[wpw_ba_viewer width=”auto” disable_intro=”false”] [wpw_ba_img src=”http://thesheaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gordon_render2-640×424.png” data_alt=”http://thesheaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gordon_render1-640×424.png” title=”Drag the slider for a look at the completed Centre.”] [/wpw_ba_viewer]

University of Saskatchewan President Ilene Busch-Vishniac confirmed ground will break on the Gordon Oakes-Red Bear Student Centre once spring arrives, despite the first round of construction bids for the $15-million project coming in over budget.

“We said we’ll have shovels in the ground,” Busch-Vishniac said. “We have to wait for the ground to thaw, but we will have shovels in the ground.”

The university has negotiated with two general contracting firms and says that by using cheaper building materials they can keep the project on schedule for a ribbon-cutting in 2014. The deadline for revised bids from contractors was Feb. 19.

“The discussions right now are about materials in the design of the building,” said Provost and Vice-President Academic Brett Fairbairn. “We’re not looking at putting up a square cube instead. We’ll keep [the current] design.”

The student centre was designed by aboriginal Canadian architect Douglas Cardinal, whose past works include the First Nations University of Canada in Regina, the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Que. and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

The proposed 1,884-square-metre Gordon Oakes-Red Bear Student Centre features curved walls and large windows. The ceiling will display a large medicine wheel — a circle painted in four colours that represent the four directions used in traditional First Nations teachings and healing.

The offices for the Indigenous Students’ Council and the Aboriginal Students Centre will be relocated to the centre, where there will also be space for ceremonies, extra-curricular events, meetings and studying.

The building will be located along Wiggins Avenue between the Arts Building and the Murray Library, and will eventually be connected to the Arts Tunnel and the Health Sciences facility.

Busch-Vishniac has announced that completing the project is at the top of her list of priorities.

“If I were to say, can you identify something symbolic on our campus that our aboriginal students would identify with? You really can’t do it,” she said.

“We haven’t done a great job.”

The U of S is leading the country in the number of self-identified aboriginal students, yet many still feel like outsiders when arriving at the U of S, she said.

“The issue is not preparation for university. The issue is that sense of cultural dissonance when you come on campus and you feel isolated.”

Busch-Vishniac believes the culture shock that is often felt to be a leading factor in the low retention rates among aboriginal students.

The graduation rate among self-identified aboriginal students in the arts and science program, for example, stands at just 42 per cent over a six year period, compared to an overall average of 68 per cent.

About 79 per cent of students in direct-entry programs continue their education past their first year, according to a U of S enrollment report from October 2012. But in comparison, for self-identified aboriginal students, the likelihood they will get past their first year is only 58 per cent.

“We have got to close that gap,” Busch-Vishniac said.

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Image: Raisa Pezderic/The Sheaf, University of Saskatchewan/Flickr &
Bryn Becker/The Sheaf