QIA rescues Inuit studies program

Thanks to a donation from the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, Nunavut students may enroll in Nunavut Arctic College’s Inuit studies program this year after all.

Thomasie Alivaktuk, the president of QIA, gave Arctic College a $126,523 cheque last week, to be used over the next two years to help pay for the college’s cash-strapped language and culture program.

“It’s of great value for Inuit,” Alivaktuk said. “We need more of our young students to learn more of the language and culture.”

Alivaktuk said QIA took the money from a large surplus that it produced at the end of its last fiscal year.

“We were saving money last year, and we were able to give it to the Arctic College,” he said.

The college’s high-profile Inuit studies program – called the traditional knowledge and culture option – has offered courses on Inuit language, culture and history since 1996.

But staff were able to do that only through an unusual two-for-the-price-of-one arrangement.

The two instructors who taught the interpreter-translator program developed and taught the Inuit studies program with no extra financial help, by using various creative methods to handle the double workload.

But this year, when instructor Alexina Kublu left the college to work as a full-time justice of the peace, the two-for-one arrangement couldn’t be made to work anymore. The college needed more than the $290,000 previously budgeted for the program, especially money to hire an extra instructor.

But the college’s board of governors couldn’t adjust the budget midway through the year. The college was forced to declare that Inuit studies would be dropped for at least one year, until college staff developed a new program funding formula this fall.

That produced an outpouring of concern from a long list of academics based in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. Over the past seven years, the Inuit studies program has brought Inuit together with non-Inuit researchers in a variety of projects.

Mac Clendenning, the president of the college, received several letters from those and other supporters of the program.

So he was understandably grateful that QIA’s contribution has allowed him to announce the college will offer Inuit studies for the next two years.

“I can’t say how pleased I am to be here this morning to receive this contribution for Nunavut Arctic College,” Clendenning said.

He said the college will use the money to pay for an extra Inuit studies instructor over the next two years.