Gail Guthrie Valaskakis

Valaskakis was born on May 9, 1939, to Miriam Van Buskirk and Benedict Guthrie in Ashland, Wisconsin. She was raised on the Lac du Flambeau First Nation, Wisconsin to Chippewa and Dutch-American parents. As a child, Valaskakis attended a United States Indian school. She identified as an indigenous person throughout her life. She had two children, her sons Paris and Ion. In 1961, Valaskakis graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a Bachelor of Science in Education, majoring in Speech and Drama with a minor in English. In 1961 she entered Cornell University under the Kappa Kappa Gamma Graduate Counselor Scholarship. She received her Master of Arts Degree in Theater Arts from Cornell University. Later, she completed her PhD dissertation entitled "A communicational analysis of Eskimo-Kabloona interaction patterns: Southern Baffin, Eastern Arctic" at McGill University in 1979. Valaskakis died in Ottawa on July 19, 2007. == Career ==

Valaskakis was one of the founders of Manitou College, the first Indigenous post-secondary institution in eastern Canada. Valaskakis worked at Concordia University from 1968 to 1998, primarily in the Department of Communication Studies. While at Concordia, Valaskakis was also responsible for the establishment of the Native Education Centre on campus and was involved in the establishment of the Inter-University Joint Doctoral Programme in Communications with the Université du Québec à Montréal and the Université de Montréal. She retired from Concordia in 1998. == Bibliography ==

• National Aboriginal Achievement Award, Media and Communications (2002) • Honorary doctorate, University of Ottawa (2005) ==References==