Victor Lopez-Carmen: College must respect indigenous students

We do not have a single full time, tenure eligible, or part time faculty member, for Native American Studies at Ithaca College.

Although the minor has existed in the anthropology department in the past, it has been fragmented and was recently moved to the CSCRE without the proper resources to actually run it. Currently, one of the only few instances of homage Ithaca College pays to its Indigenous history is the Taughannock Falls room, located in campus center. Taughannock was a term used by Algonquian speaking Native Peoples to address a Chief, and Ithaca College uses it to address a room.

Indigenous students far too often are subjected to a mockery of our culture, and an education that considers us as relics of the past. Now that our voices have been made present, one of the critical questions raised that must be answered is whether the relations between Ithaca College and Indigenous Peoples will uphold and respect Indigenous culture and by extension, Indigenous students.