Leading the High-Tech Shift in Community and Workforce Training with SIIT

Go behind the scenes at the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies (SIIT) with Vickie Drover, VP of Academics, to see how the institution is leading a high-tech revolution to support local communities and build the future workforce.

In this episode of Rooted Here, Vickie shares an insider’s look at the strategy, reality, and vision behind SIIT's innovative ecosystem:

• The Reality of Student Funding: Busting the myth of "free" education and looking at the financial hurdles SIIT students conquer through loans, jobs, and corporate-backed awards.
• Virtual Reality Classrooms: De-risking career pathways by letting students "test-drive" advanced trades before they invest.
• The Virtual Health Hub: Deploying remote robotics and healthcare training straight to rural and northern areas.
• Aviation Training: Expanding programs so local people are fully equipped to maintain the critical aircraft their communities rely on.

This is a deep dive into how SIIT moves past simple corporate box-checking to build true, long-term community self-reliance from the academic ground up.

Learn more about SIIT's programs: https://siit.ca/

This episode is presented by The Bamboo Podcast Network.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Rooted Here Business and Leadership Podcast. Welcome to the Rooted Here Podcast. I'm your host, Drad and Chetty. Today's guest is Vicky Drover, Vice President of Academics at SIT. Hi, Vicki. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 0:15

I'm good. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

I'm doing good. Thanks for coming down.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Okay. Well, let's get to it. First question. Can you tell us about your professional journey and what led you to your current position at SIT?

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Wow. You know, when I think about that question, I don't want to get too philosophical, but you did invite a professor on the on the show. So yes. Kierkegaard says life can only be lived forward but only understood in reverse, right? And so you know, I've been uh I've worked on boats in the Great Lakes and I've taught, you know, uh guidance in Zhongzhou, China, and I've done all of these things along my career pathway.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Boats on the Great Lakes.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

I'm a certified seaman, don't go there. Uh but like so you know, I've done I've done a number of things um that uh I uh I wouldn't think necessarily would bring me to where I am, but they've helped informed and helped guide uh some of the conversations that I'm able to be a part of now. So I'm um uh I was a professor by training. Uh I uh taught in the Department of History and the Indian Teacher Education Program at the University of Saskatchewan. I'm originally from Northern Ontario. My route to Saskatchewan was was very was not a straight line. Uh and if someone had told me 20 years ago, you'd be living in North Battleford, which I love, but North Battleford, Saskatchewan, I'd be saying you're looking at the wrong file. But um my professional professional pathway started with uh an undergrad in the Maritimes in my field of Canadian history. Your uh good practice is to do your graduate work in a different region. I moved to Saskatchewan in 2009 and fell in love, right, uh, with the place. I did bring my husband, he's still just fell in love with the place. So I did my master's here. Uh and then there was a really juicy topic in my field uh with the uh resources here at the U of S. So I did my PhD here as well, taught, um, and then you know, along the way had three little people at it at a time in academia where uh having children as a female professor was seen as a death knell to your career. And um I made a connection, you know, networking at a kindergarten picnic for my daughter, which led me into administration. Uh and uh I've spent the last 12 years uh in post-secondary at men at regional colleges and at SIT. And all of those teachings from from being an academic and from working at a regional college system uh and from being in a community that has a lot of history around uh continued growth and truth and reconciliation has really helped inform the work that I now get to do at SIET. So all of these things that didn't seem to join up as I was I was navigating them have really sort of culminated in something that I I feel I can give my gifts back to in my current role.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Wow, that's great. Um where were there any pivotal moments or or mentors along the way that helped shape your career?

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Absolutely. Yeah, right. Um when I was in my undergrad, there was a professor down uh called Dr. Bill Godfrey, and he was sort of your typical professor in a three-piece suit, and um called everyone by their last name, like Miss you know, Miss Lem, and you know, very austere. But when you scratch beneath the surface, he was just can we swear on this thing? He was a shit disturber. Oh okay. Uh he was he was blowing up systems that were unequal for people and rebuilding them to ensure that you know uh women and uh visible minorities and you know people who didn't have traditional pathways to education had those those those on-ramps and those off-ramps. And he was navigating them from an insider in the system and being able to watch him do that like a ninja in his three-piece suit and his little bow tie, right? That said, oh, that is something I'm interested in learning how to do. So it's uh you know, the idea of disrupting systems, particularly uh education systems, because education is such a you know, when we talk about you know education being the buffalo, right? Uh the new buffalo for indigenous people. You know, when you educate someone, you are not you're supporting the economic development of not only them, but their families and their communities and the way that we can create equity within that process, that that gets me excited, right? So yeah, he started me on that road. And then I think about my current, you know, a supervisor, um, you know, Real Belgarde, president of SIT, and the board. Like being able to sit in that room with elected chiefs from every treaty area of Saskatchewan and hear their feedback on our programs, hear what's important to them and their communities. Like that's an education, right? Uh I'm so privileged to be able to just sit in and learn from that community.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Fabulous, great. Um how has your background influenced your leadership style?

