The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) is rethinking its decision to remove office space for its Indigenous service centre, the Mawandoseg Centre, after backlash from Indigenous students culminated in a meeting on Nov. 14.
A previous article in The Charlatan reported that CUSA had removed Mawandoseg’s office space and was proposing to move the centre’s co-ordinator into the university-run Ojigkwanong Centre. CUSA president Zameer Masjedee explained that the move would allow the association to reinvest room rental costs into increased programming for Indigenous students.
Members from the campus Indigenous community and their allies streamed into the Bill Ellis Co-Working Space (BECS) in the University Centre. CUSA vice-presidents Alexis Oundo (student services), Gavin Resch (finance), and Abdullah Jaber (student life) joined Masjedee at the table.
Summer-Harmony Twenish, the newly-hired Mawandoseg co-ordinator, acted as a moderator and led the discussion on behalf of attendees. She began by explaining that Mawandoseg acts as a “middle point” for students of different backgrounds to learn about Indigenous cultures and issues, whereas many Indigenous students view Ojigkwanong as their “home away from home.”
“By trying to take Mawandoseg and put it in Paterson [Hall] in Ojigkwanong, you’re kind of blending these two spaces and you’re kind of watering down the Indigenous presence as being only allowed in this one space,” Twenish said, addressing the CUSA executives.
According to her, Indigenous students had a strong reaction to the decision to cut the Mawandoseg office because they felt as if they were “being pushed out of the space” without being involved in the decision-making process.
“When we were meeting, a lot of the students were raising concerns about not being consulted, not having this decision advertised,” Twenish said.
Sheila Grantham, a PhD student at Carleton, recalled co-founding Mawandoseg—then called the Aboriginal Service Centre—in 2006 after two years of lobbying with CUSA. She said Indigenous students shouldn’t have to continually fight to have spaces on campus.
“Indigenous students know what’s best for Indigenous students and so we should have equal access as the other service centres do,” Grantham said.
Masjedee thanked Indigenous students who attended the meeting for giving CUSA “a little bit of perspective” into the issue of merging the two spaces.
“Definitely this shouldn’t have been a decision that was made without your consultation and we apologize for that. We’ll do our best now to make sure that happens,” Masjedee said.
According to him, removing Mawandoseg’s office space was not about cutting funding to the centre, but rather about reinvesting money into additional resources and programming. He added that students weren’t using the space enough to justify it remaining open.
“Money was never the issue, the budget was never the issue . . . What the students want is a space where they can feel welcomed, but that’s granted by CUSA,” Twenish said in response.
Twenish put forward a suggestion for turning BECS into the new Mawandoseg space for a one-year trial period. This suggestion, she said, came from Indigenous students she had spoken with before the meeting.
“It’s a very large space. The Mawandoseg hours wouldn’t be an entire day. There’s only one co-ordinator, so it wouldn’t be used constantly,” she explained.
Masjedee said the discussion helped to correct CUSA’s assumption that space in Ojigkwanong was sufficient and served the same purpose as Mawandoseg, however he disagreed that BECS would be the right space.
“It’s tough just because [BECS] is a bookable space we like to keep open for all students and for clubs, societies, service centres and everything, but let us go back to the drawing board and see what other spaces are available, and see what we can come up with,” Masjedee told attendees.
After the meeting, Oundo told The Charlatan she was pleased with the discussion and added that it taught executives not to be “ignorant” about the values of Indigenous students.
“When you’re working from the inside, you have a lot of blind spots. There’s not a lot of things that you pay attention to because you’re always very goal-focused and goal-oriented. The meeting showed us our blind spot,” she said.
Twenish also shared her thoughts with The Charlatan after the meeting, saying it was “incredibly important” that CUSA provided the space for Indigenous students to comment on the decision.
“I think this is a conversation that can’t be solved after one meeting, and it’s a matter of remaining consistent with communication with the Indigenous co-ordinator and students,” she said.
Masjedee encouraged students to let him know about any other concerns or ideas, with a follow-up meeting to be arranged by Dec. 1.
Photo by Aaron Hemens
