Native studies get a big boost from federal grant

Page 8

Trent University has received $854,000 from the federal government to assist in building the First Peoples House of Learning. The money will be used to construct and equip a performing arts space in a new college that will house the Native Studies department. Peter Adams, MP for Peterborough, made the announcement on behalf of the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Sheila Copps, on Sept. 27.

The funding is available through a program called Cultural Spaces Canada, which supports the improvement, renovation and construction of arts and heritage facilities. Alderville, Curve Lake and Hiawatha First Nations supported the university's application.

Trent University's president and vice-chancellor Bonnie Patterson said the funding represented a significant milestone in the history of Native Studies at the institution.

"The performance space within the First Peoples House of Learning will showcase the academic excellence and spiritual traditions that are the foundations of North America's best Native Studies program," she said.

The House of Learning will expand the university on the east bank of the Otonabee River. It will contain a gathering space, a First Peoples lecture hall and a natural amphitheatre in a courtyard. The college will also house a 250-bed residence and space for several academic departments in addition to Native Studies.

Native Studies chairman David Newhouse said the design is intended to reflect "Aboriginal ideas about space and how they ought to be laid out."

He explained the new building will have the adobe exterior that "looks a bit like the pueblos in the south." The Arizona pueblos Newhouse referred to are flat-topped buildings of many rooms, often stacked together and constructed from a clay mixture.

The interior will also include Aboriginal cultural enhancement: "It means that we're going to use wood and stone. We haven't quite worked out exactly what the inside will actually look like," Newhouse said.

The building was designed by Two Row Architects from Six Nations and Dunlop Architects from Toronto. Construction firm Vanbots, in association with the Aboriginal construction firm, Rambots, began the project in July and expect to complete it by September 2003.

The estimated cost of construction is $2.4 million. The university has contributed just under a million, and needs to raise $600,000 more to finish by next autumn.

"We wanted to create an Aboriginal presence on the Trent campus," said Newhouse. "Trent has had Native Studies programming since 1969-so over 30 years now. It's one of the oldest in the country. And so after 30 years, we decided it was time that we have some visible representation of that presence.

"The FPHL is a community of learners who have come together for the purpose of increasing our understanding of ourselves, each other and the world that we live within and to seeking peace through the use of our minds. It will help to ensure that the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of Aboriginal knowledge, as reflected in traditional and contemporary world views and expressed in practice, are articulated, discussed, documented, recognized and experienced," said Newhouse.