Western University creating new gathering space for Indigenous students and faculty

Indigenous students and faculty at Western University will soon have a new space to call home.

The university is turning the Faculty of Education library, a distinctive circular building located just off main campus on Western Road, into an Indigenous Learning Centre.

The idea for the centre was first laid out in Western's Indigenous strategic plan three years ago, according to Candace Brunette-Debassige, the special advisor to the provost on Indigenous initiatives.

"Indigenous initiatives at Western and many other institutions has been growing quite a bit over the years and there's more of an interest to have a common place where people can gather," she said.

The university currently has an Indigenous centre in its Student Services Building, but Brunette-Debassige said the community has outgrown that space over the last decade.

The new building will have three floors of space for large gatherings, classrooms and offices for student groups.

There are also plans to relocate the Indigenous food and medicine garden on campus and create an outdoor classroom.

Brunette-Debassige said the circular structure of the library makes it the perfect space for the centre.

"A lot of our gathering, if you think about our round dances or our powwow dances, we gather and organize ourselves ourselves in circles," Brunette-Debassige explained.

"[The] circle is a really symbolic feature of Indigenous ways of knowing and when we think about the cyclical nature of the seasons and the earth, a lot of our ways of knowing are reflective of the natural world."

With many institutions putting reconciliation at the forefront, Brunette-Debassige said it's important to have a space that "reflects indigeneity on campus."

"It's a space for everybody," she said. "Of course Indigenous community and Indigenous students are going to feel quite akin to this space and it will be quite meaningful, but I do think that it's going to be a space for all people to come together and gather and learn from each other."

The building will undergo renovations over the next year, with plans to open the Indigenous Learning Centre in the summer of 2020.