Student association control questioned

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What was touted as a great day for Mount Royal College's Native students was marked by their absence at the grand opening of the Native Centre on Nov. 4.

Native students were not among the four people who cut the ribbon to officially open the centre and that angered a member of the Native student society, the Four Directions Lodge.

"Of course I'm disappointed," lodge executive Adeline Sweetgrass said.

"We the Native students had a lot to do with the grand opening, but it didn't reflect that."

Sweetgrass said she enjoyed Elder Tom Cranebear's blessing of the centre, but that was the only aspect of the ceremony that met with her approval.

"Where were the Native students," Sweetgrass asked. "I didn't see a Native student cutting [the ribbon]."

The ribbon cutters were Student Association president Heather Wilkey, vice-president internal Holly Hume, past VP internal Roz Goldsworthy and Cory Cardinal. Cardinal was lodge chief for two consecutive terms and instrumental in getting the centre, but he graduated last year.

"I wish it was bigger, but this is a good start," Cardinal said. "It's great for the college community because the Native centre provides a base to work on other cultural events for the Native population on campus."

Cardinal sees the centre as a positive marketing tool for Mount Royal to use to promote the school to Native students choosing a post secondary institution and as a resource centre for all Calgary Native students.

Cardinal and other past leaders of the Native student community had been submitting proposals and lobbying the council for the past five years, but the student association didn't give it serious consideration until 1997. The association and the college's board of governors gave the centre final approval this past spring.

Goldsworthy supported Cardinal in convincing her fellow council members to agree to the centre.

"The Native students requested it back in 1993 and it's taken until 1998 to get it going," Goldsworthy said. She said the Native students had to face "a lot of roadblocks, a lot of red tape" before the council finally agreed. Now that it's been built, Goldsworthy said it isn't exactly according to the plans that the council presented to the Native students.

"This is a far cry from that," Goldsworthy said.

Hume will oversee the operation of the centre and the programs that it will offer, but Sweetgrass feels the centre should be under the direction of the lodge and not the student association. She sees the present administrative structure as a continuation of colonialism and the Indian Affairs system.

"We need to break away from that system," Sweetgrass said. "We've been under that system too long."

Sweetgrass said Native students must give notice to the rest of the college community that they are capable of running their own affairs.

"It's time that we were on our own," Sweetgrass said. "We should be on our own and we have the capability to do it."

Hume does not agree and is strongly opposed to the lodge assuming control of the centre. She said that if the lodge and the Native student community want to run their own programs then they should build their own centre, but until that occurs they must understand that the student association is in charge.

The centre is a renovated meeting room on the third floor of the association-owned Wyckham House. It consists of a small round room for meetings and activities and a cubicle containing a desk and chair; expansion into an adjoining room was considered, but the idea was rejected.

Festivities lasted for three days with dance performances by a Metis dance troupe, an exhibition of powwow dance styles by the Plains Indian Survival School dancers, hoop dancer Lisa Odjick and guest speakers from the Native community.

Leona Badger, the centre co-ordinator and an association employee, defended the group's control and referred to a needs assessment survey circulated by Goldsworthy during the winter semester.

She said the low turnout in Natve student attendance at the different events could have been due to mid-term exams.