It’s nearly show time at the Cobalt and Valynne Vile is “bloody nervous.”

This will be her first time performing in drag, ever.

Performing is a scary thought. There’s a saying in Vancouver that when a drag queen screws up, you don’t hear an awkward silence – you hear gunshots being fired.

Not only is Valynne performing on stage for the first time, she is also competing against 13 other drag kings and queens in the second annual Mr. or Miss Cobalt Drag Competition in this preliminary round.

Valynne smooths down the ends of her long silver hair over and over.

“I’m really excited just to show everybody my character and who I really am.”

In everyday life, Valynne’s real name is Ryan Stewart, and he works as a quality-assurance lead in the video-game industry. After a lengthy break from drag, he showed up at the Cobalt dressed as Valynne last month and was invited to take part in the competition. He promptly said yes.

But as much as Valynne is focused on her own performance, she is actually carrying out a more important role by showing up at the Cobalt at this mid-March first round of competition.

Drag queens have been central to the identity of the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgered-queer community: as visible, flamboyant characters, as social convenors, as leaders who test the limits of acceptance.

In the past few years, spaces for queens to perform have become increasingly scarce in Vancouver as clubs have closed.

But the Cobalt, on Vancouver’s east side, has recently turned into a new mainstay of the city’s drag scene, and shows like “Apocalypstick” are creating opportunities for newcomers like Valynne.

Tonight’s competition kicks off three rounds that end Easter Sunday with the crowning of a new king or queen.

To start it, one of the hosts, Peach Cobblah (the drag persona of Dave Deveau, the event’s creator), sashays on stage.

Her attitude is even sassier than her red sequinned dress and over-the-top hair.

“Hello, darlings, we’re gonna’ start the competition very soon, so let’s make this place hot and juicy together, all right?”

The crowd roars back. Valynne Vile’s heart pounds.

It’s show time.

The Queens of Vancouver 

Drag isn’t just about pageant hair and outrageous makeup.

The Junction on Davie Street hosts two weekly shows. On this Saturday night, Daniel McGraw is waiting in an hour-long line to get in the night club.

“I think the historical role is often completely under-emphasized and often times completely ignored. Low-income, trans, people of colour and drag queens were the people who created Stonewall,” says McGraw, referring to the legendary New York bar that is seen as Ground Zero of the gay liberation movement.

McGraw’s friend Bard Suen chimes in.

“I think that drag queens represent a symbol for pushing the boundaries in the community so although I’m not brave enough to challenge those sort of norms – I feel really glad that there’s someone out there doing something like that.”

While McGraw and Suen are waiting outside, inside The Junction, Carlotta Gurl, one of the most well-known drag queens in Vancouver, is getting ready for her weekly show.

She headlines “Dragulous” on Saturday nights and has been performing for 20 years.

“I remember a time when I was doing drag for a living. I had four or five shows a week at different bars.”

Back then, the money was good and gigs were constant.

Today, a guest queen will take home between $100 to $150 to perform two numbers. Hosts like Carlotta Gurl make more, though not enough any more to support herself only with those gigs.

When fewer people started showing up and the bars began to close, things changed. “I realized I had to get myself a regular job in order to survive. I’m a manager at IGA.”

An Odyssey ends but the journey continues

The declining audiences had been a slow trend. But then Vancouver’s drag scene was hit hard by the closure of The Odyssey nightclub in 2010.

“The scene went through a bit of a hump after The Odyssey closed. They had drag almost every night of the week and were employing a lot of the community,” says Deveau.

“For a period of time, we were the only weekly drag show, which is crazy, but now there are three weeklies happening on Davie Street, so that’s promising as far as people getting work and people being able to enjoy drag,” said Deveau.

In keeping with the creation of inclusive, communal queer gathering spaces, the Cobalt also acts as a venue for the city’s only regular drag king show, “Man Up” which celebrated its fifth anniversary recently.

May the best king or queen win

Tonight’s drag competition is heating up.

The queens and kings compete for a $500 cash prize, three booked performances and the title of being crowned Mr. or Ms. Cobalt 2013. 

“We used to have a segment [of Apocalypstick] called Mean Keen Queen where we had a new performer trying out a number every week because we know our audiences are great,” said Deveau.

The hosts actually warn the audience not to insult performers or they risk being escorted out.

But the judge’s themselves don’t hold back. One queen is chastised because her tuck, the method performers use to conceal their genitalia, is visible through her black leather leotard. A king is docked points for not having enough facial hair.

No wonder Valynne, who is still waiting to perform, is nervous. She doesn’t know what to expect.

“I’m kind of sexy, kind of slutty, kind of weird and evil at the same time. I’m performing a Korean pop song but an English version of it. I wanted to grab something that nobody had done before.”

Valynne’s mom, Tracy Stewart, stands in the crowd. This is the first time she has seen Valynne perform. It’s also the first drag show she’s ever been to. (It won’t be the last performance. Valynne didn’t win the competition — TranApus Rex did — but she make it to the final round on Easter Sunday.)

The audience is also a mixed bunch: families, friends, gay, straight, lesbian, transgendered and everything in between.

“I love that people’s families come out, I think it’s encouraging and it feels nice that the space we’ve created feels like somewhere you would want your family to come and support you,” says Deveau.

Showtime

At 10.30 p.m., Valynne finally steps on stage.

As the heavy beats of her Korean pop song blare through the speakers, her nerves seem to disappear. She struts forward confidently, pumping her hands in the air and shimmying her shoulders provocatively.

Her mom and sister smile and cheer. Even the judges applaud.

“I got good feedback. It was very constructive.”

But most importantly she had fun.

“I was shocked because there’s this stigma with drag queens that they’re all bitches. And so far the Cobalt queens have been super nice.”

But maybe the niceness is not so surprising as both the old-timers and the newcomers recognize that they’re not in competition — they’re actually creating a community.
Correction: April 18, 2013.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Valynne Vile’s mother’s name. Her name is Tracy, not Sandy.
The authors regret the error.

They’re Vancouver artists desperate to find affordable, intimate places to present their work. Vancouver has the highest number of artists per capita in Canada. But these performers say there aren’t enough suitable spaces to showcase their talents.

The China Cloud is an underground arts venue in East Vancouver.

Some artists have taken matters in their own hands and created their own performances spaces tucked away in the city’s nooks and crannies, flouting local bylaws. According to the City of Vancouver, there are 250 to 500 such illicit events per year.

But the people running makeshift venues now have a way to go legit. Vancouver city council approved a pilot program March 12 that will allow cultural events in spaces like warehouses, art galleries and stores.

Bringing underground arts venues into the fold

The city hopes the program will resolve the need for more performance spaces and possibly kindle an outburst of creative activity.

