UPEI’s Centre for Education Research hosts public event December 4

The public is invited to attend the launch of a documentary video and the opening of a photography exhibition about UPEI's Master of Education in Leadership in Learning program in Nunavut.

The event takes place on Friday, December 4, at 4 p.m., in the Alex H. MacKinnon Auditorium and Schurman Market Square, Don and Marion McDougall Hall.

During a special Convocation in Iqaluit on July 1, 2009, 21 Inuit educational leaders from across Nunavut graduated with Master of Education Leadership in Learning degrees from UPEI-the first graduate degree program to be offered in Nunavut. Most of the graduates were mature students already working as leaders in their communities. Participants studied part-time over three years through face-to-face courses in Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet combined with online learning.

The program balanced western and Inuit knowledge of education and educational leadership. It was developed and delivered through a unique partnership between the University of Prince Edward Island, Nunavut Department of Education, Nunavut Arctic College, and St. Francis Xavier University.

The graduates' learning is recorded in a documentary video, Lighting the Qulliq: The First Master of Education Program in Nunavut, produced by well-known Canadian filmmaker and director Mark Sandiford. Aspects of their lives as educational leaders are documented through photographs taken by renowned photographer Carlos Reyes-Manzo.

Fiona Walton and Sandy MacAuley, both members of the UPEI Faculty of Education, and Nunia Qanatsiaq, a graduate of the program, will discuss research conducted in the MEd program and speak about the complexities of engaging in ethically based, reciprocally negotiated research within the MEd in Nunavut.

Sandiford will launch the documentary video, and Qanatsiaq will open the exhibition.