Educator to receive honor

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Athabasca University will confer an honorary Doctor of Letters on Marie Smallface-Marule of the Blood Reserve on June 8. She is president of Red Crow Community College in southern Alberta, and has been developing the institution to meet the needs of Aboriginal students, as opposed to earlier mainstream education that encouraged assimilation and indoctrination. The first group of Native teachers trained in Blackfoot curriculum development, for example, will graduate this June. The college also hopes to link First Nations knowledge and culture to other programs such as nursing, agriculture and science. Smallface-Marule has served as a community and literacy officer in Zambia, Central Africa, as executive director for the National Indian Brotherhood. She was presented with the 1995 National Aboriginal Achievement Award in education.