“It has long been recognized that it is difficult to find places for live performance in Vancouver,” says Coun. Heather Deal. “As a result, many events happen ‘underground’ and therefore are in constant threat of being shut down due to complaints.”

But although many artists applaud the new effort from the city, they say that it is only a baby step. They’re still hobbled by two other significant barriers.

The city’s pilot program for small-venue licensing is an experiment that will run for up to two years.

The program is trying to encourage people who run the city’s off-grid spaces — quirky operations with names like the Dental Lab, 1067, China Cloud or the Emergency Room, frequently on the city’s east side –  to do two things. First, apply for a licence and, secondly, abide by the city’s new, modified bylaws. During that time, performance organizers will have access to a much cheaper and more simplified licensing system.

Event organizers can now submit a single application for a licence for as little as $25. In the past, they had to apply separately to the fire, engineering, and police departments and spend nearly $1,000 in the process.

They’ll still have to comply with some safety requirements, but a list that’s lower than the one for the Orpheum or the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

City staff will collect information, while doing random checks at the venues, to evaluate the program.

City’s ‘baby steps’ fall short of demand 

Colin Cowan runs the China Cloud, an underground arts venue in east Vancouver.

One of the spaces that will be trying to work with the new rules is China Cloud. The artist-run space is currently licensed as artist studios and an art gallery. On weekends, though, it hosts intimate performances by some of Vancouver’s and Canada’s best musicians. Its operators try to keep the location quiet.

Originally a cockroach-infested dive, the China Cloud has blossomed. The walls showcase hand-carved, wood-based art. Kitschy decorations adorn the tables. Comfortable couches surround the stage. The main room has a warm, welcoming feel to it.

The self-professed “Mr. Mother Goose” of the China Cloud is Colin Cowan.

Smiling readily under a mop of thinning red hair, Cowan sees the change as “a good start.” But like many artists who spoke at the council meeting, he was disappointed by the pilot program’s ceiling of two events a month.

“It’s nice to have a baby step,” he says, “but you want to make sure it’s at least a worthwhile baby step.”

City staff recommended a cap of two events a month per location so they could cope with the influx of applications. The venues will need to have concrete flooring and be at street level.

Like other underground venues, Cowan is hesitant to give out too much information about the China Cloud for fear of being shut down. The space doesn’t have a website or a Facebook page. Events are rarely advertised. People hear about shows by word of mouth.

Despite his reservations, Cowan is planning to apply for a licence for his two bigger monthly events.

But that still leaves another six unlicensed shows a month — one of the difficulties the new city program hasn’t addressed. Those shows will just stay under the radar, as they always have been. Many of them barely meet the minimum 25-person threshold that requires a licence in the first place.

Cowan doesn’t want to skirt the law. He’d like to see the program expand to eight events a month so that he could host musicians and other art without the constant fear of getting shut down.

“What would change is that we could legitimately put on shows and get licensing,” he says. “We could confidently run a business the way we want.”

The city estimates that it will receive up to 336 applications a year. If its assessment that there are up to 500 such events annually is correct, that leaves a shortfall of almost 14 events a month that will remain underground.

The two-events-a-month limit happens to coincide with the rules around another major issue in the underground arts scene: liquor.

Mixing arts, alcohol and business

Andrew Volk (bottom left) is working on a new underground arts space in Vancouver.

The reason the city limited events to two, in part, is that it’s only possible for event organizers to get two temporary “special-occasion” liquor licences a month. The B.C. liquor control control and licensing branch rarely distributes “liquor primary” licences, which allow venues to operate more like a club.

Although selling alcohol isn’t the primary objective of these underground venues, many see liquor and the arts as a natural combination.

Patrons get to have a drink. Proceeds from the bar help subsidize the cost of hosting a show.

City officials recognize this. In the policy report they presented to council, they warned that events with alcohol can pose safety risks. But they recognized that “alcohol is also an integral part of many arts events” and that “audiences at arts and culture performances do not typically have problems with binge drinking or troublemaking.”

But it still kept the limit to two.

The bigger-picture restrictions around liquor-primary licences are what Andrew Volk believes is keeping Vancouver from its potential as a creative city.

An energetic guy with pale skin and crystal blue eyes, Volk has been running unlicensed parties and events for over a decade. He is working on a new space in east Vancouver. It will house artist studios, a printing press for a monthly arts and culture magazine, a recording studio, and an open room with a stage. So far, he has invested almost $10,000 into the space.

Volk looks to Berlin, where he lived for six months, as a model for innovation. “In Berlin, you can have the hippest shit going on,” he says. “You’ve got kids owning clubs and then making huge amazing things.”

For Volk, the regulations, costs and red tape associated with primary liquor licenses means that only well-established, middle-of-the-road businesses can pursue them. “It means that nobody young and cool is going to open anything,” he says.

Supporting the arts vs. stifling creativity

Vancouver’s underground arts scene has been around for a long time. While some artists are knowingly defying the rules, many more may not even be aware of them in the first place.

Jess Hill is a singer-songwriter who recently performed at a haberdashery in Yaletown.

Jess Hill is one such artist. A local singer-songwriter, Hill had no idea she needed a licence for her last event. For the release party for her latest CD, she packed just over 70 people in her living room in east Vancouver. Hill has also performed in art galleries, tattoo shops, and grocery stores. Recently, she even performed in a haberdashery in Yaletown.

For Hill, performing in her home was as much about creating a memorable performance as it was convenient and cost-effective. “When you make an experience that’s more sharable and that people feel more connected to,” she says, “then the word of mouth builds for the next thing.”

Events in residential areas are not included in the city’s new licensing program. But events like house concerts have long been popular across Canada. Home Routes is a Winnipeg-based organization that organizes cross-country house concert tours. Old Crow in North Vancouver hosts monthly home-based events. And artists often use house concerts as fodder for fundraising their next album with IndieGoGo.

When Hill found out about the new licensing program, her first thought was concern that it might stifle the city’s creativity. “There’s such a burgeoning vibrancy that’s already here and it could go one way or the other,” she says.

“I feel like we’re at that fork in the road where it could continue to thrive and grow or it could get killed by the paper trail.”

The late Alfred Scow is remembered as a trailblazer at the University of British Columbia. Photo: Chris Wheeler/UBC Alumni Association

Former lieutenant-governor Steven Point isn’t sure most British Columbians will remember his pal Alfred Scow. He doubts if many people even realize that Scow was the province’s first — and, for a long time, only — aboriginal judge.

Scow died in February at 86. He represented a beacon for many indigenous people hoping to enter the legal field. However, challenges still impede the progress of aboriginal people, both within the profession and the justice system in general.

