SIFC celebrates 20 years of success in education

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In 1976, vision became reality with the establishment of the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College (SIFC). Elders and leaders alike anticipated such a facility would provide for the educational needs of First Nations people.

The SIFC became officially federated with the University of Regina in May, 1976. Initially, it offered a Bachelor of Arts Program in Indian Studies within the Faculty of Arts. Other accredited programs were subsequently developed and implemented: Indian Art, Indian Education, Indian Management and Administration, and Indian Social Work Education. All these programs are academically integrated with their respective University of Regina facilities.

Ida Wasacase was the first director of the SIFC. An extraordinary woman, Ida was with the College from its inception. She was working with the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural College at the same time the plan for the federated college was drawn up, and consequently was involved in the birth pangs of the college.

From a staff of two in a small office, with an enrollment of fewer than 10 students, the college now has a complement of about 160 delivering programs and services to 26 communities across the province and nearly 1,600 students. Three central campuses are located in Regina, Saskatoon, and Prince Albert. The latest program to come on stream in its own right is the National School of Dental Therapy. Until last year, it had been part of the University of Toronto.

SIFC has truly become more than the sum of its parts. Past and present, cultural and contemporary, have merged. For example, in areas like student services, the personal and social adjustments to the academics of a university are eased and encouraged by counselling and advice, based on traditional Indian values, from college Elders.

Certificates or degrees are available in 11 different departments. The library is home to more than 30,000 items, including collections focusing on the Indian, Inuit, and Metis peoples in the Americas.

Indigenous foreign students have been admitted since 1978, but a formal policy wasn't adopted until 1982. Then, in 1988, the SIFC Board of Governors officially proclaimed the college as the Centre for International and Indigenous Studies and Development.

The Centre has since entered into several international agreements with universities and Indigenous non-government organizations from the Caribbean Commonwealth, Central and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe-including one with the United Nations University for Peace, signed during the 1993 International Year of Indigenous Peoples.

SIFC recently became a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) in its own right. It was an affirmation of continuing efforts to be recognized as a "Centre of Excellence."

While the college remains homeless after 20-years, the hope is that 1996 will mark the turnover of a section of land selected for the new SIFC building, and the turning of the first sod.

It remains the only Indian-controlled, university-level college in the country.