Every so often, the idea of a “University of the North/Arctic” pops up. Last month, it was the new Yukon Premier making the case for one. A lot of the rhetoric around the idea of a northern university has been along the lines of “other northern countries have them and it’s embarrassing that we don’t” (the Walter Gordon Foundation has issued a cute map to make this point visually).

Let’s ignore the facts that (i) the Walter Gordon map includes loads of Scandinavian universities with no particular Arctic orientation whatsoever and (ii) “everyone else is doing it” is always a weak argument. What are the merits of the proposal?

There are three good arguments in favour of the idea, which rest upon three different conceptions of the purpose of a university:  the university as agent of economic development, the university as a place of community-relevant research, and the university as an instrument of cultural sovereignty. Not all of these work in the context of the Canadian North.

Universities as places of genuine scientific research require concentrations of scientific talent and student numbers to be viable. The Canadian north, with 110,000 people (i.e., about the size of U of T and York combined) spread over 3.5 million square km, flat out can’t meet either test, so the arguments need to rest much more on cultural and community relevance.

The idea of universities as a way to safeguard culture is an interesting one, and one that’s often complacently overlooked in mainstream culture where they are more often seen as places in which to challenge culture. There’s certainly a role for this in the North – but that’s true for all of Canada’s Aboriginal cultures, not just those in polar regions. Arguably, such a task is better suited for a genuinely national First People’s university (the First Nations University of Canada in Regina, with its very local orientation, doesn’t quite meet that test yet) rather than yet another regional institution.

Perhaps the most relevant model for a Canadian Northern university is the University of Greenland based in Nuuk. It’s small – 150 full-time students and 14 full-time staff – with a very limited mandate in terms of teaching and research in local culture and languages, and professional applications thereof (e.g. journalism).

But that model might not work in Canada, where politics would almost certainly demand a three-campus institution (Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Iqaluit).  Unlike Greenland, an analogous Canadian institution would need to preserve many native cultures, not just one. It’s an interesting idea currently getting some political lift; the worry is that in the long run politics seem as likely to hinder such an institution as help it.