Former Nunavut Arctic College president Mike Shouldice saw a lot of positive developments during his almost three decades with the institution.
Shouldice started with Nunavut Arctic College in 1987, spending 27 years with the college, including five as president, before retiring in 2014. He participated in three 15-year plans for education.
“Personally, I think the college has had a significant impact on the employment of Inuit in the public service sector,” said Shouldice. “I kept saying to people while I was the president of the college that if it wasn’t for Nunavut Arctic College, when you look around, the whole face of employment in Northern communities, Rankin Inlet in particular, would be totally different.
“I mean, you have the two-year diplomas in management studies, a variety of finance positions and management positions that all came out of it. Although we’ve turned out a lot of teachers, I find that a lot of Inuit teachers, and this is a good thing, have moved on. They have a degree and they’ve moved into different professions.
“The rub today is that they’re not in senior positions but, you know, there’s only so many senior positions. And the government kicks itself because it doesn’t have the target percentage of Inuit employees, but there are some departments doing very, very well with high Inuit employment and responsibility.”
Shouldice, 71, said he also has great respect for what’s been accomplished by the Ilitaqsiniq Nunavut Literacy Council.
Ilitaqsiniq, which was the recipient of the $1 million Arctic Inspiration Prize in 2022, is conducting successful training all over the North, Shouldice said.
“Ilitaqsiniq’s staff members are totally impressive. These people are mufti-talented, well-educated, running these programs and creating educational opportunities,” he said. “I kind of admire them because those who moved on from other employment, or government employment, find themselves now in a rather highly-creative atmosphere.
“It’s not just about literacy. It’s about moving your life forward. And the people who work there, my goodness, I would say they are the best of the best.
“So, there’s a group that didn’t measure themselves by whether they had a government job or not. They are people with a good education and a volunteer-type background in the community and they’re moving things forward.”
Shouldice said some people may say he’s viewing things through rose-coloured glasses, but when he looks at Ilitaqsiniq he sees a sign of real success from its staff members, who also take ownership of the process.
He said the college contributed greatly to getting people into the public service and is a big employer in its own right.
“The mine industry is another super-important one for picking up a certain segment of the population and giving them well-paying jobs.
“So, in terms of employment, I think the college has really done well with folks. There’s enough Inuit now who have degrees and are actually teaching at the college. These people are helping improve the community and are moving things forward.
“These may not be high, high numbers but we’ve seen significant progress,” he added.
Shouldice said after Nunavut divided from the Northwest Territories, Nunavut Arctic College really focused on making Inuit values the core of programming.
He said when he was with the college and they’d do a program guide or curriculum development, they had to state, in that process, what core values for Inuit did this initiative contribute to.
“That was a healthy direction for the college, in that it taught Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. It was really quite good.
“My absolute favourite moment was when Bert Rose suggested that instead of people going to the teacher education program in Iqaluit, delivery of the program should be remote.
“We had three or four communities where we had classroom assistants who had a year of this or a year of that. And then, with McGill University, they delivered the full bachelor’s program in the early 1990s in Baker Lake, Rankin and Arviat because the numbers were higher.
“But people from Coral Harbour or Naujaat would flip over and it was very successful. The instructors would fly in, stay a few weeks, build a program and then move on. We thought if we got 20 out of 30 people to finish their degrees that would be excellent, but we ended-up with more than 30 and a huge graduation. It, as it turns out, was a sign of things to come.”