 So we're a division of the university that's located in Labrador that serves the needs and priorities of Labrador and of the three indigenous nations and organizations that are here. So the Labrador Institute has been in Labrador for 39 years and initially it was set up as an extension unit by Memorial University to reach people in this more remote part of the province and remote being in connection to St. John's. And one of the initial sort of needs and priorities was also working with the Inuit and Inuit of Labrador as well. So it's meeting the needs and priorities of all Labradorians but also with a specific focus on the indigenous populations in Labrador. So throughout that time, you know, there's been various programs but right now what we're really focusing on is we have a great partnership with the Nazcavite government with the Inuit Bachelor of Education program and we're really looking to develop further northern led indigenous focus programs that we can have here at the Labrador Institute. So right now we're going through a process of it's a strategic task force and a strategic revisioning of who we are. Not only in Labrador but where do we sit within the north and how do we fit into some of these larger dialogues that are happening across the country in terms of reconciliation in higher education, decolonization, northern sovereignty and research and education. You know and we're one of the only higher education presences in the north in Canada right now and there are others. I mean, Yukon College is changing into a university which is incredibly exciting and very inspirational to us. So what can we do here, you know, and what would it look like if our curriculum was informed by the Inuit nation and the Nazcavite and the Inuit what could northern led indigenous ed led education in higher learning look like in Labrador and so these are the questions that we're grappling with right now. And then simultaneously also continuing to work with our partners to, you know, look at future programs such as the Inuit Bachelor of Education program, a masters of land based learning, potential PhD options, other programs in indigenous business have come up and then we're establishing an indigenous advisory committee as well to support our future growth and our work in reconciliation and digitization in this part of the province. It's great, it's all really, I mean they're incredibly exciting important dialogues. So we get to have these really amazing kind of visioning discussions with people about, you know, what do you want, what does indigenous education mean here? And what's interesting is we're indigenous and we're north and so that comes up all the time and so people try to talk about that intersection of being in a northern remote area and an indigenous focus area with the homelands of three different nations and governments and so could curriculum and education look differently here? You know, we know we need more land based programming but do we need other things like block programming or different types of access into education that doesn't exist in more traditional higher learning environments? We have a great program for the Labrador International Indigenous Intern Program and it's a really exciting initiative with the University of the Arctic and the Labrador Institute where an indigenous student from here has the chance to go work with the University of the Arctic and the Arctic Council in Norway and Finland and spend four months, which is an incredibly transformative opportunity. So we've had two students who have gone so far and then when they come back they work with the communities in the Natsuvet, Nunituvut and across Labrador to share what they learned. So what are other circumpolar indigenous nations doing? What's the Arctic Council working on? What are strengths of Labrador that could be brought to these international forums? What are learning from international forums that could be brought here? And the exciting focus of that partnership is indigenous to indigenous learning and north to north learning. Usually a lot of focus in higher education is north to south and south to north and we were trying to do in north to north so that's been a really exciting very positive initiative that we're continuing on with. The Masters of Land Based Program, that's a better question for Sylvia because she's designed the curriculum and is running it but what we're one of the things that we've identified about ourselves at the Labrador Institute and about kind of the lands and waters that we're with is everyone has this deep commitment to place. So when we were trying to talk about what is our pedagogical approach that's different here, it's everything grows from place and everything comes from the lands and the waters. So when we're envisioning curriculum and we're envisioning working with people and working with students it's from that place-based environmentally informed foundational lands perspective that we approach pedagogy and that we approach a lot of our programming in general and research. So this program that Sylvia is developing and working with the Department of Education and Memorial University is really premise on that is how do we keep people connected to the land? How can the land inform learning? How do we have different conversations in different educational settings that are just as enriching and exciting and important as we can in a classroom or a boardroom? So I think those are things that we're very interested in continuing to develop and I mean certainly there's examples all across this country of people reclaiming education through land connection and a lot of really incredible sort of indigenous led programs that bring people to the land in higher education settings and then bring the land back into learning and I think that we need so much more of that. It helps with science, it helps with social science, it helps with culture, it helps with humanities but it also helps with people's holistic development. So he's a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual being that actually makes a more enriching learning environment than putting someone you know in a chair in a desk looking at the front of a lecture hall. Yeah and I mean I think having the opportunity to bring people together to find out how people are dealing with some of those policies and some of the challenges and some of the bureaucracies because there are I mean as soon as you say like you want to take students out on the land or you want to create a land-based classroom there's this whole risk management legal thing that kicks into place but other people have found ways around it and other people have figured out processes within that so you know being able to share those strategies are really important and then also being able to share what other people have learned so far when they've tried things and like Cape Breton University that I was at before has Unamagi College and they've done some really amazing things and made my education and land-based learning and they had an integrated science program that brought together indigenous and western approaches to science and put them together in one undergraduate degree so really amazing things you know and that's just one example of many and there's Dishinja Research and Learning University up in the Northwest Territories who everything is on the land and that's an incredible inspiration and so I think you know as we're going