Amid the tumultuous years of the 1960s, Scow became the first indigenous student to graduate from law school in British Columbia. Soon after, he would achieve another first: the first indigenous lawyer to be called to the bar.

“He was the only one, and the big thing that sticks out is: Why is that? Why is there only one native judge?” asked Point, a himself an ex-lawyer and, in the generation that came after Scow, also one of only a few aboriginal judges.

Restoring ‘faith in the system’

Point: Alfred Scow “was the reason I wanted to be a judge.”

Nearly 50 years ago, indigenous students faced renouncing their Indian status in order to receive any kind of university degree or professional training.

If they did, they could no longer live on reserve, vote for chief or inherit property from indigenous lands.

The legal profession, in particular, was off-limits for aboriginal people. Forget becoming a lawyer — First Nations could not even hire a lawyer until 1951, after sections of the Indian Act were repealed.

Scow timed his graduation perfectly. By 1961, the law had changed so he could retain his Indian status while still receiving his diploma.

By becoming the first indigenous lawyer and rising through the legal ranks, Scow made giant strides in a profession where representation is key.

Aboriginal people were—and continue to be—over-represented before the court as defendants. Even in 2007, 20 per cent of British Columbia’s prisoners were aboriginal.

However, as a role model and mentor, Scow helped usher indigenous people into the courtroom as lawyers and judges.

Point said Scow’s mere presence also marked a shift towards a legal system less biased against indigenous peoples.

“We’re growing up with institutions that deal with native people but don’t have native people. So is it important for them to have a native lawyer? Yeah,” said Point.

Listen: Steven Point talks about a courtroom experience he’ll never forget  

As a lawyer, Point remembers seeing aboriginal defendants with “no faith that the system was going to be fair.” But when he ascended to the judge’s bench eventually and became a colleague of Scow’s, he noticed some of the defendants acting strangely in his presence.

“Natives who came to court would wave at me. You don’t see anybody waving at judges, right? But I was their judge.”

This attention gave Point a great sense of responsibility. “I was an interpreter almost, a guide, more than a lawyer.”

Booming business

But indigenous lawyers and judges play an even more crucial role today. They aren’t just advocates or interpreters for the over-represented First Nations in the courts, as Scow was. The generation that has followed him brings their personal insight to the new, hot-button resource issues concerning First Nations’ communities.

In the 1990s, a series of Supreme Court decisions affirmed the land and resource rights of First Nations people, also known as aboriginal title.

Suddenly, aboriginal law grew into a multi-million dollar business. Negotiations over issues like fishing rights and development in First Nations’ traditional territory provided openings for lawyers to work on indigenous issues.

“Each band and Metis council and tribal council—they deal with legal issues every day. It’s probably one of the biggest growing areas of law in Canada,” said Darwin Hanna, a partner at the aboriginal law firm Callison & Hanna.

Hanna opened his own practice in 1996. Since then, he has noticed dramatic changes in the legal needs of his clientele.

Hanna admired Judge Alfred Scow’s commitment to helping other indigenous lawyers.

“When we first started practicing, our clients did not have access to timber, the land or even sharing of the profits from mining and hydro projects,” said Hanna. “Now it’s a matter of daily business where our clients are involved with deals with the Crown with respect to forestry.”

For Hanna, having “effective representation” in these cases involves aboriginal judges and lawyers like Scow, who understand the First Nations’ shared history and culture.

“I think it’s basically a human-rights issue in that you have a right to be represented by your own people,” said Hanna.

Meeting the need

However, even in the decades since Scow shattered the profession’s glass ceiling, the legal system system still doesn’t have indigenous lawyers in anything like the proportions of First Nations in the general population.

In 2012, the Law Society of British Columbia released a report saying aboriginal people represented only 1.5 per cent of lawyers in British Columbia.  That statistic fell short when compared to the 4.6 per cent of the overall population in British Columbia who are indigenous—not to mention the 23 per cent of federal prisoners who are aboriginal.

What’s worse, according to the law society, was that the percentage of aboriginal lawyers remained stagnant over a 10-year period, from 1996 to 2006. Not enough indigenous people were entering and staying in the profession.

For Rosalie Wilson, an aboriginal lawyer from the Okanagan Valley, those statistics actually motivated her to go to law school.

“I was determined all the more because of those statistics,” she said.

Wilson felt herself “walking in the footsteps of giants” as she started to pursue a law degree at Scow’s alma mater, the University of British Columbia, in 2000.

Nevertheless, during her first year, Wilson was struck with a sense of “culture shock.”

“The limited support that First Nations students experience while being away at university is tough. A lot of nations have heavy family values,” said Wilson.

“It does become challenging, because you’re isolated from the normal support systems that you usually rely on to get you through more challenging times.”

Blending Western and indigenous mindsets

Aboriginal students also grapple with incorporating their own cultural viewpoint with that of the Canadian legal system, which is based upon British common law.

For instance, while the Western legal system prioritizes “hard,” phsyical evidence, indigenous groups have argued for oral histories as evidence.

“What law school tended to teach me was not necessarily compatible with what I believe as an indigenous person,” said Wilson. “But as an indigenous lawyer, I have to have respect for that system and be knowledgeable of that system.”

While Wilson was a student, law schools could choose how much, or how little, aboriginal law to teach. Now, Canadian law schools are required to adopt indigenous legal studies in order to receive accreditation.

In 2012, for instance, the University of British Columbia instituted a mandatory, semester-long course to teach first-year students about aboriginal law.

Former chief Leah George-Wilson graduated from law school at the University of British Columbia in December 2012.

Listen: Former law student Leah George-Wilson on changing the school curriculum UBC’s law school anticipates that next year’s graduating class will have the largest indigenous group yet. More than 20 students are expected to graduate out of a class of approximately 180.

Entering the field

Law school is only the first hurdle in an indigenous lawyer’s career.

Once out in the field, law graduates often must find a position “articling,” or training with a firm, before they can be called to the bar.

Whereas, in judge Scow’s early years, a more blatant racism impeded lawyers from seizing opportunities, nowadays a less obvious, systemic racism runs through the legal field, according to Hanna.

“I think it’s just so subtle,” said Hanna. “No one said ‘We’re not going to hire you because you’re aboriginal.’”

To make it in the legal world requires referrals and contacts, said Hanna.

In the end, Hanna said, if anything is going to change, it’s not simply about educating indigenous students in law—it’s equally about educating the legal leadership.

“It’s just trying to provide that education to the leadership about aboriginal lawyers that can do the same work if not better,” said Hanna. “In the law profession, it’s all about connections, about who you know, and at the same time it’s about reputation and doing the work.”

Building a reputation means fighting myths about indigenous lawyers, according to Point. During his time working for the UBC law school, he heard a number of rumours devaluing indigenous students’ accomplishments.

