From the Dalhousie Magazine Fall 2011.
When RCMP Const. Dawn Metallic pores over the files of missing men, women and children from across Canada, she can’t help but think of her own life and the roads not taken.
“I don’t know what happened to me, why I took a different path in life – but I was at those crossroads. I could’ve been one of those girls,” she says.
Instead Ms. Metallic, a graduate of Dalhousie’s Transition Year Program (TYP), is working in Ottawa at the National Police Support Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains.
“I know people who are still in those situations,” she says. “So, I definitely bring that to the table.”
The 10-year force veteran is the “eyes and ears of aboriginal policing” in the ongoing development of the national database, the first of its kind in Canada. Her role, in addition to providing support for police forces across the country on their cases, is to ensure there is always an aboriginal voice in the process.
“A lot of these people I’m working with have never worked with an aboriginal person before,” she says.
She is from a Mi’kmaq community that borders New Brunswick and Quebec. In 1992, she applied to Dalhousie University to begin classes but didn’t get in. That’s when “TYP came to me,” she says. Through TYP, she began studying in the fall of 1992.
The program was designed to help black and aboriginal students gain the skills they needed to get a university education. The students were keenly aware that people looked at them differently based on the colour of their skin. Her classmates also suffered from a lack of confidence, role models and encouragement from teachers in the public system.
Before TYP, “I didn’t know everybody felt like that,” she said. “It gave me that independence to have some self-confidence that I have the capability of doing it.”
Education combined with commitment to the community
TYP began in 1970, the brainchild of graduate student James Walker and Burnley (Rocky) Jones (LLB’92, LLD’04), an undergrad at the time. The pair had been discussing the systemic racism facing black and aboriginal students for some time.
“We operated from the premise that we’re not stupid... but that there must be something blocking First Nations and African Nova Scotians from getting through,” says Dr. Jones, who is now a retired lawyer.
They found their solution after a long talk during a duck hunting trip in 1968. They combined various philosophies on black education and came up with a university-level program aimed at black and aboriginal school dropouts.
“It’s not just enough to have an education,” says Dr. Jones. “They had to have an education and then be committed to coming back to the community to use their education to further educate the community.”
Dalhousie students and faculty, along with members of the local African-Canadian community, lobbied the university to officially adopt the program. The administration took on the challenge, loaning staff from other programs; paying Mr. Walker and Dr. Jones a stipend to develop a black history course; and hiring Noel Knockwood to develop an aboriginal studies course.
Dr. Jones thought TYP would last five or 10 years. TYP recently marked its 40th anniversary. In that time, about 1,000 people have graduated from TYP, becoming leaders in the black and aboriginal communities.
“The need is great in the community. You don’t erase in 40 years what has accumulated over centuries in terms of historical disadvantage,” says Isaac Saney, TYP’s acting director.
Finding a second home with an extended family
This year, there were 100 applicants for 25 to 30 available spaces. Acceptance is still based mainly on focus and motivation, with a minimum academic requirement and geographical representation.
The intensive program includes courses on black and native history, math, English, academic writing and an elective to help students prepare for and continue on in university. They must achieve a B average to be accepted at Dalhousie University as regular students and may receive a tuition waiver if they maintain a 2.0 GPA.
“Some would say that TYP was not as rigorous as your sort of mainstream programs,” said Eric Christmas, a TYP graduate from Membertou First Nation in Cape Breton.
“But I found that it actually was. One of the reasons was the courses were actually first-year courses as well. You were getting a sense of how the university works and what the demands were,” says Mr. Christmas.
The program also taught essential university skills like effective communication, note-taking and critical thinking, he said.
“I was always serious about school when I was there, but it gave me such a great set of tools to work with that I think just made it easier for me,” he says.
In TYP, he also found an extended family he could turn to for guidance on the big campus as he first earned an undergraduate degree in economics and then completed two years of graduate studies. In return, he mentored new TYP students and showed them that “it’s not impossible.”
Making an impact, offering hope
Mr. Christmas is the energy advisor for Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn, also known as KMK Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative. The organization works for Nova Scotia’s 13 bands in consultations and negotiations with government and industry. His role is to bring business opportunities in the areas of gas, oil and new energy to the chiefs.
“Just speaking from the Mi’kmaq community, I know many, many colleagues of mine that were in the program before and I see them today and they’re in just some incredible roles – commerce, health, the environment,” says Mr. Christmas. “Just watching the work that they’re now doing now, it’s amazing. That’s a kind of direct impact that I think is measurable.”
But he said TYP also offers something that can’t be so easily measured.
“It gives us hope,” Christmas said. “If you think that your current position in life isn’t going so well, that option (to go to university) is there. And it’s just been so, so critical.”
Ms. Metallic graduated from TYP in 1993 and studied at Dalhousie for three years before she joined the RCMP through a program she learned about on campus. She continues to volunteer at friendship centres, First Nations events and in recruiting aboriginal people for the RCMP.
The foundation for her self-confidence, she says, is rooted in the support she received in TYP. Ms. Metallic returned to Halifax for the 40th anniversary celebration where she heard many success stories and reflected on how far she has come.