On Friday, October 4, officials from UNBC and Syktyvkar State University in the Komi Republic will be signing an agreement of cooperation for the continued development of student and faculty linkages. The event will begin at 12:30pm in Conference Centre Room 6-205/211 and include a multimedia presentation about the Komi Republic.

The event is occurring in conjunction with a conference on Federalism that has been organized by the UNBC Anthropology program. Officials from the Komi Republic and from Syktyvkar State University are joining with Canadian scholars to discuss how strong federal states can provide aboriginal groups and ethnic minorities with some opportunity to govern themselves. Canada and Russia are the two largest federal states in the world. The conference begins today (October 2) and continues until Saturday.

The new agreement will provide additional opportunities to share expertise and experiences. For example, the UNBC Anthropology program is planning a field school in summer 2003. It's expected that 25-30 students will spend three months in the Komi Republic, learning the Russian language while also experiencing the culture of the region first-hand. The indigenous Komi people comprise about 25% of the Republic's population, although they make up a much larger percentage of the population in reindeer-herding villages of the taiga and tundra, where students will be spending some of their time.

"Syktyvkar State University is roughly the same size as UNBC and the Komi Republic is similar to northern BC, with large forestry and oil industries," says Anthropology professor Michel Bouchard. "This partnership is a natural for us."