One rumour claimed aboriginal students received special admissions criteria to enter law school. Another perpetuated the idea that these lawyers had received a less rigorous “Indian law degree.”

Contrary to the myths, indigenous students tackle the same classes, exams and criteria as other students.

“I think some of the kids were finding a hard time getting articles, because some of the law firms felt that they didn’t have the same law degree as other students did,” said Point. “A lot of kids just went back home and started to work in other areas.”

Point believes that the integration of more indigenous voices will ultimately change the profession for the better. The simple addition of a single fresh perspective—like Scow’s—helped transform the Western mentality of the courtroom.

“If you’ve got beef stew, and you put ginger in it, it changes the stew. When Alf Scow got into the legal profession, it changed because of his presence,” said Point. “He would bring to that his value system, which is entirely different from the Western system.”

Yet, one presence is not enough. For the legal “stew” to truly change—and for proper representation to be achieved– more indigenous voices are needed, according to Point.

“In my view, that enriches the system. It improves it and makes it more meaningful.”

Kim Leary glances over at one of her students. He is slowly and methodically passing a soccer ball from one foot to the other. He is a gifted soccer player, so his uncharacteristically sloppy movements reveal something more to the teacher observing him carefully.

“You look less energetic than usual,” Leary says. She asks him what he had for lunch;  he smiles silently. She asks him what he had for breakfast; still no answer. She rephrases: “Have you eaten anything today?” He looks up from his soccer ball.

“An apple,” he replies.

Leary turns around and opens the floor-to-ceiling cupboard near her desk. She emerges with enough snacks for him and all the other students nearby. Smiles creep across their faces and one student exclaims: “This is why you’re our favourite teacher, Ms. Leary.”

It’s not unusual for Vancouver teachers to help feed their students. But for Leary, this food exchange is part of a new initiative running out of Britannia Secondary School called the Youth Engagement Program. Leary is the director of this unusual experiment in student motivation.

YEP is an incentive-based program, which started last October giving students money to attend classes and improve their grades: $50 a month if they meet their goals. But the program isn’t just about paying for higher grades; it’s also about addressing social and economic inequities.

Leary says it’s about creating opportunity and support for the kids who really want and need it.

“We really thought about how we could engage kind of the least engaged students in the school,” says Leary. “The idea is just to have them know that there are some people who are really focusing on them – who really know who they are – so they are not invisible in the school.”

Listen: An older sister explains in her own words how she felt invisible in school. Her two younger sisters are in the Youth Engagement Program (1:44)

Why Britannia?

Britannia Secondary School serves one of Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhoods.

The average family income for Britannia students is just over $33,000. That’s less than half of the provincial average. Many students also face language barriers, with almost half speaking a language other than English as their mother tongue. Over 30 per cent of Grade 10 students at the school are already so far behind that they’re likely not going to graduate in two years with their classmates, according to the Fraser Institute’s interpretation of provincial test results.

Not reaching high-school graduation significantly decreases the opportunities available for these students. In 2010, the unemployment rate for high-school dropouts was 23 per cent. This was almost double the 12-per-cent unemployment rate for graduates.

Leary and her team are hoping to curb dropout rates among these students by providing them with support and an increased opportunity to pass high school.

A model for success

A YEP student enjoys a mystery novel. (Photo: Leif Zapf-Gilje)

The Youth Engagement Program is modelled after the federally funded Pathways To Education program, which began in Toronto and now operates in 12 low-income communities across eastern Canada.

The Pathways to Education program has helped reduce high-school dropout rates by 70 per cent. Since the program’s inception, there have been three times as many students going on to post-secondary educations.

At Britannia, the program is open to any student who failed one or more classes in the previous year and is willing to commit.

The 15 students who chose to sign up have agreed to go to all their classes, attend a minimum three hours of homework club at least twice a week, and keep regular contact with the YEP teachers.

In return, they get extra help from tutors, hot meals, field trips, personal support, and the chance to earn the coveted $50 per month for meeting their goals.

If they manage to pass all their classes for the year, $500 a year will be set aside for a post-secondary education of their choosing.

The immediate cash gets the students excited. YEP worker Eric Schofield says, “[It’s] obviously an incentive for money in their pockets, which in most cases is very much needed.”

Listen: The students share their experiences about how the program is working for them (1:45) 

The bandage for a larger issue

Critics say that while incentives get kids to class, there are concerns with this strategy. It’s generated a lot of debate in the U.S., where incentives have been more widely used.  

“Incentives actually reduce [students’] motivation over time. Kids will actually stop learning for the sake of learning if you give them any kind of external reward,” says Jennifer Vadeboncoeur, associate professor in UBC’s faculty of education.

But she also understands the need to address the social and economic challenges these students face.

“We have to appreciate the program, for a small number of kids, as a short-term fix. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that it is trying to address a long-term societal problem,” says Vadeboncoeur.

She says it’s the broader education system that needs to be fixed.

“Why as a society aren’t we doing better for teachers and students? There is something about the school system that really pushes them away.”

Looking to the future

There are no guarantees that YEP will see these kids through to graduation. YEP was funded for only one year, most of it from anonymous donor.

Students in the YEP program have formed close friendships. (Photo: Britney Dennison)

Leary is currently in the process of trying to get grants and donations for the second year, enough to carry this group of students through to Grade 12. But so far, she doesn’t have it, so the fate of the program is uncertain for both this group and any future students.

Donor-dependent programs often face long-term support issues. And that uncertainty raises more concerns.

“Once you start giving people external rewards, it is very difficult to stop doing it,” says Vadeboncoeur, “so then they end up just needing them constantly to keep going.”

Leary is optimistic that enough funds can be raised to continue and eventually to expand.

“Ideally one day, looking 10 years from now… there are 100 YEP kids that are involved in this program,” says Leary.

Listen: Students at Britannia’s YEP program are gathered at the Homework Club. It is time to go home, but they don’t want to go (1:20) 

Midway through the first year, Schofield has already begun to notice the program’s impact on the kids.

“The success … as far as engaging them, absolutely 100 per cent. We want their grades to improve a lot as well as a consequence and that one’s proving to be challenging, but I think the big one is that first step.”

John Brennan’s music struck a discordant note in his hometown of Goderich. The Ontario town of 8,000 on the banks of Lake Huron boasts famously beautiful sunsets and proudly calls itself “Canada’s prettiest town.”

When Brennan and his high-school friend detuned their guitars and walked onstage at an old local theatre, the sound that came out of the speakers jarred with the picture postcard foliage.

