Hate message to university student a hoax

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An 18-year-old Native University of Saskatchewan student is undergoing counseling after it was revealed a hate message she claimed to have received turned out to be a hoax.

The first-year student on the U of S campus told security officials on Sept. 2 that the words "Squaw, Prairie Nigger, Go Home" were scrawled on a piece of paper that was shoved under the door of her on-campus residence.

However, three days later, at a meeting with university officials and the president of the Indigenous Student's Council, the student admitted she wrote the note herself. She apologized and asked for help in dealing with the stress of attending university in a strange setting. Cathy Wheaton, president of the Indigenous Students' Council, says the incident has underscored the problems facing the estimated 1,500 aboriginal students at the university.

"I don't want to speculate as to why this happened," Wheaton said. "I really have no idea.

"But I have a 14-year-old daughter myself, and as a mother, there's something that's really bothering this young woman and I hope they're going to find out what it is."

The identity of the student has been withheld but Wheaton said she comes from a remote reserve and has never lived on her own.

"She's very young and she's fresh out of high school. She's just a baby, just a few year older than my daughter," said Wheaton.

Aboriginal students face a myriad of challenges when they first set foot on the sprawling campus with its approximately 20,000 students, Wheaton says.

"The first thing you have to deal with is that more than likely you're coming from a small community to an urban setting and that's a huge culture shock right there," she said.

Wheaton says Aboriginal students, particularly first-year people, feel overwhelmed by the situation and struggle with feelings of loneliness and isolation.

(see Hate message page 34.)

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"Another thing you're dealing with is university life itself which is the studying, getting around, getting to know the system and learning to talk to professors," said Wheaton. "That takes a number of years to get good at."

Wheaton suspects there are cultural factors at work that may make adjusting to the university scene more difficult for Aboriginal students.

"A lot of these first-year students are not very outgoing and they're intimidated by the system itself and their professors. They're scared and reluctant to approach anyone for help," she said.

In Aboriginal culture, Wheaton explains, being the centre of attention is often frowned upon.

"You're not encouraged to be looking for the spotlight all the time," she added.

That presents problems for students who are essentially competing with peers who are comfortable speaking up in a lecture hall that may be filled with 200 or more students.

"When that's not the way you're raised, the last thing you want to do within a large group of people where nobody knows you is to stand up and have all the attention focused on you," she said. "That's actually showing off in a way, and that is something that is openly discouraged [in Aboriginal society].

"Within my own family, when someone acts like that, people will kind of look at that person and wonder why that person is grandstanding."

Native students arrive at university with other unique problems, Wheaton says, pointing to her own situation.

"Many of our people haven't actually gone from high school to university and a lot of us are mature students. So a lot of us have families that we've brought with us as well," she said.

Consequently, not only do many of the students have to make personal adjustments, they have to concern themselves with items such as child care and the well-being of a spouse who may be searching for work and having his or her own problems adapting to a foreign environment.

"It's really hard and I commend anyone that actually gets through and gets their degree," she added.

Wheaton, herself, dropped out of university for a year and went t work.

"I just couldn't cope with the transition when I first moved here," she said.

Aiding with the adjustment process are two counselors, Larry Gauthier, the Aboriginal student' centre director and Charlotte Ross, the Aboriginal student advisor for arts and science.

"They do a wonderful job but there's just two of them," Wheaton noted. "These people get swamped with work and they really need some help."

The Indigenous Students' Council helps Gauthier and Ross, but Wheaton says it just isn't enough since a majority of Aboriginal students need some form of help in coping with university.