Two UNBC Students Named 3M Student Fellows
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PRINCE GEORGE – By demonstrating leadership and enhancing the educational experience on campus, two UNBC students have been named 3M Student Fellows for 2018. Only 10 university students across the country are chosen. Yahlnaaw/Aaron Grant and Amy Blanding have both embraced their individual challenges and have gone on to teach others about finding their voice.
Yahlnaaw is an Indigenous scholar and will be graduating from the Bachelor of Arts in First Nations Studies this month and then she’ll begin her graduate studies in the fall. She’s working on how Indigenous knowledge and culture can have a place in the education system, along with learning her Skidegate Haida language. “I realized I was able to put myself in my work because I am my work,” Yahlnaaw says. “This helped me find my voice as an Indigenous woman.” Yahlnaaw will be sharing her experiences through the new Campus Cousins program at UNBC’s First Nations Centre. “Leadership should not be self-focused,” she says. “True leadership should strive to ensure everyone can be a leader in the various forms that leadership can be created.”
Blanding is a Master of Education in Multidisciplinary Leadership student. After suffering a knee injury during a dance performance, Blanding saw an opportunity to overcome her physical limitation and developed a new performance with other dancers. “The beauty of the piece is that it had never been done before and it couldn’t have been done by anyone other than us because of the creativity that was found in our collective limitations,” said Blanding. She believes that it’s important to rethink what we consider to be limitations. “It’s not about accommodating difference and diversity, it’s about embracing it and seeking it out,” said Blanding. “In the classroom, there is real power that comes from recognizing that being broken isn’t something to be fixed or accommodated, but rather is a threshold experience that can create a profound educational shift.”
Both recipients received a $5,000 award as part of the fellowship and will begin working on a year-long project with the other 3M Fellows. Yahlnaaw and Blanding will be attending the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education conference in Sherbrooke, Quebec next month. This the second time in the same year, that two UNBC students have been named 3M National Student Fellows.