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Uh my father is a military man.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Oh, there you go. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Um, and um and then he retired and became uh a training officer with the Ontario Provincial Police and uh then the the mayor of my small town. And my mother was the principal of the only school.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

So I I I learned from a very young age that when you are in a position of authority and privilege, your first duty is to use that to support those that aren't. So that you know, that I think um when you ask the staff that I I'm privileged to lead, they probably see that as though how are we using our tools to give back, right? Um, but and they also they're also good, they would roll their eyes because they hear this all the time, but fail to plan, plan to fail, right? So it's it's um I I think that that sort of um military um uh you know preparedness and um what is our mission, what are our goals, like clarity of uh of process uh is something that uh I I unintentionally bring to my leadership staff. Oh, that's great, great answer.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Uh what motivates you uh most in your work?

SPEAKER_00 6:21

You know, I I think I think it's um in you know, every day I get to wake up and go to the largest indigenous post-secondary institution in Canada and lead a team in creating real change. Like who wouldn't want to do that in the morning? Oh absolutely, right? Like um, I I think that we are um elevating a community that will lead and is leading our economy uh and will make a huge difference on the world stage. You know, I was able to go to the World Indigenous People's Conference in Education in uh Australia a few years ago, and I knew we were special as an institution and as a country in our emphasis on indigenous ways of knowing, but only when I got to go to that international stage did I realize we have such a position of power, and I mean that in a way that it needs to be used effectively, because we have uh a critical mass of indigenous people. So many places uh they represent 2% of the population, 3% of the population, and they don't have those established institutions, right? We do. Right. SIT's 50 years old this year.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

I know sometimes we forget that and uh don't appreciate, like you said, how we're like the largest uh educational uh institution in Canada.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Right, and and you know we our our current strategic plan is leaders of change. So we recognize because we are we have experience dealing with um industry-led partnerships, navigating um in various levels of government. When we're able to do consortiums with Nicola Valley Um Institute or Six Nations Polytechnic and uh advocate for here are the things that we need in order to meet the objectives of this partnership. We we've got that experience and being able to support other institutions in in uh gaining that knowledge so that they can take it and run with it is something that we're we feel strongly about. Is that not only do we need to to serve the 74 First Nations of Saskatchewan, which is our mandate, which was given to us by our leaders 50 years ago, but now we're in a position where we need to support other institutions across Canada to help them get to that that positioning. So um the yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Wow, that's great. Wow. Um how would you describe SIT's uh missions and impact on the community?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

So SIT was founded in 1974 by the 70 uh sorry, 1976. By the 74 First Nations of Saskatchewan. And that was, you know, you asked a historian a question, so I'm gonna give you back some of the things. You're gonna get into details, yeah. We're gonna get into it. Let's get into it. So um it was in a time in Canada where Pierre Trudeau had created the white paper, which looked at dismantling the Indian Act, but in a way that really eroded Indigenous uh indigenous rights. So uh it was a time when uh First Nations leaders were saying we need Indian control of Indian education, we need to be able to speak in this world, have the credentials, to sit at the tables, but still recognize our traditional teachings. And so it was a time when we had First Nations of Universities precursor created, when we had SIT's precursor created, when we had uh the Saskatchewan Cultural Center created. So these institutions that are still here today, that are anchors in the Canadian Indigenous landscape, um, created that understanding of the need for Indigenous-led training. So SIT is a 50-year-old post-secondary institution focused on vocational training as well as trades training to meet the provincial needs of Indigenous communities, First Nations communities specifically. So we offer everything from adult basic education to trades and industrial training to healthcare, to legal, paralegal training, to health care training. I already said health care, but IT training, uh, as well as business training. And basically we have programming that's an inch deep and a mile wide to support students through their first two years of post-secondary that would scaffold into a degree or to uh or diploma elsewhere. So we're provincially recognized. So there are four institutions in in Saskatchewan that can provide provincially recognized certificate degrees or diplomas.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

And that is the University of Saskatchewan, University of Regina, Saskatchewan Polytechnic, and SIIT.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Really?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

And that means that you know First Nations University and uh the regional colleges have to broker or go to one of these four institutions to get their programming and have it recognized with a you know a parchment.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Yeah, so SIT is the only indigenous of that four with a provincial act, which means that we are able to establish from the ground up programming from an indigenous worldview. What does that mean? Um so for instance, our indigenous practical nursing program. So in a traditional practical nursing or RI program, you might get a module for a week on how to engage with an Indigenous client, right? That that is a great sort of tack on additional training. What we do is with every lesson, so say for instance you're working on uh Lamas or how do you deal with uh a woman in active labor for pain management, we would say, okay, you've got Lamas, you've got epidurals, you've got um, you know, various medications you can apply, but you can also have drumming and you can also have smudging, and you can have and so for every lesson that a nurse would go through, they're getting not just here are the Western medicine options, but here are the traditional medicine options. Okay. So it's an integrated approach so that when you become a nurse, you can offer that full suite of options to your client, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Fascinating. Um that's great.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

But I didn't answer your whole question, Dre.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

