 Hi, I'm Joanne Goodpipe. I'm here with the School of Business and Public Administration. I'm here to talk about our Hospitality, Tourism and Gaming Entertainment Management Program. I am an assistant professor. I've been here for 15 years and with the program for at least 10 of those years. Can you describe your program? Well, the one we're going to talk about today is the Hospitality, Tourism and Gaming Entertainment Management Program. This program is a five-course certificate program. Originally, it was set up for when gaming first started about 20 years ago, 20 plus years ago. It was set up to build capacity for First Nations gaming and because the casinos were opening quite quickly and what we needed was more people with education and management. So we set up a certificate program. We worked with the University of Nevada, Reno. We had the late Dr. Edington come because they have a program and so we modeled our classes after what they were doing in Las Vegas and Reno, which is of course, as you know, the gaming hub right. So we did that and so we have right now we have seven courses in this program. We actively teach five of them. They are Introduction to Hospitality, Tourism and Gaming, Introduction to Marketing in the Hospitality, Tourism and Gaming. Also, we look at human resources and introduction to commercial gaming as well as an overview at the end about sort of strategic management in this area. So a lot of our courses are very case-based. We do have textbooks that when we first begin, it's an overview of the whole area, which is gaming is also related to tourism. It's also related to tourism hotels. They're all interrelated. So we start with the showing students sort of the big scope, then we narrow it and then we open it again so that they get an idea of what this whole tourism gaming area is about. And Richard Missons teaches a 406 and he's a very experienced teacher. He's been here for gosh over 25 years. In his class, which is the last class, they look at overall and we look at this program from a management perspective and that is what is unique about it. There are other programs teaching about hospitality tourism, but we're looking at managers. That's what we want is to help students learn about what it is to make decisions. How do you make decisions? To think about themselves, to think about other people and to think about the whole specter of that. And so when you make a decision, you've got to expand your whole knowledge of everything that you know. So decision making, the first thing a lot of people do is black and white. If I were to say, you know, ask you, do you like this or do you like that, you'd know, right? You'd know. But in teaching decision making and management, it's like, okay, pause. Think about your target market. Think about your employees. Think about the future. Think long term. Be very strategic about anything that you do. So that's what we do with this program. We want students to leave thinking about more than just the now and the here. So your target audience is students? Students. Well, yeah. Yeah, we actually currently we have it was originally intended for people in the gaming industry. So we have a CCE Center for Continuing Education who will admit students through that stream. So if you're coming into the program, specifically to take the five courses, you would go through CCE and they do our admitting. And then we teach the courses and then they graduate with a certificate through CCE, but also with us. However, we also have the option of students that are already registered in classes can also take our classes. So sometimes students will be doing an administration degree, and they'll take these as electives. Well, actually, if you're taking administration, admin 261, you have to take that course. So you're taking the first course. You may as well take the other four. You'll graduate with your administration degree, plus a certificate in hospitality, tourism, gaming, entertainment management. So it is for students, but it's also for industry. So industry usually comes in through CCE. And right now we have two streams currently. We have a group from the SIGA. I'm trying to think of where they're all located. They're located throughout Saskatchewan, and they're actually managers. They're taking the courses like an evaluation to see what's relevant, what's not, and how it can help their employees. And then we have another group from Saskatoon Tribal Council that are taking the courses. Now they're separate. Like right now, like Richard and I will work with the students who are from like Saskatoon Tribal Council or SIGA. They'll, if like say in the fall, we've got to admin 261. U of R students can access it. First Nations students, university students can access. Anybody can take the course. However, this group is specific to they want to get the certificate. So Richard and I will work with these students specifically this group and make sure that they graduate in a timely manner. Whereas the other students are doing their degree. So they're, they're going to graduate say in four years. So they'll just take the classes as they come up. So it's really, there's no age group. Well, I suppose you have to be 19 because you can't work in a casino unless you're 19. Or what are the program's learning objectives? The learning objectives of this program are number one, building capacity. We want to build capacity in the casinos for managers. We want to help people further their education. Realistically, if you've been working for say 10 years and you haven't taken a university class, it can be very scary. The thought of university can make people go, oh, I don't think I can do it. However, this certificate actually helps people ladder into a degree. So they can take the certificate and they go, oh, that wasn't so bad. University is not that scary. Because some of our students who are taking the certificate are, you know, in their 30s, 40s, maybe even 50s and older, I don't know how old they are, and have never taken any university classes. And we do have students who have taken the certificate and are now applying to get into the business program. So it gives them an opportunity to experience what it is to take a university class, but also gives them