“We had a bunch of drinks before,” said Brennan, a lean, T-shirt-clad musician now in his 30s. “Then we spent, I think, 15 minutes standing in front of our amplifiers doing feedback and pressing on the pickups making weird clicking sounds.”

A sizeable chunk of the audience got up and left. Nobody clapped. When they were finished, nobody said anything. “I think one person said something, but it wasn’t good,” recalled Brennan. “It wasn’t a positive thing.”

The 1997 gig is a distant memory for Brennan, who now plays to more receptive crowds in Vancouver. The city is home to a small but enthusiastic audience for “noise:” music made with purposefully dissonant, harsh sounds.

Noise artists make music with everything from computers and effects pedals to chains and trash cans. It is intentionally inaccessible. But fans pack into noise shows in Vancouver and sit in rapt attention as one sonic torpedo after another crashes into their eardrums.

Some members of Vancouver’s noise scene have become internationally known. Brennan has toured Canada, Europe and Japan, playing noise. Sam McKinlay, a.k.a. “The Rita,” has produced a vast discography of harsh noise records.

In any other genre, artists of this stature might have a chance at supporting themselves with their music, like Vancouver’s top jazz musicians do. But noise plays to such a small audience that even its top echelon can’t swing a full-time music career.

Paying the bills

Artists like Brennan have to deal with the reality that their art is as uncommercial as music gets. Making noise won’t pay the stratospheric rent in Vancouver. But artists spend several hours a day making it anyway.

Brennan has been making music since age three, and started making noise in high school.

“I think 99.9 per cent of noise musicians in town all have other jobs” no matter how prestigious their reputation, said Brennan. “I can’t think of one artist in town that just does that.”

The jobs that support Vancouver’s noise artists range from sound-design contracts to working at safe-injection sites.

The safe-injection site jobs are “intense,” said Brennan, but they allow artists to take three or four days off every week. “A lot of people in the scene are really working as little as possible,” Brennan explains, so they can dedicate the bulk of their time to their art.

Brennan considers himself lucky that his job lets him be creative and make money at the same time. He works at Vivo Media Arts, where he curates a noise concerts series called Destroy Vancouver and organizes workshops in noise techniques like improvisation and circuit-bending.

He works part-time, which has an impact on his financial situation. “I am scraping by,” said Brennan. “But for me, I would rather work less, have less money and have more time to work on my art.”

The DIY philosophy

One element of noise that takes up a lot of noise musicians’ time is a technique called “circuit-bending,” in which he or she manually alters the circuitry in electronic devices, like toys and tape decks, to produce new and unheard sounds.

According to Jonathan Adams, a DJ and UBC graduate student in ethnomusicology, the DIY philosophy of circuit-bending and noise stems from strong anti-capitalist and anti-corporate sentiments.

“I think the fact that they don’t buy the tools from these huge, transnational corporations that are building the equipment and the software and so forth is actually a political statement,” he said. “I definitely think there’s a punk element.”

Graham Christofferson, known to Vancouver noise fans as “Worker,” definitely brings together the DIY approach and the political ethos of punk. He got involved in noise three years ago at a punk bar where everyone could play, Christofferson explained, “as long as they were doing something weird.”

Listen: Worker on the rebellious ethos of noise music (2’05″)

Christofferson’s “Worker” persona doesn’t do punk, but his roots show through in the aggressiveness of his sounds. Lately, he has adopted an angle grinder and a trash-can lid as instruments. In the middle of his performance, he starts grinding holes into the lid, producing sounds more commonly heard on construction sites while showering the audience with sparks.

Christofferson considers his music starkly political. In naming himself “Worker” and making aggressive music with homemade instruments and everyday objects, he hopes to use his art to communicate everything he hates about the capitalist system “and why you should destroy it.”

The Art of Noise

Noise actually dates back to at least 60 years before the birth of punk. In 1913, the composer Luigi Russolo wrote a manifesto called “The Art of Noise.” In it, he claimed that the human ear had become used to the speed, energy and noise of the urban industrial landscape and that music should incorporate similar sounds.

Since then, the major influences in noise have ranged from the avant-garde composer John Cage to the post-punk band Sonic Youth. Japan has produced a number of noise artists, like Hanatarash and Merzbow, whose influence is felt around the world.

Today, noise, similar to other music genres, encompasses a wide range of sounds. Even a single Vancouver noise concert can feature everything from abrasive industrial sounds to minimalist drones.

For Brennan, it’s about combining elements of noise with avant-garde jazz. He has been playing music since age three and studied jazz drums and guitar at Concordia before switching to electro-acoustics.

It has never been Brennan’s goal “to be a superstar or to get a million hits on YouTube,” he said. “I am just playing for myself and for the 13 people who really enjoy this, or whatever.”

Michelle Robindell gave birth the same way she does business. She didn’t waste time. Her last day of work was a Friday, her water broke on Saturday, and her son Oscar arrived on Sunday.

Robindell, 36, has her BA in psychology, works full-time as a manager at BC Hydro and is in the process of becoming a life coach. With two kids, she is one of many university-educated Vancouverites trying to balance a busy job with a family.

“Even on the Sunday when I’m at the park with my kids, I’ll open my email and see there’s something going on,” she said. “So I feel the need to respond to it. Even if I don’t respond, it’s in the back of my mind. So it’s taking away from my focus on my family.”

It’s not common to hear that an expensive university education and a well-paying job have downsides.

But a recent study found that university-educated people with children in dual-earning homes are significantly less likely to be satisfied with their work-family balance than those without the post-secondary credential. The study used Statistics Canada data from 1998 and 2005, which surveyed how happy people were with their work-life balance based on how much time they spent at work and at home.

It’s clear that the topic is a hot one in the professional world. The decision by Yahoo president and CEO Marissa Mayer banning employees from working at home, after she had a nursery built next to her office, generated a torrent of headlines and public debate.

Karen Duncan, a University of Manitoba professor of family social sciences and co-author of the Canadian study, says many people pursue a university degree for stability and a higher paycheque. But many jobs that require post-secondary education also come with added pressures, like more responsibility and extra hours in the office.

“With higher education comes higher expectation,” Duncan said.

Live chat: Prof Karen Duncan answers your questions on Wednesday 27 March, 10.00 PST.

According to her, these jobs also often rely heavily on communications technology. Portable computers and cell phones allow work to follow people home.

That’s something that happens a lot less for people doing jobs that don’t require a university degree.

But he is content with his work-family balance because he doesn’t think about work when he’s home.

“We [plumbers] don’t have to take it home,” he says. “So when I’m home, I can do what I have to for the family.”

He gets home at 5 a.m. and sleeps until 2 p.m. every day. Though he says this isn’t an ideal schedule for everyone, it allows him to spend more time with his wife, six-year-old daughter and newborn son.

