¶®É«µÛ

Petra Cegielny, '01 BA, almost didn’t apply for the two-year grant-funded position of Aboriginal student advisor at Augustana in 2007. As a non-Indigenous person, she had doubts, despite her university background and experience working with Treaty 7 Nations in Southern Alberta.

Fast forward to 2025, and Cegielny is awarded the Alumni Citation Award for her outstanding work in that very role from 2007 to 2016. It’s safe to say she was the right person for the job at the right time. “I'm humbled to think that Augustana would want to present me with this award for the work that I did during my time there. It means a great deal to me. It's a huge honour.” 

When she started in the position, Cegielny didn’t put her name or title on the door. Instead, she named it the Aboriginal Students’ Office (now Indigenous Student Services). She wanted it to be a space for others, telling students, “I may sit there, but this is your space. Let’s see what it can become. I’m here to help make that happen.”

Seeing her role as a facilitator of relationships, Cegielny began building connections and helping to remove barriers for Indigenous students. She started by collecting data on the number of Indigenous students who had attended Augustana or were currently on campus. She looked for allies and found them among professors who had built relationships with Indigenous students over the years. 

“That started the momentum of building up a community on campus,” she recalls.

Together with her colleague Janice Fehr, a Cree alumna of Augustana, Cegielny began to ask questions and identify needs of Indigenous students on campus. How are Indigenous students recruited? What supports are available in residence? How can Indigenous voices be included in campus events like International Week? What resources does the library have? Do courses contain Indigenous content? Do we have a space for students to smudge? How are we celebrating graduates? 

To answer some of these questions, Fehr and Cegielny connected with campus service providers, former students, as well as community members, Elders and Knowledge Keepers from Maskwacîs. They also looked to what was then called the Aboriginal Student Services Centre (now First Peoples’ House) on the ¶®É«µÛ’s North Campus for support and inspiration.

They started to host student events like moccasin making workshops and campus wide bannock taco lunches. They created an Indigenous mentorship program and gained Indigenous representation on student council. In 2011 — during Augustana’s centennial — Cegielny supported the creation of an Indigenized “Uplifting the Whole People” banner to celebrate the growing Indigenous presence on campus.

The small Aboriginal Students Office was becoming crowded with students laughing, working on a project or participating in a workshop. The need for a larger space was clear.

Cegielny consulted with the Indigenous community, particularly students and Elders, to come up with a vision for a new space. “It took some time, but we wanted to do it well,” she explains. “Every part of the space was thought through and planned for a specific reason.”

With the help of a one-million-dollar grant from the U of A, wahkohtowin Lodge was created in 2016. It is a dedicated space for Indigenous students to gather with each other, Elders and community members and to share their gifts through educational programs and workshops. 

While Cegielny didn’t get to work in the new space — she and her husband adopted a baby around the time of the lodge’s opening — her work left a lasting impact. 

Not one to take credit for the achievement, Cegielny emphasizes, “What I’m most proud of is how the relationships I formed with students helped to transform the campus and make it a place where Indigenous students could better succeed in their academic journeys. My role was more about facilitating relations and creating a trusting space that supported student success. That’s what I tried to do.”

“My time at Augustana ended, but the students who entrusted me for support during those nine years are the ones making a difference now. They have become the change.”

The Alumni Citation Award is presented to a non Augustana alumnus/a in recognition of significant contributions to the life of Augustana.