As students spent Dillo Day drinking and listening to bands, some students said the event didn’t go far enough toward achieving its purpose — celebrating spring and increasing awareness of Native-American culture on campus.
Dillo Day is organized by Mayfest, a group that seeks to increase awareness about Native-Americans issues. But some Native-American students said Dillo Day’s emphasis could give people the wrong idea about cultural issues.
“To have Native-American culture associated with Dillo Day is bad,” said Andrea Gusty, a Medill sophomore who wrote a May 16 letter to the editor in The Daily on the subject. “As a whole we have struggled with alcoholism, and no one should poke fun at it. The only remedy is to have Native-American issues brought to the forefront of our education every day — not just in May.”
Gusty, who is part Yup’ik and part Athabaskan, and Anna Holster-Ross, who is Nakota Sioux, both have tried to increase the Native-American presence on campus. According to the Northwestern admissions Web site, three students in the incoming freshman class identified themselves as Native American — the smallest minority admitted.
Unlike for other minorities, NU does not have student groups or programming for Native Americans, or a Native-American studies minor.
“It made me feel isolated,” said Holster-Ross, an Education senior. “In four years I met four Native Americans. I felt my background was discounted.”
Mayfest organizers said they tried to bring greater focus to the minority group by bringing a Native-American speaker and drummer, as well as passing out information at The Rock.
“Mayfest in general was pretty good about making people understand Mayfest does more than Dillo Day,” said the group’s co-chairman, Brian Bockrath. “We were really lucky with the general response from the campus.”
Still, Bockrath noted a void of Native-American awareness on campus.
One project to increase awareness is a Native-American Talking Circle, which Gusty said she hopes to organize for Fall Quarter with the help of the Multicultural Center. The group would provide a forum for non-Native-American students to learn about the culture and for students of the minority to provide support for each other.
Tedd Vanadilok, who coordinates programming at MCC, said he is willing to provide resources for the talking circle if there is enough interest in the group.
“The Multicultural Center always encourages groups to form,” Vanadilok said. “There’s no support (for Native Americans) because there are so few who have demonstrated a need for support.”
Demonstrating need might be a struggle because the population is small and difficult to recruit, said political science Prof. Paul Friesema, who teaches a class on indigenous people.
Low SAT scores and economic hardships contribute to low numbers of Native-American students in higher education, Friesema said, and it can be hard to recruit Native Americans because they often are widely dispersed in urban communities.
Even so, NU should make more efforts to incorporate Native-American culture, he said. “It would enrich the university community and serve a real national need for American Indians.
“I think with a fairly modest commitment.”
Although Native Americans are “underrespresented in American higher education,” Rebecca Dixon, associate provost for university enrollment, said NU does not have a specific recruitment program for Native-American students and does not plan to start one.
“I am not aware that other parts of the university emphasize Native Americans in curriculum, programming, faulty/staff hiring or other activities,” Dixon wrote in an e-mail on May 23. “In the absence of a consensus to recruit Native Americans and also plan programming attractive to them, it would probably be unwise to launch specific recruitment activities.”
