Reflections on a First Year of ELITE Program for Black Youth Programming

After 16 weeks of programming, 38 work placements, and over 21,000 hours of hands-on work experience, the ELITE Program for Black Youth wrapped up its inaugural year of operation in 2021.

To reflect on a year of work, learning, and advocacy for Black youth, ELITE Program participants, staff, and partners came together on August 26, 2021 for an afternoon of presentations at the Program’s Final Intern Technical Workshop event. The afternoon saw program participants present their experiences from a summer spent working with organisations like University of Alberta, Enbridge, Alberta Health Services, the City of Edmonton, and Token Naturals. The projects themselves ranged from interns testing traffic control systems used by fire departments to researching the receptors involved in the contraction of malaria. But despite the variety of topics highlighted across the dozens of presentations, one thing was clear from the mood of the day: after a successful inaugural year, the ELITE Program’s work is just getting started.

Launched in December 2020, the ELITE Program for Black Youth came from unconventional beginnings to say the least. With the world still adjusting to widespread lockdown measures in 2020, most organisations were either shuttering their windows, scaling back programming, or scrambling to pivot to digital. Conventional wisdom might have counselled against starting an initiative in the midst of a global pandemic, especially one that would require significant seed funding. But luckily for ELITE Program founder Dr. André McDonald, this was not a conventional problem.

The shock of the pandemic made it clear that a lot of spaces were about to change for good, the workplace chief among them. While the ability to innovate, work with technology, and self-start have long been touted as the skills of tomorrow, the blindsiding effect of the pandemic meant that they quickly became the skills of today. The dash to ‘COVID-proof’ the workplace also meant that long held professional norms were exposed as being inefficient, while approaches that previously existed on the fringes became commonplace. Whether it was project teams ‘hopping on a Zoom’ rather than booking cross-country flights, organisations digitising documents to improve accessibility, or working from home becoming a day-to-day necessity, the COVID-19 pandemic meant that the future of work came a lot sooner than expected.

The seeds of the ELITE Program were also planted during a summer of racial reckoning, spurred on by the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Aubery, and Breonna Taylor. In the wake of a wave of global protests, the fight against systemic anti-Black racism was being waged not just in police departments and courtrooms, but in every sphere of public life. While governments, communities, and individuals reflected on their own contributions to systems of oppression, so did business and corporations. The picture that emerged was of a corporate world where Black folks were often either underappreciated, underrepresented or outright overlooked, but also one that was ready to begin to take positive, proactive steps toward making things right.

Between the new realities brought on by the pandemic and the age-old problems resurfaced by the George Floyd protests, the need for equitable approaches to the future of work could not have been more apparent. As a heat transfer expert, Dr. McDonald understood the importance of not just tapping into the heat of the cultural moment, but creating something that could sustain itself across time. For him, there was only one way to do it: a comprehensive work experience program focused on advocacy, work-integrated learning, future technologies, and most importantly, Black youth.

“There haven't been a lot of opportunities presented to Black youth in the past that require them to innovate,” Dr. McDonald says, reflecting on the inspiration behind what would eventually become the ELITE Program. “There’s been a culture of Black youth going to school, getting A’s, getting the job, working a 9-5, and that’s it. But I wanted to change that. I wanted Black youth to come in and think on an innovation wavelength. I wanted them to think about how they can take the knowledge they get through their work-integrated experience, actually innovate with it if they can, and then start to think, How can I create a business opportunity with my new science, technology, and engineering learning?”

A Winning Network

To get the ELITE Program from seed to start-up, Dr. McDonald recruited the help of friends and colleagues from across the continent. For the program’s co-director, Dr. McDonald enlisted the expertise of Dr. Adetola Adesida, a professor in the University of Alberta’s Department of Surgery. Dr. Sophie Yohani, a professor from the Department of Educational Psychology, signed on as the program’s Coaching and Counselling Lead. To round off the executive team of the program’s international 13-member Steering Council, Dr. McDonald also reached out to Dr. Sédami Gnidehou, assistant professor at Campus Saint-Jean’s Department of Biology and the ELITE Program’s Francophone Lead. Dr. James Kariuki recently joined the Steering Council to support program development and pedagogy given his experience as Associate Dean at the University of Alberta’s Augustana Campus.

“It was important for us to ensure that the program valued equity, diversity, and inclusion across the Black community, rather than setting up a program that implies that the Black community is homogeneous,” Dr. McDonald says. “[The Black community] is highly heterogeneous, and we wanted to make sure that its diversity was a big part of our program as well. So while technological skills development drove the creation of the program, social and emotional skills development, as well as diversity and inclusion, was also part of it as well.”

In addition to being headed by some of the University of Alberta’s finest minds, the ELITE Program was also intentional about forming relationships with like-minded organisations. Through its partnerships with organisations such as the University of Alberta Black Students’ Association and RBC Future Launch, the ELITE Program was able to offer its first-year cohort programs like entrepreneurship training and financial literacy workshops.

“When [RBC] is looking at funding programs, we want to be a transformational philanthropist, not a transactional one,” says Jerilynn Daniels, Regional Director, Community Marketing and Citizenship for RBC in Alberta and Territories. “We think about how we can harness the power of our employees to bring value to our partners, whether that's through skills development, or mentorship. And so with the ELITE Program, we have the additional opportunity for our folks to lead financial literacy sessions with the participants within the program.”

Bolstered by the Steering Council’s breadth of expertise and a comprehensive network of corporate and community partners, it is little surprise that the ELITE Program’s inaugural cohort was such a success. If the bright-eyed presentations delivered at the wrap-up event were not sufficient proof to that end, you would not have to look much further than the glowing testimonies from actual program participants.

“It’s really cool to be in this environment where you’re surrounded by other Black associates who are also working towards their own success,” says third-year finance student Tinashe Muzah, speaking to Folio, the University of Alberta’s official brand journalism site. “It’s definitely something I haven’t had before: mentors who understand the specific nuances of the Black experience in a professional sense.”

“It just feels really good to put what I’m learning into practice,” adds third-year physiology student Imani Murray, who spent her summer working as a research assistant at the U of A’s Neuromuscular Control and Biomechanics Laboratory. “It’s encouraging to have a reminder why I’m studying what I’m studying.”