"Blood Tribe (Kanai First Nation) member John Pantherbone was among the first in his family to graduate from high school and then university.

But his walk across the convocation dais this month to receive another degree, a Master of Digital Media (MDM), will still be a thrill.

Pantherbone is the first Aboriginal student to graduate from the five-year-old MDM program at Great Northern Way Campus, an independently operated joint venture of SFU, UBC, Emily Carr and BCIT. His joint degree will carry the seals of all four universities.

While he was initially reluctant to leave his tribe’s reservation in southern Alberta—one of Canada’s largest—Pantherbone was lured to Vancouver by the MDM program’s focus on applied skills for industry."

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