A8 | NEWS
JANUARY 10, 2022 GRAND VALLEY LANTHORN @GVLNEWS
INVOLVEMENT
Office of Student Life moves forward with ‘ReIgnite’ program BY LAUREN FORMOSA NEWS@LANTHORN.COM
Grand Valley State University’s Office of Student Life is moving forward with their plans to hold “ReIgnite,” the official group training and resource program for members of student organizations’ executive boards. The event will be held in two sessions, the first on Jan. 14, and the second on Jan. 24. The Office of Student Life requires at least one executive board (eboard) member of each student organization to attend the program, not including club sports or graduate organizations. ReIgnite’s program includes five different interactive workshops student leaders can attend, such as finance and funding, event planning, officer transitions, on-campus volunteering and leadership skills. Brianna Slager, Assistant Director of Student Organizations, said based on feedback from fall semester’s Ignite program, the Office of Student Life has made adjustments to better fit the needs of its students. “We got a ton of feedback on doing more presentations that were specific to operations of student organizations and what they’re handling,” Slager said. “We’ve noticed, due to the pandemic, that a lot of our student leaders have not traveled, they have not had a
fundraiser on campus and there’s this gap of knowledge of what the Office of Student Life can provide and help them with and what they have access to.” Although ReIgnite has been moved to a virtual format due to COVID-19 restrictions, Slager and the Office of Student Life are still working to make the workshops as interactive and engaging as possible for student leaders. The Office of Student Life is encouraging any and all eboard members to attend and get involved with the ReIgnite workshops, especially now that the event has moved online and can host more attendees. During the session, student leaders will be able to rotate into different breakout rooms for each workshop. While student leaders can expect to gain information such as how to properly fill out funding forms, they can also expect to connect and network with other student organizations. “Looking at it from a student development perspective, having that connection piece is so important to see that there are other students on campus that are going through the same thing as me, that are trying to plan events, that are trying to find funding to go to this conference or try to find different things,” Slager said. Slager said she is hoping to get construc-
ORGANIZATION: Grand Valley State University eboard leaders of student organizations are required to attend the virtual ReIgnite event held by the Office of Student Life this January. COURTESY | GVSU
tive feedback from ReIgnite attendees about how the program can evolve and better suit student organizations’ needs next year. “Moving forward, we are trying to make ReIgnite more relationship-based and connection-based,” Slager said. “We know how important student orgs are to campus, they’re the light that makes our campus so vibrant.” While ReIgnite does focus on commu-
nication, networking and other important leadership skills, Slager wants attendees to understand just how important of a resource the Office of Student Life can be for student organizations. LOG ON TO: www.lanthorn.com FOR THE FULL ARTICLE
INCLUSIVITY
Belinda Lin Bardwell and her support of GV’s Native community BY JAMIE WILSON NEWS@LANTHORN.COM
Belinda Lin Bardwell, a member of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Natives and program coordinator with the Office of Multicultural Affairs at Grand Valley State University since 2019, has spent her time on campus inspiring youth and young adults to embrace their heritage, and grow confident
in who they are. However, she endured many challenges to get to where she is today. Bardwell started her journey in Grand Rapids Public Schools in the Native American Education Program in the early 2000s. Bardwell said she struggled, like so many other Native American students, to complete college while having to overcome the various common struggles of Native
CULTURE: Belinda Lin Bardwell, program coordinator for the Office of Multicultural Affairs at GV, has made it her mission to help Native students throughout their educational journey. COURTESY | GVSU
American students. Some of these struggles include unconventional family dynamics, intergenerational trauma from boarding schools that abused and attempted to assimilate Indigenous students and the absence of Native American culture and history in school curriculum, Bardwell said. In time, Bardwell obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and now uses her experiences to help students that are now in the position that she once was. “I’m trying to be that person I didn’t have in all my attempts at finishing my degree and a big part of that is just having your own community on campus,” Bardwell said. Bardwell has gone on to work with both Indigenous and Non-indigenous faculty and staff members, as well as Indigenous community members, in a group formally known as the Native American Advisory Council at GVSU. The Council’s momentum helped it to gain support from the Division of Inclusion and Equity, which contracted Bardwell to conduct research on how to best support the council at GVSU. Bardwell said this work has fostered
relationships and programs in which communities for Native American students could be built, and allowed Bardwell the opportunity to form the Mno’Chigewin Student Success Program. The program began by supporting high school students on their journey to higher education and in 2017, launched the first Anishinaabe Summer Leadership Camp. During their first year, a Native American student in the camp committed to going to GVSU. Today, he is in his junior year at the university. Bardwell hopes to reopen this program this summer. “When students leave their home communities, they come to an all-white, colonial-style institution in which their innate ways of being are frowned upon,” Bardwell said. “I’m trying to offer cultural, spiritual and linguistic guidance to our students within the Native communities in Western Michigan.” LOG ON TO: www.lanthorn.com FOR THE FULL ARTICLE