One of the most important programs related to Aboriginals in Canada is happening at StFX. The extensive work of Dr. Leslie Jane McMillan with First Nations peoples – including treaty rights, law and self-governance – was ranked first out of 49 submissions in the 2006 competition hosted by SSHRC . Dr. McMillan, Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples and Sustainable Communities at StFX, is reinforcing the linkages between StFX’s academic units and the Mi’kmaq people through major new funding from SSHRC ’s Aboriginal Research Program. In particular, as a legal anthropologist Dr. McMillan studies treaty implementation in Mi’kmaq communities. She is also establishing an ethnographic field school at StFX, which will provide opportunities for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students to experience field-based research. The involvement of the Mi’kmaq allows Dr. McMillan to obtain their perspectives and help them gain ownership over the policy-making processes that will effect social change in their communities. As well, she is developing a process that can be used across Canada, as other treaties and land claims are reconciled through negotiations and litigation.