Angela James sets out her vision for the NWT’s university

Dr Angela James will take over as Aurora College president in August this year. We asked her how she envisages the college’s transition into a polytechnic university.

Aurora College comes with campuses in three communities – Fort Smith, Inuvik and Yellowknife – alongside an ongoing transformation process that’s designed to establish a university by 2025.

James, who is Manitoba Métis, will walk into the thick of that when the next academic year begins and she succeeds the retiring Dr Glenda Vardy Dell as the college’s president. Her appointment was announced last week.

The transformation process is likely to attract significant scrutiny as it enters its final stages: what is the NWT getting from that process? What is different, what is better, and how will the university outperform its predecessor, the college?

But presidents of the college have long attracted scrutiny even without a university transformation – including questions about where they live, which became a political talking point in recent years.

Increasingly, presidents have chosen to make Yellowknife their base rather than Fort Smith, and James says she will do the same. Some people in Fort Smith see that as the gradual erosion of the town’s place as the NWT’s education hub.

“I will be based in Yellowknife and we’ll regularly have a schedule of time spent in our sister campuses, in Fort Smith Thebacha campus and of course the Aurora Inuvik campus,” James told Cabin Radio last week.

“My next steps are going to be really crucial as the new Aurora College president and I will take several steps to assure Fort Smith, the education capital of the Northwest Territories, that I’m here, I’m present and making sure that I honour the community of Fort Smith – and that it is the main location of education.”

Meanwhile, the proposed Tin Can Hill campus for the new university in Yellowknife remains controversial.

Some residents want the hill, which is one of the city’s most prominent green spaces, to be preserved rather than built upon. Proponents of the plan say it’ll help to create a “spectacular site” with plenty of space, easy access to downtown, and the chance to integrate buildings with nature and the surrounding community.

“The site environmental assessment is still to be done in March. We’ll have to wait for that,” said James. “There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done in procuring funding and with federal government engagement.”

Below, read a transcript of our interview.

This interview was recorded on February 8, 2024. The transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Ollie Williams: What made you want this job?

Angela James: One of the reasons I’m getting into this new job is Indigenous languages are very important to me, but so are Indigenous culture, traditions, people, families, Elders, communities. That ensures that I’m grounded in the spirit and intent of Indigeneity, but also remembering the importance of balance: the need to balance the Indigenous ways with western approaches. When you have that balance, you really have quality post-secondary education that I want to move ahead on.

I’m going to follow as well the wise Tłı̨chǫ ideology of “strong like two people,” or down in the South Slave they’d say “walking in both worlds.” When that balance happens – and that’s my style of leadership – then you’re going to start to have quality post-secondary education.

The GNWT and the college have spent years outlining how they think a polytechnic university should look. Is their vision identical to your vision or are there aspects that you might look to evolve?

My priority will be taking a look at the existing visions and the goals outlined, and all the Aurora College publications – the new 10-year post-secondary education strategic framework, as well as all of the transformation documents. In these vision statements are really amazing words like establishing a university in the North and for the North, that creates equitable opportunities for residents across the NWT to reach their potential, as well as providing equitable opportunity for students to obtain post-secondary education that is student-centred and accessible, high-quality, relevant and accountable.

There’s a lot of great work in these visions and these goals that have already been created. I’m going to move forward on these. I don’t believe there’s a need to reinvent the wheel, because a lot of great work has been accomplished in developing this huge body of work. So I’ve studied them. I’ve done my homework and research on these visions and goals. Now it’s up to me to use my leadership skills and my knowledge and abilities and implement them.

What’s your philosophy? What are the most important things a northern polytechnic university should be doing?

My philosophy is that concept of balance. Right now there are a lot of great programs already happening at Aurora College, successful programs like nursing, early learning and child care, ENRTP, the trades and, of course, the Aurora Research Institute. But there’s still a lot of work that needs to happen regarding the up-and-coming research and development for new Aurora College programs.

We talk about the new general studies program, which is a two-year diploma program that’s going to be the beginning of the new social work program, a Bachelor of Social Work program, Bachelor of Education program. On deck is a really exciting program called the Indigenous Language Diploma, and that will be the flagship program for Aurora College.

