Verna Kirkness

Education

Kirkness graduated from the Manitoba Normal School with a Teaching Certificate in 1959.

National Indian Brotherhood

Kirkness also participated in the development of the landmark 1972 national policy—the first written policy on Indian education—entitled "Indian Control of Indian Education"—which the Chiefs of the National Indian Brotherhood adopted and then presented to then-Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development—Jean Chrétien—on December 21, 1972.

University of British Columbia

When Kirkness joined the faculty at the University of British Columbia in 1981, she was appointed director of the Native teacher education program where she "worked to extend new programs, support services and cultural enrichment to Aboriginal students," —an intensive annual "summer school for Indigenous language activists, speakers, linguists, and teachers"—hosted at the University of Alberta, Edmonton In her 2008 presentation to the United Nations, Priscilla Settee described how "Cree scholars and language specialists, Dr. Freda Ahenakew and Dr. Verna Kirkness ... helped inspire the development of the CILLDI."

Awards and honours

Kirkness has received numerous awards, including the "Outstanding Educator of British Columbia award (1990), the Golden Eagle Feather Award from the Professional Native Women's Association and the Canadian Youth Education Excellence Prize as Canada's Educator of the Year. She received the Aboriginal Achievement Award for her work in 1994. The title referred to her work at UBC in "terms of access and support to enable Aboriginal students to enter any of the faculties was a way to make space in higher learning."

Linguistic discourse

In her 2007 doctoral dissertation Patricia Settee identified Kirkness along with Cree scholar Dr. Freda Ahenakew (1999) and Finnish linguist and educator, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, as the three main contributors to new scholarship on linguistic discourse. Settee noted that this new scholarship on linguistic, cultural and critical political discourse- that establishes "necessary varied theoretical and practical strands" represented "Indigenous world views and methodologies" and integrating storytelling. Settee's PhD literature review discussed "cultural and linguistic knowledge that builds on the work of Cree linguists Ahenakew and Kirkness and the Canadian Indigenous Languages and Literacy Development Institute (CILLDI) at the University of Alberta.