Working moms juggle kids and career

Robindell, on the other hand, brings work home with her every Friday. She has the morning off and then works on her laptop in the afternoon while her kids nap for two or three hours. This allows her some flexibility, but sometimes they wake up earlier than usual, which throws her off-balance.

“When I’m at home and the kids are asking me questions and I feel like I’m focused on my laptop, it’s hard,” Robindell said. “I feel like I’m pulled in two opposite directions.”

Jill Earthy feels the same way. As an entrepreneur and mom of two, balancing work and family is part of her daily life.

Between business meetings and conference calls, she has to squeeze in parent-teacher interviews and story-time with her girls.

Earthy always knew she wanted to have a family but, as a business owner, leaving her job wasn’t an option.

“I was travelling all the time. There was no way. And if I stopped working, revenue stopped coming in. So I felt a lot of burden.”

Earthy knows she’s not alone and has worked to connect other women feeling the pressure of being a parent and a professional.

In 2007, she founded momcafé, a networking group for business savvy mothers. It is now in eight cities across the country. She is also co-chair of the WEB alliance—a collaboration of women’s business networks in the city.

But there are times when she finds  tough to live in both worlds.

“It depends on the day to be honest. Some days I feel good, but I think the other part is that sometimes I do feel guilty… you don’t feel like you’re giving your all to everything and there’s no solution for that.”

“I’m trying to just embrace that guilt and know that I am going to do the best that I can.”

Self-employment not the answer

So it might seem like people who can be their own bosses, with the option to set flexible hours, have the best chance at finding balance. But no, Duncan’s study revealed that, while self-employment might lead to more independence, it also often means more stress and family conflict.

Mohamed Helal, who owns Marché Pastry & Bakery on Kingsway near Clark, struggles to balance his time at home and time spent at work. Originally from Germany, he has his masters in baking art and hospitality.

He opened Marché four months ago in Vancouver, and he says money is tight.

On a Wednesday afternoon, the tables sit empty at the Marché.

But Helal says he’s invested too much time and money to give up now. However, since he cannot afford to pay many employees, he ends up working 12- to 15-hour days.

And long hours means that Helal rarely sees his daughter, two sons and his grandson.

“I start to lose my family life,” he says, “which is my wife, my kids. I don’t enjoy them because I’m working very hard…I’m even over-stressed when I go home because I’m thinking still about the business. Worrying still about my worker, my customer, everything.”

]]> http://thethunderbird.ca/2013/03/23/work-life-balance-eludes-highly-educated/feed/ 0 http://thethunderbird.ca/2013/03/20/circus-flying-high-in-vancouver/ http://thethunderbird.ca/2013/03/20/circus-flying-high-in-vancouver/#comments Thu, 21 Mar 2013 02:25:30 +0000 Katelyn Verstraten http://thethunderbird.ca/?p=28034

Professional circus performer Meregon Kiddo performs aerial silks.

Meregon Kiddo was suspended 12 feet in the air and rapidly dropping headfirst towards the ground when she realized something had gone wrong.

“I didn’t wrap my binding correctly,” she said. “And normally when you do something correctly after a drop there’s something to catch you…but I didn’t do it properly. So I just locked my arms to protect my neck, and then I snapped both of my arms.”

Risk, including those two broken arms, is part of the job for 26-year-old Kiddo. She performs aerial silks as a professional member of the Inner Ring Circus at the Vancouver Circus School.

The school is an example of growth in Canada’s circus industry, a growth that started with Quebec’s rule-breaking Cirque du Soleil and that has now spread beyond its borders. Vancouver’s school already employs eight professionals and teaches dozens aspiring circus performers.  The plan is to expand to another location next year.

A growing art

“It is definitely growing. It is one of the disciplines that has the most audience in Canada,” said Laurence Cardin, the communications assistant at the National Circus School of Canada. Each year, 150 students train in the national program, and 95 per cent of graduated students find employment within a year.

Professional performers take time to goof around at Vancouver’s Circus School.

The school is in Montreal, three blocks from Canada’s biggest circus, Cirque du Soleil. Cirque employs 5,000 people. In January, the company laid off 400 staffers - almost eight per cent of the company’s workforce — but the operation is still massive.

Between 2003 and 2005, the total number of circus and magic shows increased by almost 65 per cent in Quebec. The total number of performances for all other performing arts decreased. This trend has continued over the last several years, according to a report released in 2007 by En Piste, Canada’s national association for circus arts.

Cardin is not surprised by the numbers, because there is something unique about the circus.

“It reaches a larger audience than some other art forms. It’s more accessible because it challenges the audience with a certain fear. It’s very close to art and sports at the same time, so people really relate to it. It brings out the fear inside of us,” she said.

The adrenaline is a big draw for the young people flocking to work in it, like Kiddo.

“You can’t get that kind of high anywhere else – at least not naturally anyway,” she said. “I can’t imagine that I would feel quite literally physically and mentally on top of the world walking away from you know, a Starbucks shift, for example. It’s incredibly gratifying.”

Inside the Inner Ring

Travis Johnson knows what it’s like to be on top. He was 24 years old when he opened the Vancouver Circus School eight years ago with his father Aaron Johnson, a former Canadian Olympic trampoline team coach and head acrobatic coach for Cirque du Soleil’s show Mystere.

Johnson’s Inner Ring is the professional arm of the school, comprised of circus performers who work in Canada and internationally using material Johnson has custom designed to meet the growing demands of customers. The shows include acts such as acrobatics, juggling, aerial silks, trapeze, unicyclists, and yo-yo are increasingly popular at corporate events.

Not all of the Inner Ring performers originally planned to work  in the circus.

Kiddo studied criminology at Simon Fraser University and had decided on a career in law. She had been taking classes at the Vancouver Circus School when Johnson asked her if she would be interested in performing professionally.

“I hadn’t thought about it until then,” she said. “And I said yes right on the spot. That conversation took place the better part of a decade ago.”

The expiration date

Johnson is particular about the performers he selects. Only unique and gifted performers make the cut.

Kiddo has been a professional performer for eight years – and has only fractured both her arms once.

“You better be damned good at it. You better impress me because I’m not going to put you out there if you’re not impressive. And it’s really, really hard to be that good.”

Dedication and a passion for the circus are critical as performers sometimes  practice up to 30 hours in a single weekend.

“Mastery [of skills] is 10, 000 hours,” said Nigel Wakita, a 28-year-old juggler, unicyclist, and walk-in balloonist. “I think I’m over two times that in some discipline. Some weeks I’ll do nothing but practice.”

At the age of 38, Vancouver Circus School instructor Michael Maan is too old to perform professionally, so he teaches younger artists instead.