forward and kind of visioning our next steps in the transformation we're really looking to see what other people have already done and really sort of letting the land be that kind of foundational guidance because I think the curriculum will come but those relationships with the lands and the waters and you know the plants and the animals on those lands and waters that that doesn't come unless you're there but the curriculum can be brought to the land but the land can't always be brought to the curriculum. We also had an Inuit Bachelor of Social Work program before the Inuit Bachelor of Education program and that was another partnership with the New National Government where they had identified specific needs and said you know we would really like to have Inuit social workers working in our communities and I think that's also a really important future for higher education in Canada when we're looking at you know ways to reconcile and and have better relations and decolonize this is to have you know governments and communities be able to come to a university and say here's our identified need you know we need more teachers we need more social workers you know whatever it is more more business and entrepreneurs or lawyers or doctors or whatever it is and then have the university be able to respond and work together and say okay we can create something that that works you know a lot of universities have programs like reserve seating or you know different recruitment processes to bring people in but I think what separated the Inuit Bachelor of Social Work and the Inuit Bachelor of Education program is it's it's in the homelands of people it's a partnership with the government and it's a cohort model so it's only those students that are together and then it incorporates so much culture language history heritage all of that into the standard curriculum and that's that's a really exciting powerful approach to inspiring teachers who will then inspire their future students to have those connections so we'd really like to continue building on those type of cohort models as well I mean oftentimes when people come into say teacher education they envision themselves as teachers based on the teachers they've had and until we start training different types of teachers then we can't inspire people to become different types of educators and that's why these type of programs or like outdoor experiential ed teacher programs all of those things are so important because it creates people who look at teaching differently and who look at learning and pedagogy differently and in a more transformative way in a more holistic way and in a more environmentally informed way so then then you have students who start to see themselves differently because their teachers see them differently and then future teachers see themselves differently and so we create this whole sort of systemic change exactly yeah and I mean you see students who have teachers who care about the environment particularly in the elementary schools who care about the environment who care about culture and you see the students starting to care about it right because they're so informed and impacted by who their teacher is for you know seven hours of the day and I've even seen it with my own kids when they've had different teachers who have been really motivated by the environment or passionate by the environment is you know they they they are more sort of motivated and passionate and and it always makes me chuckle because it doesn't matter how much I try to sort of infuse their life with the environment it's like suddenly this teacher comes in and they have all of these exciting sort of opportunities and so I think we need this sort of like title change and in instructors and you know whether it's elementary high school or university you know we need university researchers who you know have their their PhDs and their research programs but are looking at pedagogy from a a lands and waters informed place-based perspective and I I think that's what the Labrador Institute really offers and our instructors and our staff are all very connected to and committed to place through our our work I mean I think the Inuit Bachelor of Education program speaks for itself right now and of course you know there's all these different metrics of success so you know we can look two years down the road five years down the road ten years down the road I think the fact that it exists is an amazing success an amazing vision of the new nasa government and the partner with the the Department of Education and the Labrador Institute I think you know when I I see the students I see them interacting in the hallways I see them presenting things I hear from their instructors I think the fact that they have come together as a cohort they've moved through this journey together they've supported each other you know they're connecting with their language and their culture they're seen as role models and their communities there's so much international connection or sort of national connection around them sort of saying you know what are you doing like this is really innovative I think that all of that is success and I think that the journey they've been on is is an incredibly powerful thing that many of us can learn from I think that a lot of the impacts won't be seen for a long time too and I think for them as well like the ability to continually do reflections on where what they've learned and where they've come from I think that will continue on but I'm really excited to see what they do in the classroom like I think this is going to be a generation of teachers and instructors and educators who really do something different in the classroom that we haven't seen before in this region and I think those ripple effects will will spread so that's that's me I mean I think there's so many successes already but it will continue on I think for the Inuit Bachelor of Education or the Inuit Bachelor of Social Work program you know all the graduates were then employed within their different regions and expertise and I think that's an incredible testament to the need of that as well and and I think um I think one of the things that we really need to to think about is how can universities respond to things like this and across the country we're in tight fiscal times with the universities but there needs to be sort of creative opportunities to work with communities or for communities to have mechanisms to be able to approach universities and say you know we would love this or we need this or can we work together whether it's at a individual class level whether it's a programmatic level whether it's a degree you know all of those things we have to find ways to work better together and to communicate more effectively so that we can actually respond and provide really exciting really innovative and rich educational opportunities that that haven't previously existed I think it's about connecting people to themselves as well like that's a really under looked opportunity in university like we often think we're educating the minds and you know we're providing a lot of learning and science and enrichment and all of those things are great but there's also this whole human component like where we're you know supporting people's development as a human being and when we're looking at some of the challenges that we're facing kind of globally you know whether it's large-scale environmental change or you know