Sask Polytech launches new Indigenous Student Success Strategy - miyo wahkohtowin
Strategy builds on successes and lessons learned from the 2009 Aboriginal Student Achievement Plan
Situated on Treaty 4 and Treaty 6 territories, and Homeland of the Métis, Sask Polytech is committed to the renewal of relationships — miyo wahkohtowin — with our Indigenous communities. For Sask Polytech, this means we must integrate Indigenous ways of being, knowing, teaching and learning in everything we do.
“The Indigenous Student Success Strategy is designed to maximize success for this growing segment of our student population,” says Dr. Larry Rosia, president and CEO of Sask Polytech. “While the journey is not finished, the new Indigenous Student Success Strategy serves as a vital guide as we continue our work to ensure all of our students have an equal opportunity to succeed.”
The process to develop the most recent version of the strategy involved drafting a series of potential goals and actions for the next five years after taking into consideration the things we learned from extensive consultations and research locally, provincially and nationally.
“We want to make sure we are focusing on the right things and we are proud that more than 760 people from Sask Polytech and our external communities participated in our engagement efforts,” says Jason Seright, director of Indigenous Strategy. “The result is a strategy that allows students to see themselves and their culture reflected throughout our entire institution.”
The strategy’s focus is Indigenous student success. It contributes to Sask Polytech’s efforts to meet the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action and to live up to its commitments under the Colleges and Institutes Canada’s Indigenous Education Protocol. Along with other institutional plans and initiatives, such as the Academic Model, it will help Sask Polytech meet the needs of our Indigenous communities and create an inclusive, welcoming place of learning.
“Now is the time for Indigenous people to take their rightful place in Saskatchewan — in business, education, technology, leadership, research, industry, health care and community service. Now is the time,” says Knowledge Keeper Myrna Yuzicapi.
“Saskatchewan Polytechnic plays an essential role in education and, in the spirit of reconciliation, can help make that happen by providing educational experience to reconcile contemporary knowledge with lessons from the past. Do it right. Do it now,” says Yuzicapi.
Indigenous students make up 19 per cent of Sask Polytech’s student population and this proportion is growing steadily each year. Sask Polytech supports Indigenous students through offering tutoring and counselling, assistance with scholarships and funding, summer transition programming, and access to Indigenous students’ centres to meet other students and Elders.
For more information visit saskpolytech.ca/indigenous.
Event photos
View our Facebook album to see photos from the event launch!
Watch the event launch video below!
Published June 2018.