confidence and says, hey, you know what, keep going. So it's build a capacity and I think any form of education is really valuable. And I think personally, I do believe that it helps people really see that there's other options. You know, they can carry on and say, hey, I accomplished this. What, in your opinion, makes it an example of excellence in Indigenous education? Oh, absolutely. That is because our target is casinos and casinos and our SIGA casinos, which are, you know, they have a target of 70% Aboriginal people. So we're going rate to, with this program, rate to our people and saying, here, this is a program you can take. And I think that makes it excellence in helping and growing our communities. How do you measure the success of your program? Measure the success. Well, that's a good question. We look at our graduates. However, we look at the graduates from the program. However, we also have a lot of people from who take the courses as part of like electives. So that's difficult to say because they might take the courses as electives through you're taking a business degree or science or whatever you can take it as an elective. They'll take this course and then they might take the admin 261 and 262, which we leave open for anyone. If you're going to go further, then you need to be in the gaming program. So most students will take the first two courses and then they'll carry on doing whatever. So it's hard to track them, but our enrollments are very high. We cap our classes at about 60 students and they're always full. So every time we offer the 261 or 262, which are the two introductory classes, they're full. And that is partially I believe because it's online and partially because it's unique. These are classes that others that you can't get anywhere else. There's nowhere else in Saskatchewan. I don't even know if Canada that you can get these classes. So I do believe that that is a measurement of success. From your perspective, what is Indigenous education? Indigenous education is having Indigenous number one Indigenous people teaching and coming from an Indigenous perspective, having Indigenous examples using like we do a lot of cases. So we'll use cases based on First Nations, different First Nations. What are they doing? Kate, we're very case-based pulling in Aboriginal organizations into the curriculum. So inserting wherever we can, Aboriginal organizations and also but weaving into the curriculum, some of the teachings, like if I'm in a classroom, when I start the class, we'll bring an Eldran to talk about respect and how our classroom works. Online, I'll give them quotes and I'll say, you know, this is a respect based class. And I'll put things on there about some of our teachings and assignments. I'll say, okay, for say, if we're talking about entertainment, how to put on a an entertainment show, what's an event, event management, you know, chapter 8, 261. I'll say, okay, here's your here's your assignment. You need to tell me how, okay, so the powwow, here at the First Nations University powwow is always in April. I'll say, okay, so get into a group and I want you to write a report on how you were going to manage this event. How many people are going to be there? What do you have to do? And it's a huge event. So using examples such as that in assignments. So event management, yeah, and a lot of students have never been to a powwow. So all of a sudden they're going, huh, right. But I'm here for them. I'm like, okay, we can do zoom. And the other thing is I do zoom. Lots of zoom sessions, face to face whenever I can. And trying to meet with my students face to face and to say, I'm here for you. I give them my cell number. I give them my work number. I give them everything 24 seven. I tell them call me anytime. And I do get calls at two in the morning. Usually when an assignment is do at 12. And they'll call me and say, I'm so sorry. And I'm like, it's okay. Honestly, 12 o'clock or two o'clock, it doesn't matter. But I think to me that's indigenous teaching. It's not here's my office hours Monday to Friday, one to five or nine to five, whatever. It's I'm here for you because that's how we are. That's respect. And I understand that everybody has lives. Everybody has things going on. But I want to support you. My goal is for you to move forward. So whatever I can do, I will do. So I think that's part of indigenous education. What is your vision for indigenous education over the next 10 years? I would like to see our indigenous people teaching our classes. I would love to see building capacity. I would love to see I would love to see students coming to our university instead of going to the U of R because they think that the U of R is better. But they don't understand that this is weird. The U of R is our degree granting university. I would like them to come here and be proud to come here and to say I graduated from First Nations University and be proud to be here and support our university. I would like our youth to choose this university as one of their saying, yeah, this is my university. I belong here. Either way, U of R First Nations University, U of Toronto, anywhere they go, I want to see our youth getting an education in whatever area, just getting their education, having that confidence in whatever stream they take. I want them to be proud of who they are, like it's National Aboriginal Day today, which is not the truth. It's National Indigenous Day today. I'm so old school, but I want my son to wake up and say, hey, it's National Indigenous Day today, and to be able to tell people that, to celebrate that, to celebrate who he is, to celebrate. And I want him to be proud because we live in the city in an urban environment. And sometimes in an urban environment, our culture is not celebrated. It's sometimes lost. And through education, our students will reconnect, our youth will reconnect with culture. What information, materials, resources do you need to achieve that vision aside from funding? Aside from funding, we need people. We need people like yourself who are working in our organizations, Aboriginal people. We need our youth to begin working with us, to do research, to do case studies, to be on in our communities, bringing that knowledge. That's what we need.