Photo courtesy of the Indigenous Graduate Students’ Council
Students from the University of Saskatchewan are questioning what it means to Indigenize.
Over the past few years, the university has been committed to a mandate of Indigenizing campus. Their efforts have seen the university pursue stronger recruitment tactics for Aboriginal students and build a modern Aboriginal Students Centre.
The Indigenous Students’ Council and the Indigenous Graduate Student Council held a town hall meeting on Tuesday afternoon to discuss this idea of Indigenization.
Tuesday’s discussion was built around three questions. What do students think about it? What do students need? How can we better organize to help our community?
“There is a lot of places we wish to take this conversation,” said Regan Ratt-Misponas, president of the Indigenous Students’ Council. “We now have an opportunity to ask these questions and move forward from there.”
According to Iloradanon Efimoff, co-chair of the Indigenous Graduate Students’ Council, the university is ahead of the curve on Indigenization, however it hasn’t come without its challenges.
“A lot of good stuff is happening,” said Efimoff. “At the same time, it puts a lot of pressure on Indigenous faculty and students without any sort of remuneration.”
Both Efimoff and Ratt-Mispnas hope as the university moves forward, more Indigenous students will get opportunities to sit down with the university leaders to further discuss ideas around Indigenization. They also hope for greater capacity for their two collective councils.
The student councils also say they plan to host several more events in the future continuing the discussion on Indigenization.
“We really want this to continue and engage everyone on campus so they can all be a part of Indigenization,” said Efimoff. “But we need greater capacity to do this.”
According to the university, Aboriginal enrolment on campus has steadily increased over the past few years.