Anishinaabe University of Sudbury students presented with scholarship awards
By Rick Garrick
SUDBURY—Three University of Sudbury Indigenous Studies students are looking forward to being able to focus more on their studies after being presented with scholarships awards on Oct. 18.
Sonnie Debassige, a third-year student from M’Chigeeng First Nation, received the continuing $7,000 Rotary Aboriginal Scholarship Fund award; Erin Fairbairn, a third-year student from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory, received the continuing $7,000 Dr. Constance Elaine Jayne Williams and Charles L. Williams Educational Trust Scholarship award; and Bneshiinh McLeod, a second-year student from Mississauga, received the $4,000 Maple Grove United Church Scholarship award.
“It will definitely help — it will help with rent and other such things,” Debassige says. “It can be really difficult especially trying to balance everything, so when you have that financial stability or even just a little bit more, it really takes a lot of stress off you.”
Debassige’s long-term goal is to teach Indigenous studies.
“I would like to get my PhD at some point,” Debassige says. “When I finally found a program I really cared about and really loved, I just want to go as far as possible with it and just want to be immersed in it all the time.”
Debassige says the Indigenous Studies program is “really unique.”
“I love that there’s Elders on staff that are readily available to us,” Debassige says. “It’s such a close-knit community on campus that it’s really easy for me to be able to do an art sale or do a beading night or anything else like that.”
Fairbairn says the Dr. Constance Elaine Jayne Williams and Charles L. Williams Educational Trust Scholarship will help to relieve “a lot of financial burdens.”
“I have a family of my own — I am a wife and mother and I travel into the campus everyday from Espanola,” Fairbairn says. “So this has been extremely difficult on me and my family financially. This is going to provide us with a lot of help.”
Fairbairn says her husband, daughter and father attended the scholarship awards ceremony.
“They were all very proud of me,” Fairbairn says. “It was very nice — they definitely wanted to be there.”
Fairbairn says her goal is to be a teacher of Indigenous studies, in either high school or elementary school.
”I want to take part in the language aspect of it to keep that alive,” Fairbairn says. “I’m trying to learn [Anishinaabemowin] myself and I want to pass it on to other generations.”
McLeod says the Maple Grove United Church Scholarship will help her with achieving her post-secondary education goals.
“It is difficult, and that is where awards like this do help,” McLeod says. “I do get sponsorship from my reserve, which does help, but this also will allow me to focus more on school and not have to worry. So it is nice to have that burden relieved.”
McLeod, who was voted in as the vice president of the Indigenous Students Circle at Laurentian University for the 2018-19 school year, says the small class sizes at the University of Sudbury have been an advantage for her.
“I’m really close with all of my professors there,” McLeod says. “Anytime I need to talk to anyone or anything about school I have a real close rapport with them, so it is really nice.”
Sophie Bouffard, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Sudbury, says the scholarship recipients are “very engaged” in the Indigenous Studies program and the university community.
“It is important to support our students and today was a celebration of that,” Bouffard says. “As a university president, I am wishing them all great success.”