The University of Wyoming will be home to an all new American Indian Center opening sometime this summer, which will address the needs of current and potential American Indian students.
“It’s the current home of the honors program and the honors program will be moving to the Guthrie House, which is what opens it up,” UW President Laurie Nichols said.
Nichols pushed for the creation of this center to accommodate the current 80 American Indian students at UW and to increase that number.
“You know, when I came and started looking at our numbers of native American students that we have on this campus, it’s quite low,” Nichols said. “And at its peak, we were at least a good strong 150, so we’ve lost a lot of ground at the university over a several year period.”
Nichols is not the only one that sees the need for this support for these students.
“When you think about the world view that Native American people have, you know, they come from that’s real collectivistic, and I think that main stream America is more individualistic,” James Trosper, Wind River Indian Reservation project coordinator and member of the committee that proposed the center to the Board of Trustees, said.
While there is support for the creation of this center, there are some who are unsure of its necessity and the logistics.
“I’m on the fence just based on numbers,” Conrad Chavez, multicultural affairs manager and future manager of this new center, said. “There isn’t a great number of American Indian students on campus.”
The lack of students is not his only concern, Chavez also mentioned the current fiscal situation of the university and the state.
“But, you know, in a time that we have resource concerns, that probably adds a little bit more to my hesitation,” Chavez said. “But again, we have to do something.”
Chavez said he acknowledges that while there may be a lack of American Indian students on the university campus and a lack of resource, something should still be done and this center is a great opportunity for the university to respond.
“Nevertheless, the students that we do have, have been very vocal about the need and the want for a facility like this. And I firmly respect that,” Chavez said.
This center will provide many new resources to these students and will provide them with a space to enjoy these resources.
“To open an American Indian Center for those students to find each other, to have a sense of home, to have a sense of culture, to be able to feel that they are really being supported in a completely different way than we’re supporting them now,” Nichols said.
The center will not just be a resource for students, but it will also house several university organizations that pertain to American Indians, which will allow for better collaboration amongst these organizations.
“Having the American Indian studies, the High Plains American Indian research and then the recruitment retention piece of it all in one building and being able to have those regular activities, you know the Native American Student Organizations will be able to have their meetings here, scholarships that we’ve established here,” Trosper said.
This center has been in the works for almost 15 years, starting with a steering committee in 2002, which Trosper was a part of.
The center has been discussed in different capacities and members of the committee have done extensive research concerning the usefulness of this center, however, Nichols has been accredited by both Trosper and Chavez as the person who pushed this project to fruition.
