future.\u201d Unlike an aging mine, says Hale, a university serves as a sustainable resource to attract and retain talent in the North, spurring demand for housing and employment.<\/p>\n

Yukon Deputy Premier and Minister of Economic Development Ranj Pillai says the former college has already done \u201can exceptional job in bringing in research dollars.\u201d He thinks additional funding for local university researchers, not just those who briefly fly in from southern institutions, \u201cwill light so many key parts of our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pillai is banking on YukonU making its mark on climate change research. Last year, YukonU received $368,000 from the federal government (and a separate $400,000 from the Bank of Montreal) to study thawing permafrost. Ottawa has also pledged $26 million for a new science<\/a> building, scheduled to open in 2023, with programming that blends Western scientific and Indigenous knowledge. According to the territorial government, Yukon\u2019s average temperature increased by 2.3\u00b0 C between 1948 and 2016, and winter temperatures increased by 4.3\u00b0 C over the same period, raising alarms for building design, food security and traditional hunting in remote communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we deal with wildfires and threats of flooding, how do we adapt and build infrastructure that will last?\u201d asks Pillai. \u201c[The answer is] information and best practices we can share with other parts of the globe that haven\u2019t experienced this to the same extent yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those previously forced to leave home for higher education, a made-in-Yukon university steeped in territorial history and Indigenous perspectives is long overdue. \u201cThere is something very difficult about having to move thousands of miles away, without your family support and without any relevance to the community you come from,\u201d says Tosh Southwick, a former deputy chief of Kluane First Nation, who earned degrees at the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia before returning home. As outgoing associate vice-president of Indigenous engagement and reconciliation of YukonU, Southwick works with First Nations on self-governance and academic success for youth. \u201cThe creation of Yukon University is not just good for Yukon First Nations and the Yukon, it is good for all of Canada,\u201d she says. \u201cWe have for generations seen so much expertise come from the south and people from the south being asked to solve northern problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

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