No, you didn't.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

No, no, I got more. You got more? So let's do it. So beyond uh sort of that sort of like credit training, what makes SIT special, and you can tell I'm passionate about this, but is you know, with most schools, I don't know about your experience, you go in, you learn, you're done, they say have fun. And you have to figure out the next steps. At SIT, we have a network of what are called job connection sites.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

So you go in and say, like, Sedre, you wanted to become a chef. You walk into whatever you like cooking, right? I like eating, I really do. Uh, but if you go into whatever job connection sites and you say, like, I want to be a chef, they will assess where you are. Do you have your adult 12? Do you have your your safety tickets, do you have all that jazz? And they'll say, Okay, well, here are some programs you could take. None of them might be with SIT, right? But okay, so there's a program at Nate, there's a program at SASPOLY. Um, what's the tuition? What are the requirements? You got some gaps, let's help you fill them. You need some funding. Let's let's look at what scholarships are available to you. So we're they're supporting them, even if they're not going to end up being a formal student of SIT. We're supporting them on that pathway. And as you're in an SIT program, if you're like, well, I don't know what comes next, we'll help you with resume writing, we'll we'll help you write your job, uh, your your uh, you know, you do your interview skills, all of that jazz. Wow. And then we'll connect you to one of our 800 employer partners so that we we've done an assessment of you and what you're passionate about, what lights your fire. We've had that interview with the employer to say, okay, what do you value an employee? And we do that sort of matchmaking to ensure that there's there is uh a long-lasting labor market attachment for that client. So SIT doesn't support you just while you're a student. We support you before, during, and after training.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

The whole journey.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Because you're you're part of our family, you're part of our community, and that might include a formal like sitting in the bum in the classroom, but it might include being going into our Powasaki Wickimic Innovation Collective and helping you build a business plan or giving you a microgrant, or it might include like just connecting with one of our career and community initiative uh, you know, programs to figure out like how to get out of that cycle of addiction. You know, how do we connect with you on your um your essential skills development, right? So uh it's more than just a school, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

I didn't realize that. That's that's fabulous. I mean, you really invested in people.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

You invest you invest your time and resources to people. And uh it's kind of like in this, I can speak to my sales background, uh, we talk to certain clients. Um the best advice is not to sell the product, it's to build those relationships down the road, they may come back for that product and they may not. And if they have a product that they want or we don't uh you don't have, you you you you you you introduce them to someone who could provide that service or product for them. But in the hope that down the road, you know, you have that relationship, they'll come back to you. And uh and and it might have to be it might be the same thing with these students. Down the road there might be a partnership or so some kind of way of giving back to SIT.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Well, yeah, and and when we talk about what Indigenous, you know, what I've learned from listening to the elders and from the knowledge keepers and and my colleagues is that you know what um you know settler concepts of success, particularly around business, are you know, what are your dividends, what's your income, right? Um reciprocity is something that um really is um embedded in Indigenous uh concepts of success from what I've been taught. So the idea that how is your success giving back to community, right? Um and that's not always reflected in in dollars and cents, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

And um we've got a partnership that's funded through the MasterCard Foundation called Oyata Ke, which is uh with uh the University of Saskatchewan and Gabriel Dumo Institute. And Oyata is a deni word which means um everyone at the table, no one left behind. And Oyata Ke's idea is uh that uh not everyone is a white middle class dude who can go to school from September to June, Monday to Friday, with no issues around childcare, no issues around housing. Right? So how do we create uh on-ramps and off-ramps so that if you can come to school for a term and collect credits for a term, but then you gotta go home and go hunting to fill the freezers of your elders and community that you can do that and then find another on-ramp to return to formal training.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Because if you were, you know, a white kid and you would say, Well, I'm doing an unpaid internship, right? Well, going back into community and supporting community has equal value. So how do we how do we recognize that? How do we clarify that?

