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Category: Indigenous PSE

Three Unconnected Thoughts on PSE and Aboriginal Peoples

1)      Changing Disciplines In the last five years or so, I’ve seen a real change in the way Aboriginal students are moving through the country’s PSE system.  For a whole number of reasons, aboriginal students were traditionally concentrated either in humanities disciplines like history and sociology, or they were in disciplines which led to careers in social services or direct band employment (child care, police foundations, education, nursing).  STEM and Business fields simply weren’t in the picture.  That’s changed substantially over

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May 27, 2016 3 Comments

Tenure and Aboriginal Culture

You may or may not have noticed a story in the National Post over the weekend relating to a scholar at the University of British Columbia named Lorna June McCue, who has brought a human rights tribunal case against UBC for denying her tenure.  The basics of the story are that UBC didn’t think she’d produced enough – or indeed, any – peer-reviewed research to be awarded tenure in the Faculty of Law; Ms. McCue argues that since she adheres to an

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January 26, 2016 6 Comments

Costing an Inuit University

There is an interesting initiative afoot to create something called the Inuit Nunangat University.  A workshop report on the concept is here.  Today, I thought I would contribute to the debate by looking at what such an initiative might cost. Some background: the idea of an Arctic university is not new.  Many people have noted that Canada is the only member of the Arctic Council that does not have a university north of the Arctic Circle.  This largely has to

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September 4, 2015 No Comments

Truth and Reconciliation

Earlier this month, Justice Murray Sinclair released the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).  There are some elements of it that make for interesting reading from a post-secondary perspective. (To international readers: for a period of roughly a century, the Government of Canada provided education to First Nations Students through a series of “residential schools”, which were mostly run by one of the main churches.  These places were horrific; over that century, or so, tens of thousands

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June 18, 2015 5 Comments

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa

A couple of weeks ago, I promised I would tell you the story of Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, the entirely Maori-run polytechnic with over 35,000 students.  So here it is. The 1970s saw significant Aboriginal cultural revivals in many parts of the world.  Aboriginal higher education – or at least the access of aboriginal peoples to mainstream higher education – was a significant part of that.  In Canada, the struggle was mostly about gaining a foothold in mainstream institutions; in

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September 26, 2014 No Comments

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One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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