CBU Hosts ARCASN Conference

On October 11-13, 2018, the Indigenous and Intercultural Diversity in Nursing conference was held on the Cape Breton University campus. The conference which was developed and hosted by the nursing department at CBU, marks part of the Atlantic Region – Canadian Association of Schools and Nursing annual conferences. ARCASN is an organization devoted to promoting the advancement of nursing education and research in Atlantic Canada.
As CBU classrooms continue to grow and diversify, it is important for faculty to adjust their lecture techniques to ensure that their lecture delivery is more inclusive of the modern student body. The conference was developed to help facilitate this process in the field of Nursing. A total of 40 participants from across the country gathered for two days to share experience and research to help address new challenges in nursing education.
Participants discussed diverse student needs in undergraduate studies, reviewed pedagogical approaches to teaching diverse groups and explored programming ideas that will prepare nursing students for diverse patient care.
Stephen Augustine, Associate Vice-President of Indigenous Initiatives and Unama’ki College and Kathy Snow, Assistant Professor of Education at CBU led conference participants in a workshop on talking circles.
The conference helped expose nursing faculty to different ways of knowing, which will encourage more diverse and inclusive teaching methods in our ever-growing campus community.