Federal funds will help college create Indigenous gathering place, build extension

He says the gathering place will be for people within the college, staff faculty and students and the community to come and just share and learn from each other

“For example, there will be a place for smudging and that’s a very important thing to do and right now we don’t even have the HVAC systems in our college to be able to do that. So it’s really a gathering place, a place for teaching, a place for sharing, and learning from each other and helping to understand each other.”

Shufflebotham says they hope to break ground this fall and are looking at September 2021 for completion.

In addition to the gathering place, the college will use the funds to build a 1,333 square-metre extension, and will re-purpose 861 square metres of existing space. Labs and classrooms will be expanded for simulations and teaching.

As well, a new lift will be installed to make the college’s lower level more accessible and a structure for future solar panels will be added to the roof.

The announcement was made at the University of Lethbridge, which will receive $184,000 from the feds to convert an existing campus space of about 400 square metres to an Indigenous Gathering Space.

Funding was also announced for two other southern Alberta projects.

The federal government is giving $20 million toward construction of a new campus building for Red Crow Community College in Cardston County to replace the previous building destroyed in a fire in 2015 and $165,000 for renovations for the French Community of Calgary Roof and Common Areas Renovation Project

by Chris Brown

Federal funds will help college create Indigenous gathering place, build extension

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