Alanna Mitchell

After transferring to Concordia, Alanna Mitchell allowed her background in planning to guide her path forward.

What was your road like to get to Concordia?

I’m going on seven years as an undergraduate, but I was very happy to transfer to Concordia. It's a long application, but it was worth it. Concordia gave me more transfer credits than expected as my application showcased my perseverance and lived experiences where I succeeded in obtaining roles without prior knowledge or experience.

My background is in planning, so I was working in community engagement with Indigenous communities on reserves. I also started mentoring other nations and supporting their community planning process. A community plan for my Nation took every member’s aspirations and turned them into policies for the next five, 10 or 20 years. It’s a living document made by and for the community.

What do you like most about planning?

I like building relationships and understanding one’s vision for the community. Together our ideas can make something great for future generations. Community planning encompasses everything from health and education to economic development. It's laying out the blueprint and looking at it from an eagle’s eye view. Where do I want to see economic development? What can we build and what do we see in health? What about education, government and land use planning?

After working as a planner for so long, how is Sociology?

I really like studying Sociology at Concordia. I've had some cool inspiring professors here. The planner side of me is always open to learning and hearing new ideas. I was working as a research coordinator for a professor and realized that there are a lot of intersections that I’d never thought of before, like the connections between Indigenous governance and artificial intelligence. I found it very fascinating to see how some researchers are using modern Western technology to preserve Indigenous languages and cultures. It was eye-opening to consider the possibilities and intersectionality of that.

Do you have any personal research interests of your own?

When I first started studying Sociology, I was interested in understanding criminology and how that impacts Indigenous people and intergenerational trauma. Currently, I’m interested in learning about disabilities and how that affects Indigenous persons.  It opened my eyes to the different barriers that you may experience as a disabled Indigenous person and how that limits access to job opportunities and education.

Between your work, studies and volunteer commitments, have you thought about the impact overall you're hoping to have on your community?

Between work and school, I hope to show other Indigenous people that there’s many opportunities available for them. You can do anything you want and advance your career, whether you want to be an artist, woodcarver or businessperson. I’m hoping to get in conversation with other Indigenous students because we’re all working towards similar things in different fields. I’d like to come together over a meal, have some laughs and share stories about our cultures. We’re all one, but we have different yet similar teachings.