Members of Trent University and the surrounding community gathered today in a ceremony to honour the earth on Tuesday April 9th. Trent President Bonnie Patterson and The Native Studies Department joined with the community in this spiritual ceremony at the site of the new Integrated College/First Peoples House of Learning/and Science Complex on the East Bank of the Otonabee River. The new Integrated College/First Peoples House of Learning is a $12.23 million project featuring 10 classrooms, two large lecture halls, performance space, approximately 70 academic offices, student and resource space. The Science Facility is a $19.9 million project which will include 40,000 square feet of new academic space, new research labs, lecture halls and teaching labs. Both projects will strengthen connections to the overall landscape and character of the campus and animate the vitality of the East Bank. Excavation for the Science Facility is scheduled to begin May 2002 and in June 2002 for the Integrate College/First Peoples House of Learning.

Trent's Edna Manitowabi sang a prayer and Curve Lake Elder Doug Williams performed the Honouring the EarthCeremony.