Career Options Magazine

Over the last six years, the university has proactively committed to improving educational outcomes for Aboriginal youth in both urban and rural communities across the country, one student at a time. As the Aboriginal Community Outreach Coordinator, I’m happy to report that this is one of the most gratifying posts I can imagine having at McGill.

De-mystifying the university experience years before students would actually be ready to apply is significant. By inviting Aboriginal youth to experience life at McGill, we strive to help them envision themselves here, or at any other institution. Our dedicated team at the First Peoples’ House achieves this with the collaboration of McGill students, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, as well as alumni, staff, faculty and administrators, all of whom serve as role models and donate their time and energy to create and facilitate on- and off-campus invitational events. Through these, Aboriginal students aged 12 to 18 have gotten to explore their career interests through interactive workshops and camps hosted by a wide array of McGill representatives.

Nothing speaks more clearly to youth than hearing directly from McGill’s Director of Admissions about the university’s commitment to increasing enrolment of Aboriginal students. Along with the testimonials of current Aboriginal students and discussions with the sole Native professor at the university, these messages will hopefully stay with the youth as they make their way through the rest of high school and prepare for post-secondary studies.

On campus, we host outreach events throughout the academic year, starting with the McGill Pow-Wow in September. We welcome about 125 Aboriginal students from Montreal area high schools, who come to enjoy the festivities and glimpse what it’s like to study physical education, physical and occupational therapy, or social work at McGill. Many young lacrosse players from the two nearby Mohawk territories also get a chance to meet and play with members of the Redmen lacrosse team, who have a dedicated Aboriginal liaison.

In the spring, we host our premiere outreach event, the Eagle Spirit High Performance Camp. With an equal split between athletics and academics, the goal of the camp is to promote post-secondary studies while emphasizing a balance between healthy mind and healthy body. We focus on health-related careers and partner with the McGill Faculty of Medicine to offer the 30 or so campers from across Canada a truly hands-on experience. In the anatomy lab, nothing gets to the bare bones of what it’s like to be a medical student like holding human hearts, lungs, livers and, well, actual bones in your hands. Even as a thirty-something adult, I still find the experience to be quite stunning, and can only imagine what an impression it must leave on a high school student considering a career in medicine. Just last week I accompanied a group of Mohawk youth from Kahnawake who were invited to visit McGill’s Douglas Hospital to see, learn about and hold human brains in Canada’s only brain bank, and to talk with neuroscience researchers about their work.

As McGill’s Aboriginal student recruiter, I get the opportunity to travel across the country to attend recruitment events. So far, I’ve set up in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Alberta and the Northwest Territories. We also sponsor a booth at one of Indspire’s bi-annual Soaring: Indigenous Youth Career Conference events, where approximately 500 to 1,000 high school students will show up depending on the location. While on the road, I schedule community visits wherever feasible to talk with youth, parents, teachers, coaches and guidance counsellors about McGill, and even deliver career exploration workshops when time permits. Here in my home province, I travel to the annual Quebec Aboriginal Science Fair with the McGill chapter of Let’s Talk Science, which provides excellent and stimulating hands-on workshops.

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for Aboriginal youth to imagine themselves in higher education. The challenges can be significant—in one Cree community in Quebec that I visited last year, the principal told me that they hadn’t had a high school graduate in the previous three years. Initially I found it shocking, but it gave me pause to reflect; I myself was the only graduate among 12 Native students who started at my high school just off the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where I grew up. I attribute my perseverance not only to all the support I got from family and in school, but also to the role models and mentors who came through my young life.

McGill is taking a long-term approach to encourage Aboriginal participation in higher education, which will in turn help Canada meet its increasing demand for human resources—after all, Aboriginal people are Canada’s fastest growing demographic. I find the increasing number of eager McGill volunteers to be inspiring, and I wholeheartedly encourage you to forge a pathway for Aboriginal youth into your organization. The goal here is to engage Aboriginal youth as a friendly, inclusive partner.

By Kakwiranó:ron Cook

Kakwiranó:ron Cook is a member of both the Akwesasne Mohawk and Oglala Lakota Sioux Nations, and has served as McGill University’s Aboriginal Community Outreach Coordinator and Career Advisor since February 2010.

For more information, please visit: mcgill.ca/fph, mcgill.ca/deanofstudents/aboriginaloutreach, indspire.ca, careeroptionsmagazine.com