When Alicia Gangone first left home for Haskell Indian Nations University, her biggest fear was being away from family at the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Reservation in South Dakota.
But once she got to Haskell, a federal college in Kansas for Native Americans, she said she was happy to find a group of peers who helped her feel at home.
“One of the biggest things that got me through Haskell was having a massive support group who had similar backgrounds who I could turn to if I [needed] help,” she said. “Like, if you have someone who can help you with homework – you know, some of us are shy.”
Now, Gangone is helping create the new Indigenous Student Collective at Wichita State – in an effort to make Indigenous students there feel that same level of support and comfort.
It started when Gangone said she noticed a lack of events marking Indigenous Peoples’ Day in October. She says people often speak about Native Americans as if they are no longer here, or they focus solely on negative statistics about the community.
Gangone says she hopes the group will help provide more positive representation, as well as inform the way that people at WSU view Indigenous people.
“I'm hoping that with what we can bring to the table and what we can provide for WSU as far as creating a home for the Indigenous students, [it] would also kind of help them change talking about us in a historical or negative light,” Gangone said.
Gangone approached WSU’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion about forming the new group, and they helped her contact the several dozen Indigenous students on campus. The department is also supporting the group and providing them a place to meet as they become a recognized student organization.
While the students meet under the common identity of being Indigenous, there’s much diversity among them. Gangone is Dakota. Other members represent tribes like the Cherokee and the Osage.
Hannah Domebo, a Wichita native, is Ponca, Kiowa and Quapaw. Her father is the director of the Native American Indian Education Program at Wichita schools.
Domebo says her dad’s work taught her to appreciate her heritage from a young age, and she wants to spread that appreciation to other students with Native American heritage who may not have had that same experience.
“A goal for me is being able to have all these people – you know, adults or fresh out of high school that are still trying to figure things out – be able to get in touch with that side of their culture,” Domebo said. “Because you're never too old to learn about your culture and learn where you came from.”
Domebo is also vice president of the new Indigenous Student Collective. She says she sees the group as a way to share the values and traditions of Native American culture with people of all backgrounds at WSU, especially through cultural events like powwows.
“I’ve noticed that there’s groups for almost every other race and ethnicity except Native Americans, so it’ll be nice to get that cultural representation that I believe we deserve on campus.”
The collective also hopes to collaborate with another burgeoning Native American group on campus called AISES, short for the American Indian Science and Engineering Society.
Casey Henderson leads WSU’s chapter of AISES. She’s a member of the Shawnee and Cherokee nations from Oklahoma.
“Basically we promote Indigenous students of all backgrounds to try and be included in STEM fields and STEM careers,” she said.
Henderson says many of AISES’ goals align with the Indigenous Student Collective, like getting more representation and exposure for Indigenous cultures on campus.
But she says the group also wants to speak to Native American grade school students in the area to help prepare them for the college experience – and to make sure they know their values and perspectives are important.
“... If we bring our perspective to academia in that way, then we can have a little bit more insight,” Henderson said. “I think that it would be really interesting to see what indigenous culture can bring to that.”
