Northern Routes

2023: The Year of Infinite Innovation

Hello, Bonjour, Aanin, Boozhoo, Tanshi, Kwe Kwe, Welcome to 2023! This year looks promising already with brave new adventures for NOSM University. I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday and is now ready for the next phase of our journey. Last year was full of twists, turns and runs for us—a new University, the new Chancellor and Board of Governors, a Senate election underway, and of course the financial boons from donations and the return of our endowments from Laurentian University. We were surrounded by international conflicts and the increasingly urgent climate emergency, health resource shortages and a declining economy, but ...

What a difference a year makes

In the early 1950s, my mother moved from India to Cedar Rapids, Iowa with two kids in tow. Then I was born. My memories of Iowa are mostly winter ones. Yes, that’s me in the white coat; the baby of the family. Snowfall in Iowa often piled up as high as small apartment buildings. My mother became a hardy Midwesterner, embracing the wildness of the new season she had never encountered in New Delhi. She made it a lot of fun to be a newcomer to America. She was hard pressed to prepare for her first winter in Iowa and, later, in Ottawa. Because of this, she spent a good part of her later career setting up programs to help new immigrants ...

A season of change and giving

As the fresh snow starts to fall, we get a glimpse of one of the important aspects of the season: change. And big changes have been taking place at NOSM University. Last Thursday was a monumental day. More than 400 individuals joined us in person and online as Ms. Joy Warkentin, incoming Chair, Board of Governors, and I introduced NOSM University’s inaugural Chancellor and Board. It is an honour to have Dr. Cindy Blackstock, renowned Indigenous child and family rights activist and member of the Gitxsan, serve as NOSM University’s inaugural Chancellor. Dr. Blackstock embodies the values of social justice, respect, and integri...