Indigenizing Access From a Wholistic Student Approach: Indigenous Student Affairs Units

• In Event: 35.059 - Indigenizing Higher Education by Centering Indigenous Perspectives

Abstract

Indigenous Student Centres (ISC) have evolved in universities and community colleges as counterspaces in support of culturally-relevant support services for First Nations, Métis, Inuit in Canada and Native American/Alaskan/Hawaiian students in the USA. The paper aims to critically engage how these units are indigenizing the academy, while maintaining a “home-away-from-home” by providing holistic supports (e.g., emotional, cultural, intellectual, and physical). This research draws on the co-author’s research databases of ISC units, using Indigenous research approaches to examine institutional websites, policies, and some qualitative interviews. The findings demonstrate how land/place, history, politics, and Indigenous resilience have influenced ISCs, and how these centres are models to supporting decolonization, Indigenization and self-determination by and for Indigenous peoples.

Authors

• Michelle E. Pidgeon, Simon Fraser University

• Stephanie J. Waterman, University of Toronto