St. Thomas Native American students are hoping to establish a greater presence on campus by creating a service-oriented club called Students for Native American Outreach.

Sophomore Gabriel Benedict said he started the club with Elizabeth Wilkinson, assistant professor of English and American culture and difference.

While tutoring for the Division of Indian Works in Minneapolis, he said, he noticed there were many more students than tutors, so the new group will tutor Native American students. He also said he would like to see the number of Native American students on campus increase.

“In a year, I’d like to bring native students on campus and have specific native tours,” Benedict said. “The big mission is to aid that staggeringly low native student college attendance number.”

A group of 12 students has been meeting for four weeks at noon Tuesdays and Thursdays in the leather room by Coffee Bené in the O’Shaughnessy-Frey library.

“[We are] trying to develop a constitution as a club and see what sort of presence we can have next year with the new student center,” junior Meg Veitenheimer said. “[The club] is in the infancy stages.”

She said she hadn’t noticed a significant Native American presence at St. Thomas.

“I have Native American ancestry, and I have always been interested in the justice issues that are specific to Native American communities,” Veitenheimer said.

Native American books

St. Thomas recently received a donation of Native American books from Bill Cavanaugh. The group brought the books to Wilkinson’s office Tuesday and plans to use them for the club in the future.

“We thought it would be cool to maybe have them in a room in the new [student center] if we can,” Veitenheimer said.

Wilkinson, the club’s adviser, said she envisions a future Native American student center on campus. She said she would love Cavanaugh’s donation to be the beginning of this student center at St.Thomas.

Benedict said, “Right now, we have a Native American shelf.”

Diversity and recruitment

Freshman Alizabeth Candler said the group is not exclusive to native students, and she would like to see a lot of diversity in the group.

Benedict added, “We want to work with HANA but be something different than HANA. We want native students to be in both groups.”

Veitenheimer said establishing a connection with Native American youth in the cities is important for recruiting future native students to St. Thomas.

“Establishing that kind of relationship with us as college students and them as youth. Maybe looking at the possibility of going to college,” Veitenheimer said. “We also kind of want to provide an atmosphere that is welcoming and supportive to Native American culture here on campus.”

Benedict said doing service for native communities, especially in high schools and elementary schools, is important and will demonstrate that “college is reachable thing.”

Kelsey Broadwell can be reached at broa3324@stthomas.edu.