poverty or all of these grand complex challenges we need people who are holistically supported in their education so all aspects of themselves and I think that places like the Labrador Institute programs like the Unique Bachelor of Education program other ways of bringing indigenous knowledge into the classroom and or bringing the classroom to the land are the things that connect us more and I think if people have a better connection to where they are in place and where they are learning in place even if you're in an urban setting you're still in place that that actually encourages more positive human behaviors as well and I think that that's something that as we're starting to look at the Labrador Institute as a whole moving forward and transitioning is having those discussions about you know how do we support humans and human potential not just learning not just education not just science or social science or humanities how do we bring people together and I think for here a lot of that is the connection to land and culture and and waters in place and trying to free ourselves from kind of the the the bounds of you know 50 minute classroom or a three hour classroom where you know what can we do differently and what are the strengths of multiple ways of learning that we can incorporate here for a northern indigenous based program well it's interesting because I'm not a traditional knowledge holder and as a non-indigenous person when I conceptualize indigenous education for me I'm always looking at it from the university process of reconciliation and of opening our classroom walls up and opening our learning up so when I think about indigenous learning and indigenous education I think about the thousands of years of history and call it like history, culture, science like incredible science-based information understanding about the plants and lands and waters that people have and how that can be supported as its own knowledge system in a way that's that's that we're not appropriating and the way that we're also not belittling in the classroom or just adding it as an add-on you know I've sat on a lot of committees where they try to indigenous by saying okay well we'll do one unit on you know an indigenous perspective or something it's like okay we have to move beyond that and we have to see these all of these ways as a more holistic way of seeing ourselves but also seeing higher education so I don't know if I have an answer for indigenous education but I think that it's a spectrum that we're all moving and working towards and I think that what it is is an opening up of worlds and perspectives and epistemologies and ontologies because if we encounter traditional or indigenous ways of knowing and looking at the world and we truly respect and encounter it and open ourselves to it it really opens worlds and shapes minds and creates different perceptive opportunities in the world and so I think that part of the challenge that that higher education is facing is how do we actually connect with this in a way in such structured bureaucratic programming when so much of this learning is on unstructured time out on the land from elders intergenerationally you know storytelling over months and years how do we do that and I think that these are questions that this network is going to grapple with in a really interesting way and that we need sort of multiple people at the table to say you know how are we going to do this together because we have these sort of different systems and different perspectives and then we've got the bureaucracies of universities which are are big and cumbersome and different but they have a lot to offer as well and so how do we connect together so I see it as an unfolding journey I don't know what the end is but it's it's a really for me it's so inspirational and it's so impactful to have these conversations all the time with people and really when you really bring people together it's it's can be so transformative when people start to challenge boundaries and perceptions and status quo through this for the Labrador Institute I would love to have him by 10 years time but I would love to see is is a mini campus here that is northern indigenous led that is actually developed run organized supported by you know a western university a memorial university you know a university framework but is actually also co-structured and co-facilitated with the international community I would love to see everyone's needs and priorities in education in knowledge and culture and history met and I'd love to see us create and I don't know quite what it'll be but but flexible programming that fits for here and I would love to see us have programs that emerge from people's love of land and love of Labrador and love of culture and and have that grow and emerge into really invigorating northern programs you know and and be very interdisciplinary very multidisciplinary co-taught by knowledge keepers I would love to have elders as professors full professors not not elders in residence I would love to see classes co-taught with multiple knowledge systems I'd love to see a lot of land-based learning lots of field courses you know just students in outdoor classrooms you know on the lands on the waters and then also a lot of interactive hands-on connections with things and I would love to see our curriculums and our programs be able to actually tangibly make a difference in the communities that we're working so you know programs that are structured to to actually work on local issues so whether it's food security or climate change or you know northern boreal agriculture or you know whatever kind of the needs are here that the programs would actually have students that are working and responding and are out in the community and are working as part of their their degree I don't know what will actually come out but I would love to see those and I mean when I vision and I dream and I think there's so many examples across Canada people who are already doing things like this so I just think wouldn't it be amazing to have so many of these things come together from a northern and a Labrador perspective um because I think it would I think people would love it here and I think it would work really well here I would love to do something like that yeah but I mean there's so many examples that we can draw from and and I'm hoping that our year-long kind of process will be learning a lot from what's happening across the country and and other really there's so many people out there who are dreaming of a better system of education and we have so much to learn from from those people and those visions yeah yeah and I think what's really interesting about us is you know we're still fluid and adaptable and and you know we're part of the university system and we've been here for a long time so we're kind of embedded but we are still growing and trying to kind of figure out so I think it's I think in many ways we're very very lucky because we have these already present structures and relationships and and opportunities and ongoing research and educational programs that we can really build from and we can really work together with people to say like where where do we go what would it look like what would you what do you dream in 10 years and and and trying to have those those abilities to make it happen rather than trying to start something brand new we can continue to kind of build and grow so it's a really exciting opportunity