Student
Housing
Mount Royal opens Calgary’s first on-campus Aboriginal student family housing
Mount Royal’s Aboriginal Centre opened its doors March 21st. The new resource is designed to foster academic success for Aboriginal students and increase awareness of distinct Aboriginal cultures, knowledge, and history. The opening ceremony included the renaming of the centre to Iniskim Centre and a name blessing.
“In our time and place, Mount Royal has a particular responsibility to provide educational opportunities for aboriginal students,” said Provost and Vice-President, Academic, Robin Fisher. “This responsibility arises from our past and will determine our future. It is time that Aboriginal people had equal opportunities in Western Canada and post-secondary education is perhaps the most important doorway to those opportunities.”
Iniskim Centre will provide academic advising, guidance from Elders, and will act as a liaison between Mount Royal students, staff, faculty, and Aboriginal communities. This Centre will also be a new home for the Aboriginal Education Program, which started in 1993.
“The purpose of the centre is not to segregate, but it is to build a home base – a place for students to come and feel connected,” said the centre’s director, Jolain Foster.
As part of the opening ceremony, the College announced an Aboriginal student housing pilot project to house four families over the next five years, and 28 single students in the next 10 years.
“Our new Academic Plan specifically talks about seeking to meet the needs of underrepresented groups such as aboriginal students,” said Brian Fleming, executive director, Student Affairs and Campus Life. “It is a move toward recruiting and supporting Aboriginal students through graduation. And we are planning to make a significant difference for those students.”
The Iniskim Centre opening ceremony involved a grand entry of dignitaries and flag carriers from several different Aboriginal tribes, prayers and greetings from government officials and tribe leaders. In addition to the housing announcement, the Imperial Oil Foundation launched a $150,000 Elders Program.
"We are pleased to have the opportunity to be part of this innovative Elders program," said Monica Samper, president of the Imperial Oil Foundation. "We believe strongly in the importance of education and are delighted to support the student recruitment and retention program at the new Iniskim Centre."
The Centre’s new official name — pronounced in-i-scum — comes from a Blackfoot legend about the powerful talisman and how the buffalo sacrificed themselves so the tribe would not starve. In English the name translates to Buffalo Calling Stone Centre. The Iniskim legend and accompanying ceremonies are so integral to the First Nations tribe that Foster and Mount Royal had to be granted permission from a respected Blackfoot leader, Leonard Bastien Piikani, to use it. The request has been denied to others.