New voice for students
Representative nominated to Aurora College board gets her feet wet
Candace Thomson
Northern News Services
Published Friday, April 4, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
As a full-time student, part-time case worker and volunteer, Geraldine Hunter is very busy.
As of February, however, Hunter has even more on her plate after she took a seat on the Aurora College board of governors as the lone student representative for the institution's three campuses.
"I'm glad it's finally happening," Hunter told Yellowknifer Tuesday. "It's been a long time coming."
Hunter was nominated by fellow student Joanne Erasmus at the Yellowknife campus in October. Her nomination was chosen among several others given to the college's student association, which then chose Hunter. The choice had to be approved by Jackson Lafferty, minister of the Department of Education, Culture, and Employment - a process which wasn't completed until February.
Her duties as the student representative include bringing the voices of 500 to 600 Aurora College students across the NWT to the thrice-yearly meetings of the college's board of governors. The board meets in November, March and June each year.
Hunter was invited to attend the November meeting, but couldn't attend due to short notice.
She replaces Thebacha student Mickey Ipana, who graduated from his program last June.
Hunter said she anticipates there will be a lot of work, and is working out a few challenges as she goes.
"The campuses are quite a distance apart and I don't really know who to talk to a lot of the time and I don't get a lot of follow-up through (the campuses' administration), but that's what I'm working on," Hunter said.
"I'm just kind of getting my feet wet now."
Aiming for a degree in both nursing and social work, Hunter is in her third year at the college after moving from Toronto, and is well-versed in student life and the challenges it brings. The most important part of her job, she said, is being available to the students and understanding their concerns and, in some cases, frustration with the college.
"Students can come to me with concerns and I have an open-door, friendly policy," Hunter said. "(Students) have the students' association, but their mandate doesn't cover political issues surrounding the college so I'm taking that on myself."
Hunter was one of 40 Aurora College students present for a meeting with the legislative assembly's Standing Committee on Social Programs Jan. 24.
Although Lafferty's approval of her nomination hadn't been officially given by the date of the meeting, Hunter said the meeting gave her a better idea of what the issues some of the students were having.
"It went well and a lot of issues were covered, but it opened a lot of wounds for people," Hunter said.
"There was a lot of crying. These issues are very personal to people and when they don't get immediate resolution then it internalizes. Everything seemed to come to the forefront."
Hunter said some issues involved childcare for student parents and confusion about college programs, but most of the problems related to student poverty.
"It can be said being a student is tough and you're almost expected to live in poverty, but if there's anything I can do to raise the standards, I'm going to be doing what I can," Hunter said.
Jane Arychuk, president of the college, also attended the meeting, although she was only there to listen, she told Yellowknifer.
"Students were very passionate about what they spoke on," Arychuk said. "We're hoping the channels will open up and they can bring these issues toward myself, and we, as the college, can handle them, not the board."
The issue of only having a single student representative on the board of governors was lambasted as an 'impossible task' by Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins in a letter sent to the college on Jan. 27. Hawkins wrote the letter to condemn the board for not meeting with students, a stance he took to the legislative assembly last month.
Arychuk said the college tries to make it fair by rotating the student representative from campus to campus each year.
"According to the Aurora College Act, it says we can have one student representative, and one staff representative," Arychuk said. "So we've rotated it to make it equal, or fair to each campus, and we are considering ways of how to better connect the student representative with the other campuses so that students on other campuses feel they have a better connection with the representative wherever they sit."
In response to a request from Hunter, Arychuk said she plans to meet with students in each campus during the first two weeks of April.