My philosophy really revolves around who I am. I’m an Indigenous person. I’m a woman. I’m Dr Angela James, fully educated in all levels of education. I’ve been in the Northwest Territories for about 50 years and in education for 35 of those years, quite a number of years. I’ve got many stories, many friends and relations, cousins, colleagues, family, a very strong network of people that I know and who know me, and they know how hard I’m going to work for Aurora College with them. They know I’ll take my philosophy and my beliefs, and my strong Indigenous values and understanding of Indigenous education, as well as balance with the western approaches.

We’ve heard lately from Yellowknife students and faculty about all kinds of building issues at Northern United Place, particularly around a lack of heat. These are the kinds of things that will soon start landing on your desk. In your view, how urgent and how necessary is a new Yellowknife campus on Tin Can Hill?

There’s still that whole movement forward towards a new polytechnic North Slave campus on Tin Can Hill. It’s still in the works. The site environmental assessment is still to be done in March. We’ll have to wait for that. First and foremost is, of course, our North Slave campus in the Northern United building and the challenges that are there.

When people talk about a North Slave campus, we’ve never really had a campus. I think the history is that we went into the Northern United just to fulfill a GNWT lease agreement, and there has not been talk of a new campus. That’s really quite important, from my perspective, in terms of a new campus at Aurora College, but we must remember that there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done in procuring funding and with federal government engagement.

I’ve been involved in a lot of transformation stories in my time and when the money is found for Aurora campus, Thebacha campus and the North Slave campus, and when it’s built, I believe they will come. It will turn into what I would like to see as young students thinking of the new Aurora University as being a home campus to come to wherever they choose, and to have them believe that new polytechnic university in the Northwest Territories will be the university of choice rather than travelling to the western, southern universities that sometimes happen.

You’re calling it Aurora University, have we signed off on that yet?

No, that’s just my name right now. There’s a whole myriad of names. I think there’s talk around the Northwest Territories about a name, they want it to be in an Indigenous language. Now, we have to be careful with that choice of language because we know we have nine official Indigenous languages, and we know we have to be respectful to the Dene, the Métis, the Inuvialuit and the NWT Cree. Sticking with our existing name, Aurora, might make a lot of sense because it’s not going to cause any conflict or hard feelings with the different language groups.

Maybe let’s call it Aurora Polytechnic University, or maybe just Aurora University. Anyways, there’s still a lot of engagement and collaboration that needs to happen on the name selection.

It’s not just Yellowknife. There’s Inuvik, there’s Fort Smith and of course there are smaller community education centres in a lot of our communities. You’re a Yellowknife resident right now. Is Yellowknife going to be your base of operations as president?

I’ve already talked about this with the board of governors and Yellowknife will be my base. This is my home. I won’t be able to leave my sled dogs, as well.

I will be based in Yellowknife and we’ll regularly have a schedule of time spent in our sister campuses, in Fort Smith Thebacha campus and of course the Aurora Inuvik campus.

The current president does a really great job – tribute and shoutout to Dr Glenda Vardy Dell, who’s the outgoing president. She has a great schedule: she lives in Yellowknife but she spends regular time with Thebacha campus in Smith as well as the Aurora campus in Inuvik. That’s the same plan that I’ll be following.

There will be Fort Smith residents who hear you say that and think, “OK, that’s our seat of education transferring over to Yellowknife. That diminishes our importance as the capital of education.” What will you do to make Fort Smith feel as though it remains central to this college’s mandate and central to this polytechnic’s future?

My next steps are going to be really crucial as the new Aurora College president and I will take several steps to assure Fort Smith, the education capital of the Northwest Territories, that I’m here, I’m present and making sure that I honour the community of Fort Smith – and that it is the main location of education.

But we have a distributed model in terms of the Thebacha campus, the North Slave campus and the Aurora campus, and we have to make sure that we are aware of that distributed model and we are making sure that we’re spending adequate time in that.

I really need to build an excellent internal team, an executive team. In January, we completed the polytechnic’s new organizational redesign, which will keep four overarching divisions at Aurora College. There’s the division of academics, there will be the division of research, there will be a new division of Indigenous foundations and student life, and as well corporate and administration services.

It just so happens that these positions will be vacant, and I’ll be able to be a part of the team-building in terms of getting new people in as the internal team that will make up the executive. We’ll work together to make sure that we really are strong with our distributed model.