Native counsellor's mission is to heal
In Ojibwa, Liz Akiwenzie's name is Nitsitangekwe. It means understanding woman or looking for the understanding. That is the Trent native counsellor's mission in life. It goes hand in hand with her responsibility as a member of the Bear Clan -- to carry the healing medicines of her people.

Trent's Native Studies Department hired Akiwenzie last fall. She is the first native counsellor in the department to use traditional and holistic healing methods to help troubled students find mental, spiritual and emotional balance. Though she has an office in the basement of Otonabee College, she often drives individual students to her home outside Peterborough to give them the privacy to "unburden the heaviness they carry" and avoid disturbing co-workers.

Akiwenzie grew up in Cape Croker, 65 kilometres north of Owen Sound, without any solid knowledge of native traditions and culture. An Ojibwa and Oneida from the Bear Clan, she followed her stepfather in his quest for understanding after her sister died 21 years ago. "The family decided there was something we needed to find and needed to know." They began searching for elders and attending native ceremonies.

Akiwenzie got a social service diploma from Fanshawe College in London. Most of her formal native training, however, has been through an organization called Tribal Sovereignty. "Everything I do I learned from my own people." She considers herself a vessel through which the Creator works. To help others, she encourages them to talk about whatever is bothering them and, above all, to let the tears roll. She meets individuals for as long as it takes -- sometimes hours -- and at their convenience. Sometimes, she invites several together for a healing circle. She refers to the medicine wheel to help them find a balance of mind, body and spirit. This might be achieved by ceremony -- burning tobacco and sage, sweetgrass or cedar -- by singing, by prayer. Akiwenzie also uses therapeutic touch.

At 42, she has had lots of practice. Her most powerful tool is empathy. "I do not take people where I have not been." She worked for 18 months at the Six Nations treatment centre, then at a healing lodge in Oneida outside London, was a drug- and alcohol-abuse counsellor for years in Saugeen South Nation, a youth counsellor in Oneida and a sexual-abuse-survivor counsellor in her own community. She has worked with both natives and non-natives, men and women. "I want to help stop abuse of children." And so, the mother of six and sister to seven keeps learning and helping.

At Trent, she has been so busy, she has not yet met her counterparts in Student Counselling and Careers. The first week she arrived a lot of people sought her out. "They already knew who I was" and "were ready to heal."

Glancing out the window towards the hill behind Otonabee College, she smiles at the grandfathers and grandmothers -- the rocks -- outside her window. "I have an old woman spirit that guides me."

Brains and braun
Thirteen Trent students won Academic All-Canadian Awards this year for Canadian Inter-university Athletic Union varsity athletes who maintain a better-than-80-per-cent average.

The Royal Bank presents the awards to about 800 students at 47 universities. "The fact that Trent got 13 is a huge accomplishment," said Trent athletics director Paul Wilson at the annual athletics awards banquet March 26

The winners are field hockey players Kim Butler, Lynne Gatzke and Kirsten Mitchelle; swimmers John Cole, Elise Comrie, Janet Doner, Mark Edmond, Alice Hutton and Monique Raymond; and soccer players Cheryl McLaughlin, Scott O'Brien, Natalie Savone and Andrea Woogh.

Four students were named Ontario University Athletics Conference All-Stars: field hockey player Lisa Morton; soccer players Sarah Keating and Paula Reed; and rugby player Dan Lavender.

Eight won University Athletic Awards for significant contribution to Trent's athletics program: Courtney Fray, Lisa Herrick, Beth Jones, Shannon Mason, Jay Ahlan, John Cole, Gerald McKinley and Alex Thompson.

Bonspiel raises $6,000
The annual student-organized Curl-4-Cancer bonspiel raised $6,000 this year from 200 participants for the Canadian Cancer Society.