SPEAKER_01 17:28

No, that's great. That's that's great. Um how does SIT respond to the evolving needs of schedule's workforce? I think that's a good one. Yeah, for sure. You guys are always on the cusp of something.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Well, you know, we we've got the opportunity to be adaptable, we we pivot really quickly, right? Uh, and because we're in a credit institution, we we can create credit training pretty quickly for uh industry partners. So a couple of the ones we're currently working on that we've got some success with are um we worked for many years with SAS Power on their power line technician program. So they came to us with a need, they were having trouble filling uh a particular category of employees. And so we were able to create a tailor-made program for them that would feed in uh that could be offered uh in community, it could be offered uh in Saskatoon or Regina, wherever they needed it to be. Uh, another example would be like Camico. Camico, you know, has their mind operations north, had trouble filling it with local people. So we created a triatrade program for them, which had uh on-site components where uh local community members were able to participate in three different trades, have a little bit of a taste of those trades, figure out which one they were interested in doing apprenticeship towards, and then set up set them up for success with our joint training committee so they could they could work with Chemico in those trades. So, you know, basically we have a lot of industry partners that will come to us and say, we're having trouble recruiting indigenous, we're having trouble, you know, filling uh IT specialists or nurses or continuing care aids, and we will work with them to figure out okay, where is it? You know, how many do you need? Is it a program that has to be built? Let's figure this out, right, so that we can meet the need of community and also meet the need of industry.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Wow. Um speaking back towards partnerships, could you speak a little about the Boeing partnership? I'm sorry, who Boeing? Okay, I'm sorry who I heard about that. It's a big deal, and I think we should talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Okay, for sure, for sure. So uh again, you're asking a historian a question, so we're gonna go about like 18 steps back. Absolutely. Okay. So um uh I always I always like to go to the the why behind our programs because uh you know our our elected chiefs and communities uh always want to know why we are in this particular uh program because we only have so many resources, so we have to choose certain programs other over others. And about 14 years ago, uh one of our former presidents, Raya Heniku, recognized that we have a lot of northern rural and remote communities that need safe transportation, and that comes in the form of planes and helicopters, and so First Nations people should be fixing those planes and helicopters. So we uh opened this the Saskatoon Aviation Learning Center and offered aircraft maintenance engineering M license, and I don't want to get too technical, but basically there are three types of airplane mechanics. The M license does the engine, the E-license does the computer and electronics, and the S guys do the structure, they do the the wings and the and and the frames and all that jazz. So we were doing the engines. Um we had a two-year wait list on that program, right? Um, and all of our students were hired before graduation. That's great. And they could they could write their ticket. If they wanted to go to Dubai, they could go to Dubai. If they wanted to go to Laurence, they could go to LaRange, right? Like um, they could do whatever they wanted to with that training. And so we realized we were the problematic part of that pipeline, right? Uh two years of students wanted to get in, everyone hired, the number of seats we could offer was the problem. Uh, and um we were approached by a local firm called Kallion, uh, who are great partners, and they said, we really need avionics text, we need the ease. We you got the M's, that's great, we need the ease. Because they would bring them in from uh elsewhere, train them up, and they leave. Right? So, how do we train local people uh to do that work? And so but beside uh, you know, with the the requirement that Callion had, with the requirement that all avionics companies or all aerospace companies have right now, where we're seeing more people retire in trades that are going in. Yes uh Boeing approached us and said, We'd like to to support the expansion of your Saskatoon Aviation Learning Center. Into a Saskatchewan Aviation Learning Center and offer the avionics program.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

So they've supported the construction of a new $9 million facility that's attached onto our existing facility. And they're supporting 10 years of that avionics program so that we can get an additional 15 students per year enrolled in that to start to support that aerospace and defense training. And that those graduates are going to go to CFB Moose Chaw, they're going to be going to CFB Cold Lake, they're going to be supporting RiseAir. And Boeing is fully aware that they're not going to use all of these graduates or employ all of them, but they're looking to uh to raise the sector. And those are the kind of partners that we love to work with. It's about the relationship.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

And how do we raise all boats? Right? How do we do good for community? And when we find those partners, we tend to run with them.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Yeah, when I first heard about that news, uh, the um conference on that, uh, hey, I I felt proud for you guys. You know, you guys did just great, amazing. Um let's go to leadership here. What does effective leadership look like to you in an educational setting?

SPEAKER_00 23:22

So I I've had the ability to learn from some great leaders, right? And um I think when you invest in your people and they see you genuinely care, they will do great things for you. Right. Um and I would say that as a leader, um investing and being clear and leading with kindness, right? Uh and sometimes clear is kind, and sometimes clear is you're not getting that job. Um and it's it's not um dancing around difficult things, um, but it's investing in your people, being clear in your direction, and always leading with kindness.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Right. Um how do you foster innovation and adaptability at SIT?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

So you know, we you know, necessity is the mother of invention, right? Uh SIT, um I would say it'd be fair to say we struggle with funding, right? Um, you know, where um because we were indigenous founded, we are not funded at the same level as other post-secondary institutions. We don't have access to certain um provincial funding pots. Um and the assumption is because we're indigenous that the federal government will step in and fill that gap. And the federal government is a great partner, but it's still application-based, it's still, you know, one out of ten we'll get, it's still very much project-based. And so with uh smaller provincial grants and only project-based federal dollars, we have been um required to innovate, to engage with industry, to think outside the box uh in order to fill those those funding gaps. So innovation is what we do on a daily basis. How do we piece together this funding to get that student housing? How do we work with you know, Second Harvest to bring in groceries? Because we can't afford a breakfast program, but we know this partner and community has resources. So it's it's um it's a lot of hustling to try and make sure that our our students and our community have what they need.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

That's great. Um, what values guide your decision making?

SPEAKER_00 25:43

We have some very core um values as an institution, and they're written at the bottom of every agenda. Uh, and they were given to us by our our chiefs uh and our board. And you know, we you go through these corporate processes, and it's like, is it gonna be sustainability or you know, innovation or and um we threw out all that corporate gobbly cook and went back to the seven grandfather teachings, back to you know, our founding um, you know, values of balance, uh kinship, honor, right, uh, and um vision, right? So those those are the the values that guide our decision making. And whenever there's a challenge, we lean on those. Okay, but does this does this honor balance? Does this honor a kinship, right? And if it doesn't, if it doesn't pass a smell test, we don't do it.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

That's good. No, that's a good set of good set of values to fall back on. Um I think we kind of covered it, but are there any misconceptions about SIT and what you guys do there that could be addressed?

