Chloe Crosschild, a member of the Kainai First Nation, says a supportive environment and resources at the University of Lethbridge have eased the way for attaining her Bachelor of Nursing degree.
As a new graduate with a Bachelor of Nursing from the University of Lethbridge, Chloe Crosschild knows the challenges and benefits for Aboriginal people studying at the university level.
Ms. Crosschild, 22, a member of the Kainai First Nation, started a family early like many in her community, having a baby just after her first year of studies. Juggling motherhood with demanding courses that left her feeling "defeated," she was grateful for the supportive environment and resources that the university offers to First Nations Métis Inuit (FNMI) students, from FNMI advisers and weekly "writing circles" to visits by elders and other Aboriginal cultural activities.
"It was a holistic approach," she says, which helped her "bridge" the Aboriginal and western worlds there. "It was everything: mental, physical, spiritual and emotional."
Ms. Crosschild, who grew up on the Blood Reserve, next to Lethbridge, was motivated to attend university by her family – her grandmother, mother and several aunts have degrees and professional careers. But she says that many Aboriginal youth don't go right from high school to university, first starting families and working for several years to support them.
The U of L offers those making the transition to post-secondary studies a special program and services that help narrow the Aboriginal education gap, says Michelle Hogue, a professor and coordinator of the First Nations' Transition Program at the university.
Dr. Hogue, who has Métis heritage, says that education is known as "the new buffalo" for the Aboriginal community, offering opportunities for lives and livelihoods they can't get in other ways. "Graduates are the change-makers."
The foundational first-year program, now in its eighth year, especially targets "inadmissible" FNMI students, who, for example, didn't finish high school or who have been out of school for a number of years, she says. "They come with so much on their plates in comparison to non-Aboriginals."
Some 30 students each year in the program are engaged through hands-on, practical learning, oral traditions and "more relevant ways of knowing and learning," she says. The program has a myriad of supports focused on enabling successful transition to second year.
"Aboriginal people historically have always learned by doing; certainly things weren't written in textbooks," Dr. Hogue explains. She is piloting a new way of teaching chemistry, with lessons that centre on the Aboriginal "medicine wheel" and other creative teaching methodologies.
"We are seeing huge success," she notes of the program, with more than three-quarters of participants going on to second year, better than in the mainstream. Some continue after graduation to pursue master's degrees or even study medicine.
Now practising as a public health nurse, Ms. Crosschild believes the holistic approach to health care she developed at the U of L will help her advocate for Aboriginal patients.
She sees an interest in getting a university degree "trickling down through generations," with the recognition that higher education and the jobs that result will help them provide for their families in the future, she adds. "Our bows and arrows today are the pens and pencils we use."