Categories
community education leadership rural sociology

Remote engagement

Karsten Henriksen has held education leadership positions in several communities in rural and remote northern Canada, most recently Nunavat Arctic College and at Lambton College. There he has specialised in aligning programmes with the needs of communities. We talk about growing up in Vancouver, sociology, remote communities, storytelling, and indigenising curriculum and self-determination.

Was I really a person who deserved to be there?

Aligning programmes with the needs of communities

Complexity of challenges

Authentic relationships with rural and remote communities

Being authentic means focusing entirely on relationship – everything else will come from that.

Sustainable: We are stewards of the world in which we live. Our actions today will impact future generations – and we will be judged by that.

Activist: Facilitate improvements

Superpower: Lessons learned from others. Never ask someone to do something you are not prepared to do yourself. Being authentic.

Motivation: The challenge of the day – making life better for that one student. Creating an environment where people feel they belong.

Advice: Be kind to one another – think about global society and coming together collectively.

Categories
community health nursing rural

Compassion for Rural Communities

Dr Audrey Snyder is associate dean of nursing – experiential learning and innovation at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is President of the global Rural Nurse Organisation.

We talk about the personal development of the ethic of care – asking can we train for that? A passion for making a difference to other people is crucial. We talk about the challenges of caring for rural communities whose aging small populations are spread out which means special challenges across the sphere of nursing from emergencies to mental health to community wellbeing. This community wellbeing also applies to rural nurses themselves with challenges for maintaining a community of practice.

Audrey was in Dunedin for the Australasian Nurse Educators Conference.