Dr. Emily Jane Faries

Education key to success

By Allison Kydd
Windspeaker Contributor

Dr. Emily Jane Faries said for her the Aboriginal achievement award will mean more opportunities to network with other Aboriginal educators across the country. In fact, she's already made some new contacts since she received the award.

It is typical of Dr. Faries to be thinking of the award as an opportunity to do more work. She presently balances teaching in the Native Studies department at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont. with her work as an education consultant and advisor to First Nations communities and other institutions and groups involved in Native education. She intends to continue working in both these areas.

At the university, where she presently teaches third year courses: Native People and Education, and Native Community Based Research Methods, she said she is "able to share with [her] students [her] personal experience as a Native student and [her] work experience in First Nations communities over the last 20 years."

Faries feels this combination of personal and work experience is "the best way to facilitate the learning journey of our people . . . that way, they learn what is going on in the communities. . . the realities, rather than only getting information from books." She also said of the university, "We are proud that the majority of our faculty are Native (Ojibway, Mohawk and Cree)."

The description Faries gives of the work she does outside the university is also very impressive. She says it "entails training of education authorities, conducting education needs assessments and community-based studies, developing Native-oriented materials and curricula . . . providing advisory services on education issues, etc."

In the communities where she is called in as a consultant, she is dedicated to promoting First Nations control over their own education and also to developing curricula which reflect their "unique history, culture, language, values etc." She added, "it is about time that we as Native people decide what is best for us, what is best for our children, which is why we must have control over our education."

Besides her professional commitment to education and research, Faries has done a lot of committee and volunteer work in the Aboriginal community. She's been a co-ordinator for traditional gatherings in the James Bay area and a board member of the local alcohol and drug abuse program. Presently, she's involved in helping Aboriginal women set up networking systems and in lobbying for a land settlement for World War II veterans. She said of this: "All of the work I have chosen to do reflects what I believe . . . My father was a World War II veteran, and he was one of the veterans who had lost entitlement to lands which were granted to returning soldiers after World War II. I am determined that I will do all I can, in his memory and [because of] all that he stood for - his strength, commitment to his people and the sacrifice he and all Aboriginal veterans made for their people."

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