“I can’t compete with people 10 or 15 years younger than me,” he said. “With endurance, with the ability to stay clean and in shape and looking amazing with hardly any clothes on …. there’s an expiration date for acrobats.”

Johnson does not perform trampoline anymore either.

“I broke every bone in my body. I leave that nonsense to the professionals.”

Kiddo has a way to go before reaching her best-before date. She is always thinking about the risks involved. Injured circus performers without a contract have limited means of earning an income.

“Number one is staying safe,” she said. “I’m not actually afraid of falling, but you’d have to almost be inhuman to not be affected by being that high up. When you’re performing there are no safety mats – silk artists do not use safety mats. It’s just you and the fabric.”

Earning your keep

Johnson will not discuss his payroll. Neither will Canada’s largest circus, Cirque du Soleil, although the organization states on its website that “a competitive salary and performance bonuses” are offered to the contract workers.

“It can vary quite heavily,” Johnson said. “Sometimes you can get paid really, really well, sometimes it’s not so popular. You can make a living if you’re in a company. But the people that do this do it for the love of doing it, they don’t do it to become rich.”

Inner Ring Circus performer Brandon Miyazaki spins on the aerial hoop.

The Acts of the Inner Ring 

What exactly do the performers of the Vancouver Circus School’s Inner Ring do? Here are a few of the more abstract and interesting acts explained. Click on the link to view the video.

Aerial Hoop

Using a circular hoop suspended from the ceiling at varying heights, artists perform aerial acrobatics. They can include one or more people and typically consist of swinging and spins.

Aerial Silks

Artists perform on long pieces of silk suspended from the ceiling, typically eight to 40 feet above the ground. Without safety lines or nets, performers ascend the silk, using the fabric to spin, dive, drop, swirl and form shapes with their bodies.

Contact Juggling

Performers use the manipulation of various objects, often balls, to suggest the illusion of levitation. This act has almost nothing in common with the typical juggling – objects are rolled along the body instead of tossed in the air.

Hand to Hand

Two or more acrobats perform on the ground, using their hands and balance to form a human sculpture. One acrobat is typically the “carrier,” the other the “flyer,” using the hands of the carrier as a beam.

(Documents provided by the Inner Ring Circus)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cail Judy is one of a young generation of poets looking to their day jobs to sustain and inform their artistic practice.

Cail Judy was 19 when he started working the night shift at the Maple Leaf slaughterhouse in Brandon, Man.

After the daytime workers had all gone home, Judy would show up to clean the mess left behind.

“I had to clean the de-hairing machine,” Judy recalls, “which was a three-storey-tall machine with this giant auger in the bottom, and it would slap the hair off pigs when they came through the chute.”

“So my job when I got in was to take a pitchfork and firehose, and I’d have to basically unfur it, and [the fur] would come out in these huge clumps, like giant bricks.”

It was this experience that in part made Judy turn to writing as a creative outlet.

“That was one of the worst experiences of my life. It was something that really stuck with me and seared into my brain. So when I got back into writing, that was the first thing I really sat down to write about.”

Since then, Judy has worked throughout Canada and abroad, including stints as a tour guide in Alaska and a high-school teacher in the United Kingdom.

Judy, now 28, has since settled in Vancouver. Besides working as a residential-care worker, camp counsellor for at-risk youth, and account manager, he is trying to develop a name for himself as a local poet.

He is part of a long list of writers who have joined the work force, from desk jobs to the service industry, in order survive as poets in the most expensive city in North America.

Listen: Judy reads his poem “Blackout Pact”

Working within the confines

Beyond sheer survival, though, many poets of Cail’s generation have turned the necessity of work into a virtue by allowing their day jobs to inform their artistic voice.

Mariner Janes, manager of the Downtown Eastside’s mobile needle-exchange program, will see his first major publication, The Monument Cycles, come out next month with Vancouver’s Talonbooks press.

His job, which includes distributing harm-reduction materials throughout the neighbourhood, hasn’t simply allowed Janes to get by while developing his writing on the side.

The emotionally taxing work has played a major role in framing Janes’ artistic explorations of history and memory in the city.

“A lot of the stuff that I’m writing about is about struggles against gentrification, struggles against displacement, struggles around trying to help people with mental illness and addiction and trying to come to some understanding of what they’re going through.”

Janes did feel conflicted, though, about appropriating the voices of the community for his own artistic ends.

“It’s a complicated question. If I was to talk about somebody’s life story in some way, would that be ripping the words out of their mouth, or worse, doing the colonial thing, where you’re speaking for them or you’re saying: ‘Well, you know, this guy can’t speak for himself, so I’ll tell his story’?” Janes said.

“I struggled with writing about it for a long time and the kind of exploitative element of what I was doing.”

Although he’s been working in the Downtown Eastside for about six years, Janes has only now come to terms with the ways his job has seeped into his artistic project over the years.

“It’s always been a big part of my writing, whether I liked it or not. I fought it for a long time, and now I don’t anymore.”

Listen: Janes reads his poem “The Ambassador”  

Mariner Janes has used his job as a social-service worker in some of Vancouver’s most troubled neighbourhoods to inform his poetry.

The weight of tradition

Poets have been weaving their work on Canada’s West Coast into their writing for a long time. Writers like Robert Swanson, Brian Fawcett and Peter Trower all incorporated their work in the forest industry as part of their individual poetic identities.

Resource-industry jobs have been declining in B.C. That’s why more local writers are turning to new kinds of work to pay the bills: teaching, social-service work, bartending.

Rhea Tregebov, assistant professor in the creative writing department at UBC, sees this trend reflected in the kind of jobs her students get, both before and after graduating, in order to supplement their writing careers.

“In terms of strict blue-collar work, I don’t know many students that would be working in the old-fashioned industrial or skilled trades,” Tregebov remarked.

Kate Braid is one contemporary writer, however, who’s managed to make her career out of blurring the distinction between craft and traditional labour. The veteran poet spent her working years during the 1980s in lumber and construction, eventually becoming one of the few female journey carpenters in the city.

Surrounded by often lukewarm if not outright antagonistic colleagues, Braid turned to writing to deflect the feelings of isolation she had while working in this male-dominated industry.

For her, writing was an act of “desperation.”

“I had no one to talk to, no other way to make sense of construction [and] male culture. I was keeping detailed journals after every day… but I came home exhausted after eight to 10 hour days of doing heavy labour, sometimes six days a week, so my lines got shorter until finally I realized I was writing poetry.”

Initially a creative outlet to help find her voice in construction, poetry eventually came to define part of Braid’s identity until the act of construction and the act of creation became difficult to separate.

“I was passionate first about construction, using poetry as a way to comfort myself, keep myself going. Slowly, I became passionate about the poetry as an end in itself.”