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Yeah, like you know, I you know, I'm I'm a settler walking into that space. And, you know, as someone who you know taught at universities, you know, worked in administration at regional colleges, you know, came from a colonial background, you know, I had some assumptions um you know that indigenous students have their education paid for, which is not the case, right? Um, you know, First Nations have a certain amount of money every year to spend on post-secondary training, students apply for it, only some of them get it. Half of our students um uh don't have any sort of banned funding, and they have to apply for students loan student loans just like any other student. They have to uh you know get part-time jobs, they have to figure it out just like non-indigenous students do, right? Um and we're very thankful that Saskatchewan's business community has stepped into that fray. So we have about $600,000 per year of student awards that we're able to give out that are given to us by the corporate community of Saskatchewan, right? And we never fund a student fully, we we we give them up to $5,000 because we want them to also personally invest in their education, and we also want to spread it as widely as we can, right? So I think there's a conception that Indigenous kids just get post-secondary for free, and that's not the case. Absolutely. There's also a conception that only Indigenous people can go to SIT, which is not the case either.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Which is right, and I know that's one of the misconceptions I had. I thought it was just for the first in this community to access. Yeah. And then I we got reacquainted with our old buddy from high school. We took a welding to you guys. Yeah. I'm like, oh, and he's got an Irish background and all that stuff. But yeah, so it's like, okay, it's good for the whole community.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Yeah. Like um, our students are 90 to 95 percent indigenous at any given year, about 89 to 90 percent of that is First Nations and then um Metis or non-status, but um, there are some programs where we're the only provider in Saskatchewan, like the AME program, right? Okay, like aircraft means engineering. If you're gonna be an aircraft means engineer, you have to come to SIT, right? So we only hit about 50% indigenous in that program. Interesting, right? Um, we have a boiler lab in Meadow Lake. Half of our students who engage with our power engineering program aren't indigenous, right? Now, our our mandate is to support First Nations community training, but our programs are open to all Canadians. Uh and right now, and this is something that's impacting post-secondary, and probably doesn't sort of register in the wider community, but right now universities and colleges are really struggling because they leveraged a lot of their um their growth on international students.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

I heard about that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Right? So they uh you could charge double for an international student or sometimes more, uh, and uh post-secondary institutions were using that revenue to support infrastructure projects or um you know add additional student supports, and now that revenue is falling and programs are contracting, and institutions aren't contracting in what they can offer students. We have been insulated from that because we've always just been for Canadians, um, and we've had to find other ways to fill those gaps. Um and also during um COVID when other institutions went online, we didn't we remained in a blended sort of uh you can come for a couple days, we'll do a deep clean, and we'll come for a couple days, do a deep clean, because we wanted to create that sense of community and cohort in our cohorts. So we didn't drop in our number of students during COVID when other institutions did. And we didn't drop because of international students. So we just we've had a 60% growth uh over the last five years. Like we've we've we've blown up over the last five years um in our training, in our revenue, in the the communities we've been able to serve. And that growth trajectory is not looking like it's gonna slow down anytime soon.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

That's great. That's gonna actually uh segue into my next batch of questions. But um, to get back to the uh aviation engineering program, prior to SAT offering that program, where would you have gone to get that certificate? Calgary or something?

SPEAKER_00 31:27

I I you know what I'd have to dig, but I don't think we offered it. Like I think you'd have to go outside of Saskatchewan.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

So that's a yeah, interesting. Well, um what is your vision for SIT over the next five to ten years?

SPEAKER_00 31:43

So we've got some really exciting projects we're trying to support. So we know that in Regina, so so one thing that we're different is that our buildings are not owned uh by the province. We have to sort of figure out our where we're offering programs on our own. And right now, uh our Regina programming, we know we need to do more. We have um a two-story campus on Albert, and then our trade center and our job connection sites is in a hundred-year-old dairy. Oh wow. The job connections is in the old office, and our trades programs are in where they used to have the horses. So we're offering welding in a hundred-year-old wooden structure, which causes me pause daily, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

