Given that there is no tradition of higher education in most native communities, every graduate counts. You don't have people in your families who've gone on to do postsecondary degrees. For us, we were the first in our families to go and to experience that. Diabo believes that with more support, more would graduate but laments the fact that she's it, as far as services for native students go. Support, however, is only one side of the coin.
Recruitment is the other.
While it is not their centre's responsibility to recruit native students, coordinator Manon Tremblay visits schools and attends special native events to speak of Concordia and the centre. The irony is that although the University lags in its effort to recruit and retain native students, it has, for the past 25 years, worked extensively in remote aboriginal communities developing and delivering community-based programs in the areas of education and social work. Some of the 200 students enrolled annually end up attending summer courses and about five per year end up coming from their communities to study at McGill, says Susann Allnutt, program administrator at McGill's Office of First Nations and Inuit Education. There are large numbers studying at McGill but not on campus. Furthermore, says Diabo, there are 45,000 aboriginal people in the Montreal area, according to Statistics Canada.