Student centre to be ‘symbol of inclusion’

March 12, 2010

By Colleen MacPherson

The recent announcement that part of the multi-million dollar K.W. Nasser gift to the university will go toward a facility for aboriginal students has moved that project a little bit closer to becoming a reality.

In early 2006, the Board of Governors gave preliminary approval to what was to be a $5.5 million centre positioned in Wiggins Court between the Murray Building and the Arts tower. Alberta architect Douglas Cardinal, whose signature buildings include the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec and Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., was engaged to do the design but skyrocketing construction costs pushed the project’s price tag to a point that “far outstripped the resources we had on hand to build it,” said Peter MacKinnon.

The president, who has previously expressed impatience with the slow progress of the initiative, now says he “would love to see us achieve a breakthrough on this project this year, a funding breakthrough that would allow us to begin construction.” The current projected cost of the student centre is just under $15 million. 

Called the Gordon Oakes-Red Bear Student Centre, the building will provide expanded space for the Aboriginal Student Centre currently located in Marquis Hall. MacKinnon said its resources will include administrative capacity to assist students with counselling, tutoring, financial services and access to elders as well as ceremonial space, “facilities that make it easier for aboriginal students to see the University of Saskatchewan as their own.”

Gordon Oakes (Red Bear) was born in 1932 in the Cypress Hills on what is now called the Nekaneet First Nation. Throughout his life, he was a spiritual and political leader within his community and across the province. Oakes died in February 2003.

MacKinnon reiterated the university’s commitment to providing a broad range of educational opportunities for aboriginal students, saying the “agenda is to have more aboriginal students in all colleges with increased success rates. Aboriginal education is one of the great social imperatives of the 21st century” and efforts to increase student retention will be well served by the new student centre.

“Of course students can take advantage of the services offered here as they wish,” he said. “It will be their choice but I think the building will be more than a resource centre. It will be a visual symbol of a substantial part of Saskatchewan’s past, present and future, (and) a symbol of aboriginal inclusion in the mission of this university.”