UBC has launched aboriginal.ubc.ca, a single online destination to learn about UBC’s Aboriginal student services, academic programs, research community and outreach programs.
The site uses video to help put a human face on the team that exists to support and mentor Aboriginal students through admissions, graduation and beyond.
“We want to help students and their families get to know the people who are here to support them,” says Linc Kesler, Director of UBC’s First Nations House of Learning and Senior Advisor to the President on Aboriginal Affairs. “We felt that a personal medium like video would help to do that.”
The portal features dozens of videos of key UBC contacts. This ranges from basic information on admissions, scholarships and day care to profiles on UBC’s Indigenous Academic Caucus, an informal association of 26 faculty members who identify as Indigenous and are actively involved in research, teaching and administration, much of it with an Aboriginal focus and substantial community engagement.
Since UBC’s Aboriginal Strategy was launched in 2009, the university has nearly doubled its complement of Aboriginal faculty to 26, making UBC one of the top recruiters of Aboriginal faculty among research universities. More than 630 UBC students current self-indentify as Aboriginal. Graduate student enrolment has jumped 16 per cent since 2008. There is record enrolment in the Faculty of Law, home to UBC’s First Nations Legal Studies Program that along with the Faculty of Education’s Native Indian Teacher Education Program was launched in 1975 to help address a national shortage in Aboriginal lawyers and educators.
Since 2008, UBC has created 13 courses with significant Indigenous content, bringing the total to 66 across the faculties of Medicine, Law, Business, Arts, Education, Forestry, Graduate Studies and Continuing Studies.
Visit the UBC Aboriginal portal at www.aboriginal.ubc.ca.