So one thing that we're looking to do is consolidate all of our vagina operations on reserve land and have a built-to-suit culturally informed space for another Powassicki Wickamic Innovation Collective, you know, a um a centralized strategy for training and to support uh the growth we're seeing at CFB and Boost Java. So bringing another aerospace program south and expanding our programming in the south of the province.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Um I think that can address uh down the road this whole push to get Canada back on as far as the uh aerospace industry into that too.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Yeah, so we know that we just hit our 2% of GDP NATO requirements, right? But that uh the projections we have from the federal government are the ramp up to 5%. And it's it's sometimes hard uh for in for us in Saskatchewan and business community to say, well, but what does that mean to me, right? Um and what I've experienced over the last five or six years as we've engaged with the aerospace sector and the defense sector is there might be a company like an Airbus or a Skylight or a CAE that get the contract for this big government thing, but then they have secondary, tertiary um you know, companies that are here. Like they're the Kallions and the uh JNE weldings and the Pro Metals who are getting the contracts to build the widgets, to build the the things that will feed up into these big uh infrastructure projects. So it it is supporting Saskatchewan. Uh and every one of those contracts, there's now a requirement for a 5% indigenous engagement. And so those companies that are engaging with this pipeline need to demonstrate how they're giving back to indigenous communities. And so we often sort of help them with that. It again, like our job connection model, the resources might not come to SIT, but we can say, have you thought about this indigenous organization or have you connected with so-and-so at that one? So we uh are often walking hand in hand with industry partners to figure out that question mark around Indigenous engagement in aerospace and defense.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

That's great. Yeah, beautiful. Um how is SIT adapting to technological changes and shifting educational trends?

SPEAKER_00 35:00

How yeah, we're doing so many cool things. Like right now, um, we've got a VR project where we're working with industry partners where we're getting 360 views of their their space. And then when a student comes or a client comes into job connections and goes, you know, I think I want to be a welder, they're like, Well, here, check out Janie Welding. And they get to walk around the welding, they get to see what a welder looks like, they get to like engage with it, and so that they can get a taste before they make any investment, right, into a particular sector, right? Uh, and then so that's one of the things we're doing. Like, we're doing robotics and drones and okay, robotics.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Speak a little more about the robot. I'm fascinated by technology, robots, all that stuff. Robots and stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

So our Powassicki Wikimek Innovation Collective. So what that is is so about six, seven years ago, uh, our president Real Belgarde was at an innovation summit, and some a panel got a question saying, Well, how are you engaging with Indigenous people? And we often get at these things like you throw up their hands and go, Well, I don't know, I guess they just don't want to engage. And Real sort of raised his hand and said, We'll figure it out. And so we came back and through uh a three-year grant from um from uh Innovation uh Canada, we were able to create Pawassa Kimicamic. And we went to Waterloo and checked out their accelerator incubator, and we went, we did some fact-finding uh missions across the country to say what does an accelerator incubator look like? And then we blew that up and said, what does indigenous uh innovation look like? Right. And it's not necessarily um dollars and cents innovation uh you know accelerator or incubator, it's a web of services that lights fires for young people in STEM, right? Has them come into our space and they have basically invitations to play with tech. So they can play with drones, they can look at a laser uh printer, they can uh play around with a 3D printer, they can engage with the LED video wall, which is the only one in Saskatchewan, right? And they can they can figure out what they want to do with that. And then if they can come up with a business plan or a business idea with that, we can support them in developing that business um case and give them a microgrant to get them started. Now we've done that for years. We've got 35 businesses started through that, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Um, and some of it's tech-based, some of it's textile, some of it's, you know, um, you know, uh storytelling, so digital storytelling. Um, we're now at the point that we've just renewed with with our our great partner, Greg Yule, a fellowship for the people who want to scale up, right? So we've got people who are now doing franchises of their businesses uh that need that. How do you deal with taxes? How do you like that that sort of boot camp of knowledge on the next stage of business?

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Well, that's great. Um, how do you see SIT contributing to economic and social development in Saskatchewan?

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Well, I'll take one more step back and talk about virtual health hub assistant. So you want to talk about tech. I think that's pretty well the coolest tech there is.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

It is as exciting for what I what little I know about it.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

So the virtual health hub um is an idea from a Dr. uh Mendez, uh Ivor Mendez. And what he saw was we have a lot of northern and rural and remote communities where if you're um, you know, you've you've broken your you you fell, you think you might have broken a bone. You've got to now like drive four hours to Meadow Lake or to Prince Albert just to get an X-ray to be told, no, you didn't break it, walk it off, right? Um with the Virtual Health Hub, we're taking X-rays and uh ultrasonography in a box into community, unboxing it, setting it up for a few days, and then having the sonographer on the other end of the robot at a facility that we're opening up in Whitecap where they can in real time run the robot and do the sonography. And that way, if you're a pregnant mom, sorry, in like um, you know, Pelicaneros, your partner can now be at that uh appointment. You don't have to fly by yourself or drive by yourself south. Your kids can be there, they can hear the heartbeat, right? So rather than paying for the transportation cost of getting people to the facilities and to the specialists, we're now bringing that technology into community. And we're training the virtual health hub assistants in a very short course where they can know how to set up and troubleshoot that tech, right? So it's it's you know, we're the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies. How does technology support Indian communities? Right? That is always what we're trying to hearken back to. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Um, what a legacy do you hope to help build it as IT?

