A place to call home

In most situations, April showers bring May flowers. But from the outset, the predicament of the IU American Indian Student Association seems anything but immediately floral. \nThe April-related storms that have blown through the region during the last few weeks have brought some undeserved headaches for the AISA. Their office, if one is comfortable calling a 6-by-7 foot basement storage space an "office," suffered some flood-related damage from spring showers a few weeks ago. Historical items, such as books and posters from the last 10 years of AISA events, were ruined -- since the damage wasn't discovered until a few weeks after the flooding, by that point they were unable to be saved.\nBut there's still a possibility for some flowers to bloom out of this unfortunate event. We think Rebecca Riall, co-chair of the Native American Graduate Student Association, is right in her belief that the flooding of the AISA office could be the catalyst for IU to move forward in American Indian studies, outreach and community building.\n"We are the only major racial group on campus not to have our own cultural center," Riall told the Indiana Daily Student Thursday. "We need to bring it to IU for future generations."\nShe's right; let's bring the idea to life. IU should take the steps toward developing our own American Indian cultural center.\nThe most obvious benefit is the dual use such a center could bring the University. Not only would it be an ideal close-knit social space for American Indian students and campus activities, but the educational possibilities also present themselves for the entire community. Many departments -- history, anthropology, music, etc. -- could benefit from working with such a cultural center, which could be home to historical research about the early Indiana frontier. The center could provide additional institutional structure to American Indian programs already organized by the University, such as the IU American Indian Studies Research Institute and the School of Education's American Indian reservation teaching project. \nEstablishing an American Indian cultural center would be good for our students, good for our faculty, good for our research and good for reputation as a cultural studies leader. But such a center won't miraculously appear out of thin air. It's going to be hard work. Campus groups are working on a detailed proposal to present to the administration, and they will certainly need as much support as we can lend. Even if their proposal of salvaging the old Kappa Sigma house the University has slated for demolition falls through, there are still a number of viable options we can explore. But without the proper level of support, those options might never be explored and discussed.\nWe're calling on students, faculty, staff, administrators and existing IU cultural centers, as well as support from community educators like the Commission On Multicultural Understanding, to help in the endeavour. The cause is noble, the benefits are evident, and most importantly, the time has come.