The Nordic Ideal? UNBC's development as a northern university

This paper seeks to assess whether UNBC has successfully imitated similar institutions in the northern peripheries of the Nordic nations, and why (or why not). ...In his work on circumpolar post-secondary education, Douglas Nord sees northern universities as performing four vital tasks: improving access to education providing professional education and training assisting regional economic growth and diversification and encouraging new social and cultural development. ...In this paper, I will analyze UNBC to see if it conforms more to the Nordic or North American Models. I will also compare it to a Nordic exemplar university - the University of Tromsø (UiT) in Norway - so that I can assess whether Nord's argument holds true on a case-study basis, and so that I can directly compare UNBC's progress against an example of the Nordic Ideal. ...This research project has three related purposes. Its first purpose is to evaluate UNBC according to Nord's criteria for a successful circumpolar university, which I refer to as the Nordic Ideal in reference to the tendency amongst academics to idealize Nordic universities. The second purpose of this research project is to use historical institutionalism to explain why Canadian and Nordic universities differ. In order to do this, I will build on Nord's brief explanation for the key variables leading to differences between circumpolar universities (Nord, 2002, p. 187). Significant differences in institutional, ideological, and economic context exist between UNBC and UiT. These differences explain the disparity in their respective developments. Thirdly, this project will evaluate the Nordic Ideal constructed by Nord in his typology of northern Universities, and ask whether a Nordic university like UiT even lives up to all the standards it should theoretically exemplify. This research project will demonstrate that UNBC has not met many of the criteria Nord claims the Nordic Model exemplifies. It will also show that NoThe original print copy of this thesis may be available here: http://wizard.unbc.ca/record=b195060