SPEAKER_00 40:03

You know, we you know, I think about my staff. I have um some of the coolest people that I get to work with and watching them grow in their leadership. Watch like I I can see the future premiers, prime ministers, leaders of industry among my students and staff and just watching them cultivate those skills. Like we have 66,000 alumni and we're right, and and often we are the first step on someone's education journey, but we are not their last. So uh like we've got people who who graduate adult basic education with us because the K-12 system didn't work for them for a variety of reasons, and their um their confidence was eroded. They came to us, uh, we got their adult basic education. Maybe they did a one-year program with us, maybe a two, but then they went on and did their gear three and four in the Edwards School of Business, and now they lead a multi- uh multimillion dollar company. And we we want to celebrate not just our part in that journey, but the success of our communities because of that. Like we uh we will continue to be there for First Nations communities for those fundamental training pieces because when we think about Canada as a population, um, the greatest natural demographic that's growing are indigenous people. Yes, right? Uh there is no economy of Canada going forward without maximizing the gifts of that community.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

Well, yeah, I mean for decades it's been an untapped resource.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

I I don't know if it's been untapped or if it's been uncelebrated.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

There you go. And unsupported.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Uncelebrated, right? Yes. So how do like we know that we could offer twice the amount of program we do, um, but we only have the resources to support this much training. Right, right. So the more we are able to tell that story and grow our training, the more we can uh we can grow the gifts that are already there. A lot of what we do is is barrier reduction. So uh uh, you know, as um as a white person with a family history of post-secondary attainment, when I went to university, I didn't have to worry about how I'd get there. I didn't have to worry about like, would there be someone if if I had got sick that I'd have someone who could drive me to the hospital or that I'd have a place to stay? For a lot of our learners, those are the things that are stopping them from succeeding. So, how do we put that barrier reduction in place so that just like me, they can focus on their learning? And once we put those pieces in place, they they freaking soar. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

It's amazing what we take for granted in uh in this first world economy we live in, eh?

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Yeah. So most of our students, like if you took a snapshot snapshot of SIT's average student, it's a 26-year-old mother of two. Okay, right? Her needs are gonna be very different than an 18-year-old coming out of Haddah High School who has doesn't have a whole lot of bills to pay, doesn't have to figure out like child care, isn't worried about food security, right? Like, so most of our our our students face at least two to three barriers that are foundational before they even hit the classroom, right? Well, so the more we can take that out of their their their need, um, the more they'll succeed.

SPEAKER_01 43:47

Absolutely. Um what is the most rewarding part of your career so far?

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Most rewarding part of my career? It's the individuals, right? Like, so I uh Um I remember seeing a student. She was in adult 10. Um she'd experienced bullying, she'd been she had an undiagnosed learning disability, it hadn't been caught by the K-12 system. She um wasn't sure if she would, you know, ever be successful. We were able to get her diagnosed, she had ADHD, easy medication, easy to sort of manage. She completed her adult 10. And she she didn't want to eat in the classroom because she experienced bullying in the K-12. So she would come and sit next to her mom, who was was one of the people I worked with. She'd sit next to her mom at lunch. And then by two months in, she was eating in the classroom. And then the following year, she did adult 12. And the following year she did nursing. And she she she uh she got caught pregnant. And in some programs, that would have been the end of it. But we supported her through that. It gave her adapted programming, and so she got her nursing. She walked across the stage with her baby in arms, right? Like, how can you not love going to work?

SPEAKER_01 45:08

Wow, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

When you get to see when you get to see people who uh who came having the system not work for them and you can find ways to make it work.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

Right. That's a great story, right? How do you maintain balance in such a demanding role?

SPEAKER_00 45:24

Um, I have really great people around me who will say, Do you really need to be doing that? Right? Like, um, you know, couldn't that be off? But couldn't you give that, delegate that to someone else? Or, you know, you've you've already been on the road five days this week. Maybe we're gonna just like not go anywhere today, right? So I'm very thankful for uh my team. I'm thankful for you know my leadership, I'm thankful for my partner. Um I have I have a a village of people who keep me balanced.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

And that are all looking out for the best of everyone. Absolutely. Yeah, that's great. Um what inspires you uh outside of work?

SPEAKER_00 46:08

Outside of work.

SPEAKER_01 46:09

History.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Yeah. I always like more. Yeah. Well, I'd like to know the why. Yeah, right. Like the why is is a big deal for me because um we don't just get somewhere um by accident. So there's history behind everything. And if often if you walk through it, you the solution is in there. So yeah, I I enjoy history. I also like you know I'm I'm very thankful that I've got like a beautiful family full of really cool humans that I love coming home to. Good. And uh we do karate as a collective. So you know, if there's any sort of um, you know, challenge between my children, they can sort it out in the dojo, right? So, you know, okay, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

Great. Um uh if you could go back and give your younger self some advice, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 47:01

Um, continue to take the road less traveled. It will all work out.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

Yeah? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

Okay. I I you know, I I can't I came from, you know, I I think um when you're in Ontario, there is a very Ontario-centric worldview. So for instance, in high school, they present you a page to say, check which three universities you want your transcript to go to. Well, they're all Ontario universities because why would you go elsewhere? The best ones are here, right? Um, and so when everyone else zigged, I zagged, because I don't like being told what to do. So when they everyone's like, Well, you need to go to Queens, you need to go here, you know, U of T, and I'm like, I'm gonna go to this small liberal arts university on the East Coast that none of you have heard of, and I'm okay with that. Okay, right? Um, so I would tell my younger self, continue to zig when everyone else zags.

