Horace Mann - Winter 2012 - (Page 17)

celebrating 125 years: preparing great and giving lives area of concentration. “The focus of my work has been in the resettlement context, because i started out in that work in copenhagen. Whether they were survivors of torture or not, the question was ‘how do you work with people who have been through the refugee process? How do you facilitate their integration?’ When i got to McGill, it wasn’t a big jump to work with the inuit. My focus is about working with marginalized populations.” prof. ives is a founder of indigenous access McGill (iaM), a university-wide initiative that addresses the fact that while first nations, Métis and inuit make up 3.8 per cent of canada’s total population, they comprise a far smaller percent of the university’s student body. economic indicators confirm that access to higher education enhances job and future income opportunities long after college, and that the lack of higher education perpetuates marginalization. iaM also provides support programs, advisors, and a welcoming environment to enable indigenous students in social work, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, dietetics, and speech and language pathology to feel comfortable and succeed at McGill. bridGinG A GAp in 2010 prof. ives launched the inaugural aboriginal field course of the McGill School of Social Work. Twenty McGill students from the departments of anthropology, law and Social Work, including several indigenous students, spent a week in the Kahnawake Mohawk community just outside Montreal, where they had the opportunity to learn about the community first-hand, while also sharing aspects of their own backgrounds. enrollment grew in the summer of 2011. The course is significant to McGill because it does not focus on a far-away first nations community living in isolation in the canadian plains, northern Quebec, or elsewhere on the globe, prof. ives explained. “McGill has a geography course that takes students to indigenous people in panama, and an anthropology class that visits cree people in the north. We wanted students to know the indigenous population right here. They live only 20 minutes away from the main McGill campus,” said prof. ives. prof. ives and her colleague, prof. Michael loft, with whom she developed the course, had to literally cross a bridge—the Mercier bridge—countless times as they worked with the community over a two-year period to devise a class that, they hoped, would build bridges between McGill and its neighboring indigenous community. prof. loft is a Mohawk, and helped facilitate communication with the longhouse and the band council. “one of the things i’ve come across in my own work is the gulf between indigenous and non-indigenous people, the stereotypes and biases,” said prof. ives. “We wanted canadians and first nations peoples to get to know each other, learn about the iroquois context, and break through the preconceived notions.” but, prof. ives emphasized, “We also taught that we can’t generalize about all native communities from this experience. Here our lives have many similarities. That’s very different from some of the Midwestern provinces of canada, where the conditions are terrible. The students learn that they are meeting one indigenous community, and not to think that they now know about all indigenous people.” the vAlue of diversity studies The course has changed the perspective of its students,” prof. ives said. “one law student is now working on incorporating an indigenous pillar into legal studies. a central goal in my teaching is to prepare students to work with diverse populations, who have experienced marginalization, colonization, and oppression. i continue to be involved with that work with refugees as well as with indigenous groups.” of her personal experience, prof. ives noted that one of her earliest forays into research relating to refugees stemmed from her family background. “in eighth grade, before i came to Horace Mann, i did a biography of my maternal grandfather. it wasn’t popular for him to highlight his German background when he came to the U.S., even though he worked for the allies in england. i really got a sense of what he went through. My dad’s side of the family is african american. My paternal grandmother’s grandmother was Seminole, and there was also cherokee on my paternal grandfather’s side. Growing up i wasn’t all that aware of this background, but it was something that was always there, that i knew about in my head. i knew about things like the Trail of Tears (the forced removal of native americans from the Southeastern U.S. to the West, when tens of thousands died). “Growing up in new york city we weren’t really exposed to native peoples’ issues, so it wasn’t really part of my framework until i came to canada. These issues are now more than a research interest.” as she guides students today prof. ives remembers one Horace Mann School teacher in particular: “The person i always come back to is Mr. (randal) castleman. i was relatively shy when i came to Horace Mann. but, i played soccer during my four years at HM. it was really playing soccer and having Mr. castleman as a coach that brought me out of my shyness,” prof. ives said of the late Dean. “The team grew as a community and we did really well as a team. Mr. castleman pushed us, but he never pushed farther than he believed we could take. i learned that what i thought were my limits were not my limits— that i could go further. i try to use that with my students today… bringing them to understand what they are capable of accomplishing.” To learn more about prof. nicole ives’ work go to http://www.mcgill.ca/socialwork/ faculty/ives. a video of her aboriginal field course is at: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=8nWo76m9pK8 $ Horace mann magazine Winter 2012 17 http://www.mcgill.ca/socialwork/faculty/ives http://www.mcgill.ca/socialwork/faculty/ives http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nWO76m9PK8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nWO76m9PK8

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Horace Mann - Winter 2012

Horace Mann - Winter 2012
Contents
Letters
Greetings from Dr. Tom Kelly
Greetings from Melissa Parento ’90
Horace Mann School’s 125th Anniversary Observances Begin
Strategic Thinking
New Initiatives in Institutional Research and Admissions
HM's New Director of College Counseling
Timothy HO and Monica Merlo are 2011 Tina and Dave Bellet Teaching Excellence Award Winners
Langfan Oratorical Contest, 2011
Horace Mann School Graduates 178 in June, 2011
Alumni Council Corner
Bookshelf
Class Notes
Memorials
Philanthropy and You

Horace Mann - Winter 2012

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