Last Thursday, Oct. 24, at the Creative Writing House, Hamline’s Indigenous People’s Society (HIPS) held its board event for the academic year. Previously, the Oracle has covered the few events that HIPS has held, like the Indigenous People’s Day Social last Monday, Oct. 14. All of these events were to not only engage in the community their organization resides in but also to gather possible recruits for their organization and board.
“The thing about positions is that we just divide it. We just say co-president, because there are only two of us,” sophomore HIPS co-president Layla Stenson said.
While HIPS has had previous board meetings this academic year, this was the first board meeting with a few more members than just the two co-presidents and their advisor. At the start, everyone introduced themselves before moving into the logistics of the meeting. Assistant Professor of the English Department and HIPS Advisor Catheryn Jennings provided updates on an upcoming event that the English department will be holding in the spring. She mentioned how the event will be hosting speakers and mentioned an opportunity to have an Indigenous author at the event. During the meeting, various authors were thrown around like Joy Harjo or Jake Skeets.
“Like we can’t bring them all in, but we have one. Mike [Reynolds, professor and department chair of english and communication studies] would like to know any [Indigenous authors] like, you know, the worst they can say is no,” Jennings said.
After getting the updates from Jennings, Stenson switched the topic to planning possible events for Nov., which is National Native American Heritage Month. During the planning process, the main goal is to have the events be a mix of both educational and relaxed. Many times, people do not attend events about cultures that they do not know about for fear of not only being the odd one out, but also of not knowing if they are allowed to attend.
“Definitely make it a point to say that it’s inclusive and it’s a learning opportunity. Because I think when people outside of our culture, in general, think [about] Indigenous meetings, they think it’s very they can’t come because they’re not Indigenous,” first-year student Ajana Garica Rodriguez said.
As the planning process continued, the board came to the collective decision to have a few events be open practice and closed practice. One of the defining factors for this decision is that certain practices are reserved for those who are part of that culture, for example, Regalia. Regalia is a cultural outfit made by Indigenous dancers worn during powwows when they participate in different dance categories. This is one of the various closed practices of Indigenous cultures.
After brainstorming ideas for open practice events, a few ideas that came up were having a cooking night and a craft night. These events would offer a way to involve the community in a way that would still not only be respectful of Indigenous practices but also find a way to have events for anyone who wants to come and participate. The last few ideas that were brought up were having a storytelling event, an educational event and a cooking event. These events would provide a more relaxed environment for students and faculty to come, and the educational event would provide knowledge about underrepresented and important topics like Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW).
As the meeting came to a close, tasks were divided among the board members. Some of the tasks were more research-based for ideas that came up during the brainstorming process of the meeting. For more information reach out to HIPS via email at hips@hamline.edu.