SPEAKER_01 48:00

Great. Yeah, okay. This is the uh last part of the uh podcast. I call it this is the fun part for me the uh rapid fire around. Ask you a set of questions, you just give it first answer that comes to it, and we'll be good to go. Okay, first question. What word to describe your journey?

SPEAKER_00 48:18

Serpentine.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

What?

SPEAKER_00 48:21

Serpentine.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Oh, okay. Zigzag all over the place and serpentine, great. Uh a book that impacted you.

SPEAKER_00 48:29

Um Shinwalk's Vision by Jim Miller.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Oh, interesting. I'll have to look that up. Uh a habit that keeps you grounded.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Um not being very rapid fire on this. Um I have my husband and I have cheese every Friday and unpacked. Cheese? Unpack the, yeah. Do you have Friday? Melted cheese? Yeah, just no, well, three kinds of cheese, some crackers, maybe a bottle of wine to paint on the week, and my kids know it's after they go to bed that it's date night. And we just we just unpack the week. All right.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

Good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

Keeps me grounded.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

Okay, beautiful. Uh biggest lesson learned from failure.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

That this too will change. And failure is not the opposite of success. It is a necessary part of the road to success, right? And you you learn way more from failing than you do from from success. You do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

Um, you learn a lot about yourself, failure. Um someone you admire. My husband. Oh, she you right away. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Best human I know.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

And um I constantly aspire to be as good a person as he is.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

Well, okay. I'll have to beat this guy's. Yeah. Okay, wow. Uh a place a place in Saskatoon that makes you feel at home.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

Um, a lot of people would push back on this, but I would say my in-laws. My my my in-laws live in Saskatoon, and they're the loveliest people. And um, I know that you know, I also love St. Andrews, Presbyterian Church. You know, all three of my kids were baptized there. Lovely church community. Um the dinosaur exhibit at the U of S.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

I used to take my kids around. I love that space. Right? I like it when apparently they've renovated and did some different things.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

I hope they haven't changed too much of it. But yeah. I used to take my my when I was teaching at the university, I would take my little ones there. And my husband is in education as well, but he's in K-12, and mom would always win because my school had dinosaurs. And dad's cool dad's school didn't because he just taught it. He was a high school teacher. Okay. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

Yeah, absolutely. Uh music you turn to when you need clarity.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

Music I turn to when I need clarity. This is gonna sound super pretentious.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Uh Vivaldi's four seasons.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

Ooh, okay. I've heard it. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 51:04

Like when I'm on a plane and someone's talking too loud, loudly, and I just want to get rageful, I just put that in and I can continue to work or to nap or what have you. It just wow.

SPEAKER_01 51:17

I can't argue with that. Uh, what person from history would you like to meet?

SPEAKER_00 51:22

Ooh, you asked a historian that question. That that's okay. From history.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

If you could go back in a time machine.

SPEAKER_00 51:29

Jane Addams.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

Jane Addams.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

Yes. So she was um uh she worked in Chicago and she uh created uh basically the beginning of social work. Um the idea of creating housing for people, for for women and children, and um what that could look like from a like a corporate or structural as opposed to sort of ad hoc. Uh and like to do that as a woman in the 1870s was fairly badass. So I would be interested in having a beer with her.

SPEAKER_01 52:04

No, no, that makes sense. Uh, one piece of advice you would give yourself, I think you kind of mentioned that before.

SPEAKER_00 52:10

Yeah, just you do you, right?

SPEAKER_01 52:12

Yeah, yeah. Uh last question. What does rooted year mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 52:18

So, you know, I moved here in 2007, and um what I love about Saskatchewan is the people and the opportunity, right? Like, um I have met the kindest, most generous people, and I know that we always focus on the things that divide us, you know, um class, race, you know, political alignment. But when you're on the side of the road with a broken down car, all of that melts away, right?

SPEAKER_01 52:49

Absolutely. Right. That's the first that's one of the things I've noticed too from my personal story, you know, move back moving here with the family from South Africa in 1976, the same thing. You know, many times we break down the side of the road and all you other day, you know, create snow, ice, whatever. People are always there to help you. Absolutely. It was such a cool thing.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

Uh and as a young couple who moved here uh in the early 2000s, like, you know, we were hearing all these narratives about people moving away, and we moved here and we said, wow, this place is amazing. You know, um, that we can have a house with a yard, and yeah, you know, uh while I was going through school, like uh I sometimes I think um so Mark Twain said that you know travel is the best antidote to ignorance. And being from away and coming here, I I so thankful for this the secret sauce, which is Saskatchewan. And I think the more like we we've encouraged our children to travel so that they absolutely could see like how special home is.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

Yeah, yeah. Great. Well, Vicki, thank you for coming out to the uh Rooted Here podcast. It was a pleasure having you. Hey. All right, Rooted Here Business and Leadership Podcast.