Beginning this academic year all credit course students graduating from Yukon College will now possess core competency knowledge in Yukon First Nations history and culture.

Many Yukon College programs require no change as their course content already covers the new core competency knowledge. Vocational and a handful of other programs will need students to complete an online course, one-day workshop (YFN 101) or challenge an online exam which has been approved by the Council of Yukon First Nations and all 14 Yukon First Nations.

“Yukon College President’s Advisory Council on First Nations Initiatives (PACFNI) members are thrilled that their vision of the core competency program has finally come to life. This will better prepare our graduates in their future jobs in Yukon, no matter what field they work in, or which community they live in,” said Melissa Atkinson, Tr’ondek Hwech’in Employment and Training Officer and PACFNI member.

Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation (LSCFN), Yukon College and the Yukon Mine Training Association (YMTA) are teaming up to deliver an Essential Skills: Introduction to Plumbing and Heating program in Carmacks this Fall.

The College’s Mobile Trades Training Trailer will be stationed at the Carmacks community campus for the program. Students will also obtain hands-on experience through working on community houses and assisting with the current retro-fit of the LSCFN government building.
“This is a high priority of the Chief and Council, to use our infrastructure upgrades to greatly add to LSCFN citizen training, apprenticeship and employment opportunities in Carmacks,” said LSCFN Chief Eric Fairclough. “And we appreciate Yukon College and YMTA’s enthusiasm to work closely with our government to make this happen.”

WHITEHORSE-Jordan Aslett, an instructor in the Bachelor of Social Work program at Yukon College, has been recognized with an award from an international journal. Aslett is co-writer of an article about tackling disengaged students and the constraints of modern universities, such as increasing class size, standardized text books and testing, and reduced guest speakers and written assignments.

“There is a lot of pressure on faculty across Canada, especially adjunct faculty, to standardize the curriculum and teaching. Along with reduced funding for additional source texts and field trips, the result can be teaching that follows a single textbook and fails to engage students, or challenge them to think critically,” said Aslett. “It’s a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn’t meet the needs of all students or inspire them.”

Whitehorse – A Touch of Green, an exhibit by renowned Yukon artist Lillian Loponen, will open Wednesday, September 30 in the Hilltop Bistro at Yukon College. The opening is from 4.30 p.m. until 6.30 p.m. with the artist in attendance. There will be hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar.
The exhibit features predominantly new work. The 15 paintings are a mix of landscapes, textures, and abstract works chronicling Loponen’s exploration of the colour green.

“After living in a world of Yukon winters blues with variations of sunrise and sunsets, my spirit, heart and soul had been leaning towards a creative world of green, developing a relationship with green. I wanted to know it, absorb it,” said Loponen in her artist statement.

The exhibit runs until mid-December and all paintings at the Bistro are for sale. Yukon College does not receive a commission on any work sold in the Hilltop Bistro.

WHITEHORSE-Wealth management company Leith Wheeler Investment Counsel has partnered with Yukon College to create 15 annual bursary awards of $500 each, totaling $7,500. The awards support Yukon First Nations citizens attending Yukon College in the following programs: First Nations Governance and Public Administration; Heritage and Culture; First Nations Community Services Administration; Heritage and Culture Essentials Skills; and First Nations Leadership Training.

Ten of the bursaries are committed to Champagne and Aishihik First Nations and Carcross Tagish First Nation citizens, with the remaining available to citizens from any Yukon First Nation. There will be opportunities to apply in the Fall and Winter terms.  The first application deadline is September 30, 2015.

WHITEHORSE: BYTE – Empowering Youth, Yukon College, and Yukon College Student Union are teaming up to host a packed night of live music at the third annual Future Routes Music Festival on Friday, September 18, 2015 at the Yukon College Gym.

This year’s festival is the venue for BYTE’s annual Battle of the Bands and a set by HUMANS, an indie-electronic duo from Vancouver whose innovative sound, experimental beats and danceable tunes have made them staples on dance floors around the country.

This year’s Battle of the Bands lineup includes The Morgan Girls, Dirtbags, WaRRmAuth, Eat Your Friends, and MC TurMoil & Riddz. With genres ranging from folk and blues to metal, dubstep, and hip-hop, this year’s Battle of the Bands has you covered if you want to discover some of the best music from leading young Yukon artists. Find out more about each band on the Band Profile page below.

WHITEHORSE-Bottled water will no longer be sold at Yukon College’s main Ayamdigut campus in Whitehorse when classes begin next week. Instead the College has installed two enhanced water stations and will give out free College-branded reusable water bottles to new and returning students.

“Too often when we think of the green principles of reduce, reuse, recycle, we focus on recycling and overlook the more important idea of reducing our waste overall,” said Colleen Wirth, Director of Student and Infrastructure Support. “As part of our on-going efforts to become a sustainability leader in our community, Yukon College can no longer contribute to the significant waste created by the sale of bottled water.”

WHITEHORSE-Informed sexual consent is the centerpiece to Yukon College’s Ayamdigut campus 2015 orientation week. The initial two weeks of the school year will have a series of interactive activities aimed at empowering students to have informed conversations around sexual consent. Each activity links to a competition with multiple chances to enter and win a MacBook Pro laptop computer.

The College is teaming up with the Les Essentielles Consent Crew and Victoria Faulkner Women’s Centre on the consent campaign. Activities include video presentations, games, discussions, making and wearing a button advocating consent, participating in a photo campaign, and researching a local non-profit organization working to end violence against women.

Whitehorse – The Yukon Research Centre (YRC) has released a report on heavy metal concentrations found in fish in the Keno Hill mining district. Information collected from fish ear bones can be used to track heavy metal contaminants and potentially determine the success of environmental remediation.

YRC, Access Consulting Group, and Na-cho Nyak Dun First Nation worked with Dr. Norman Halden from the University of Manitoba who developed the technique of fish otolith microchemistry. This technique can determine both contaminant levels as well as life history information on individual fish and populations. Never before used in Yukon, this technique was applied to Arctic Grayling and Slimy Sculpin in the Keno Hill mining district due to the areas long mining history.

Whitehorse – The first week of class at a new school can be a shock to the system. Before you have made new friends, gleaned an accurate read on your new roommate, or worked out how many days you can stretch a case of Kraft dinner, you’re already juggling papers and getting buried under reading assignments with mid-terms looming just seven short weeks away.

Becoming an ace note-taker, mastering test prep, and tackling test writing with the ease of a social media update, may feel like cruel taunts at 4:30 a.m. on October 25, as the insomnia-soaked minutes countdown to your first psych test, but not if you were smart and tackled the Academic Success Boot Camp.