I came to the University of British Columbia in 2018 and was able to be colead on their refreshed indigenous strategic plan. That process took two years. It was launched in 2020 and helped us get all the voices in. We spoke to indigenous students, faculty, staff, non-indigenous people, many community members and so forth, to be able to see what our people want and what they need. That's how we came up with the eight goals, four of which I read earlier.
Another one was spaces. How do we reconcile spaces? That seems to be a big thing for students. They want to know where to go, where they are welcome and where they can find other people like them, other students and so forth, who can share their experiences. In that realm, we were able to make the First Nations House of Learning, which is housed within the First Nations Longhouse. We've just expanded it 2,500 square feet to add new spaces.
On the other end, we started an indigenous collegia, which is specifically for first-year students for most of the collegia on UBC—there are six or seven of them—to be able to get people in and feel comfortable, build community and so forth.
We started an indigenous collegium in the Longhouse. That also took quite a bit of work remodelling, recruiting and so forth. We don't kick them out, if you will, after the first year, but we did recognize that first-year students really do need something. At the first nations house, we also recruited and onboarded a first-year retention coordinator, recognizing that there is some drop-off in first year, especially the first term of the first year, especially when we just went through the pandemic. Money was tight, and people needed a lot of support and backup.
We were literally making spaces, building spaces, for people to come and feel comfortable, especially first-year students. The first-year coordinator works both in the wider Longhouse and then also in the collegium, so there are lot of resources for the people just coming in from high school.