“They felt integral, each fed the other,” she explained. “I loved both. I needed both.”

Braid eventually left the construction industry altogether in 1991 to devote herself to writing full-time, publishing her first collection, Covering Fresh Ground, the same year.

Braid has since established herself as one of the pre-eminent voices in Vancouver poetry and has published multiple volumes devoted to her experiences as a female carpenter, including a recently published memoir called Journeywoman: Swinging a Hammer in a Man’s World.

Listen: Braid reads her poem “Nails” (with permission of Kate Braid and Clyde Reed, first published in Turning Left to the Ladies [Palimpsest Press, 2009])

Then and now

Braid finds the current prospects of younger poets who are trying to sustain themselves while carving a space within the local scene, like Janes and Judy, considerably more bleak than when she started publishing in the early ’90s.

“The average sales for a poetry book used to be around 400 [copies]. I’m sure the number of sales is lower now. With e-books, it’s even worse. So it’s all about the day job.”

In addition to teaching poetry to both undergrad and masters students at UBC, Tregebov has an extensive publishing record herself, and she’s observed a similar decrease in the opportunities available to poets who try to make it in the local scene.

“I find Vancouver doesn’t have much of an infrastructure. I lived in Toronto, and the Toronto Arts Council is very, very healthy, versus zero here. You can apply for funding to the B.C. Arts Council, which is dreadfully underfunded. And federal [funding] is the most competitive you can imagine.”

Tregebov has noticed some of the ways this financial strain has crept into the work of not only her students, but local poets in general.

“You’ll often see the sense of marginalization that people get from being somewhat trapped economically by what they love. And also writing about work… there’s often an ironic, wry wisp at being on the other side of the counter.”

Toughing it out

Judy’s day job is more important to the kind of poetry he writes than just the paycheque it brings.

Judy is slightly more optimistic. He finds that the mentality that comes from having an occupation is just as important as the paycheque it brings.

“It’s that 20 minutes when you get home from work after you have a shower, where you sit down at your desk and you’ve just got time to yourself and you try to make something happen,” Judy says.

“I find that those tend to be a lot more productive than if you just have too much time, because too much time can be crippling too. The thing is, you still want to be hungry to write, but it’s nice to not actually be physically hungry.”

Judy is part of a writing collective called Wolf Mountain, which bases its artistic principals on this blue-collar work ethic.

The motto of Wolf Mountain is “making poetry tough again.”

“You’re working hard all day, we’re working hard as well,” Judy explains. “Not for your dime necessarily, but for your attention.”

“So our aesthetic is, we’re going to put on our work shirt, our old blue jeans, and we’re going to work our asses off to make something that you’re going to engage with.”

“That’s the idea,” he remarked. “That’s the ideal.”

Aboriginal PhD students (L-R) Donna Lester-Smith, Madeleine Maclvor and Todd Ormiston celebrate during the convocation ceremony at UBC. (Photo: Olajumoke Dapo-Ogunsola)

Shelly Johnson, whose traditional name is Mukwa Musayette, meaning “walking with the bears,” was among the aboriginal graduates who recently received a PhD during the May 2012 ceremony at UBC.

The event was more than just a celebration of personal accomplishment for Johnson. She is one of 11 aboriginal students who got graduate degrees this year from UBC’s faculty of education – the highest number ever in the faculty’s history or for any education faculty in Canada.

The 50-year-old Saulteaux from Keeseekoose First Nations in Saskatchewan, was one of the 15 aboriginal students who enrolled in 2006. That’s when a special graduate program that focused on indigenous leadership and policy began at the faculty.

The program specifically uses the history and culture of indigenous people to create models of teaching and mentoring, which can be taken back to their communities, if graduates decide to teach.

Johnson said she chose UBC because it was the only school that provided the opportunity to take classes in indigenous studies as a master’s program — where she started before her PhD — in Canada.

“I feel very happy that I enrolled in the program. I am happy I achieved my dreams. It is an opportunity to help young people think about post-secondary education and the future.”

Johnson was one of the five graduates during the first ceremony. The other six graduated in November.

In the past, the number of aboriginal graduates from the faculty has hovered around one or two.

The associate dean of indigenous education, Jo-Ann Archibald, attributes the success to strategies put in place by the faculty and the school to encourage indigenous student enrolment.  Of the original 15 students the program attracted, 13 were First Nations from Canada. Another two were from other indigenous groups in other countries.

“This program greatly increased the number of our students,” She said.  “We also provided funding for newly admitted indigenous PhD students.”

Jo-Ann Archibald, associate dean, school of indigenous education, dressed in her traditional outfit to celebrate the increase in aboriginal graduates at UBC. (Photo: Olajumoke Dapo-Ogunsola)

 That funding covered tuition only.

Johnson was quick to state that, she, like the other students, took advantage of the funding provided by the school.

 But it wasn’t just money that lured the new crop of students.

“We have also tripled the number of our indigenous faculty members since 2008, and this helped attract more students,” said Archibald.

This development brings B.C. a step closer to its first-step target of producing 250 masters and doctoral graduates in the province.

B.C. has been working to achieve that through a special program called Supporting Aboriginal Graduates Enhancement, a cross-university initiative to mentor First Nations students.

This UBC faculty of education program has been applauded by the community.

 ”I think this is a great achievement, and a result of a long-term plan,” said Dr. Lee Brown, director of UBC’s Institute for Aboriginal Health. “We want to assume leadership.”

 Impact on Communities:

The hope among communities is that having more aboriginal graduates will produce mentors and role models for high school students, who struggle to graduate.

According to B.C. statistics from 2009, about half of the province’s aboriginal students do not graduate from high school within six years of starting Grade 8 compared to the almost 80-per-cent figure for non-aboriginal students.

Having PhD graduates doing research on education then moving into it will, it’s hoped, put them in leadership positions, and can help change what’s offered in the schools. That’s key, says Brown.

“It is about the role of our history, the aboriginal mathematics, and science. We want to make our educational system more multicultural,” he said.

 The future of indigenous education in UBC:

 Presently, only the faculty of education offers an aboriginal graduate program.

 But the university is about to see a wave of more aboriginal-focused courses.

 There are plans to place more priority on indigenous studies at the undergraduate, masters and doctoral level at the university. Most of that that new curriculum is coming within the next couple of years, but the wave is starting already.

 The introduction of aboriginal legal education into the law school curriculum is an example. First-year law students will take a class focused on aboriginal rights and treaties in Canada as a requirement for graduation.

 “We still anticipate a time when every student at UBC will take a class in aboriginal studies,” said Brown.

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The chancellor congratulates an MA student during the convocation ceremony. (Photo: Olajumoke Dapo-Ogunsola)