Reunion brings graduates back to the nest

Page 15

Former NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) students and instructors of the business programs sponsored by the Women of the Metis Nation and the Asokan Project were invited back to school to take part in Reunion 2004-Back to the Nest. The reunion conference ran from Aug. 20 to 22 and celebrated Aboriginal women's culture and training, as well as Edmonton's 100th anniversary.

Activities for the weekend included a welcome reception, a series of culturally focused workshops entitled Classrooms Without Quizzes, as well as a tour of Fort Edmonton Park.

"The purpose of the event is to celebrate the success of the students who have gone through the program, for one thing. But we've tied it to the 100th anniversary because we haven't seen a lot of Aboriginal events associated with the city's 100th anniversary and we wanted to highlight the contributions of Aboriginal people to the city's history, particularly the contributions of Aboriginal women," said Tracy Friedel, co-coordinator of the business administration/accounting certificate program currently being sponsored by the Asokan Project, which has seen just over 260 students graduate.

The business administration/accounting certificate program is unique in that co-ordinators keep the class sizes small to promote a bond among the students. The program also incorporates a lot of Aboriginal teachings into the classes. Friedel said that about 20 students are accepted into the program each year.

"The idea [is] that they're able to go through the training as a small group, together as a cohort group. The group itself lends a lot of support and that's the kind of thing that helps them. They're not sort of thrown into the mainstream population here at NAIT," said Friedel.

Susan Troniak graduated from the program in 2003 and said that both the cultural teachings and the smaller numbers helped to ease her back into college life.

"Both NAIT and Asokan run just absolutely excellent programs. I think they really prepare us for the workplace, as far as the NAIT programs, business administration/accounting. The Asokan programs tie us closer to our communities and allows us to delve into both cultural components and more our own personal history," said Troniak.

"For myself just growing up in an era where being of an Aboriginal background wasn't promoted, the cultural aspects, a lot of it was lost in our family, just because of the lack of wanting to discuss history. [The program] allowed me to see the whys and wheres of how it all came about," said Troniak, who now works at Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.

The main attraction of the reunion weekend was the Classrooms Without Quizzes workshops. Here, conference attendees choose a number of culturally focused workshops that offered them new teachings, with no quiz afterwards. Some of the topics included environmental health, Metis traditional dance, digital nature photography, learning to make a medicine bag and Aboriginal stand-up comedy.