ISAP Summer Start 2024 will offer an immersive campus experience for Indigenous students new to the College of Arts and Science, USask Saskatoon Campus.

Ready, Set… Go! 

Held August 26^th to 28th at the University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon Campus, ISAP Summer Start includes three days of activities designed to launch your USask Student Journey. 

All sessions are led by ISAP Program Staff, Peer Leaders, and Faculty and Instructors from the academic departments and service groups you’ll work with as an undergraduate in the College of Arts and Science. Each day you can select sessions to attend that match your interests and meet Indigenous students who share your academic goals. We’ll include lots of opportunities for team challenges, student networking, snacks, and fun!

Build Skills and Strategies for Success 

Summer Start sessions include mock lectures and lab and studio activities delivered by Fall Term instructors, providing a preview of your Fall Term experience. 

Sessions hosted by the USask Library Learning Hub and ISAP Peer Mentors will focus on academic strategies that support success in specific programs: e.g., Which note-taking strategies are best for science courses, which for arts courses? What are exams like? How can I use learning tools in my course Canvas pages to complete coursework?  

Academic advisors from the Trish Monture Centre for Student Success will share advice on course selections, credit load, and navigating student life in Saskatoon. 

Students new to Saskatoon (or new to navigating the Transit system) can sign-up to join a City of Saskatoon bus tour Wednesday, August 28. 

View our Summer Start 2024 schedule (Coming Soon)

ISAP Summer Start Keynote Lecture

Each year, ISAP Peer Mentors invite an Indigenous faculty member to provide a Keynote Lecture during Summer Start. This year we are excited to host Dr. Robert Henry, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Justice and Wellbeing, Department of Indigenous Studies. Join us: Tuesday, August 27, 1:00-1:50 pm, at the Gordon Oakes Red Bear Student Centre

Dr. Robert Henry, PdD, is Métis and a citizen of the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan, from Prince Albert, SK. His research focuses primarily on the experiences of Indigenous peoples engaged in street lifestyles, where he uses a survivance lens to challenge pathologized understandings of their experiences. Much of his research consists of using an Indigenous research framework focused on relational accountability through arts-based research methods. Working with Indigenous ex-gang members and collecting life narratives using visual research methods, he examines how their notions of identity are impacted with their involvement within multiple social systems. Through this work he has published two manuscripts with Indigenous gang and ex-gang members – Brighter Days Ahead (2013) and Indigenous Women and Street Gangs: Survivance Narratives (2021), and co-edited four other books on Indigenous health, settler colonialism, and Indigenous sociology. He has published in the areas of Indigenous methodologies, arts-based research, Indigenous criminology, prison cultures, and Métis data sovereignty.

Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Justice and Wellbeing
Associate Professor, Department of Indigenous Studies, University of Saskatchewan
Executive Director and Principal Investigator, nātawihowin and mamawiikikayaahk Research Networks (SK-NEIHR)

Co-Lead of National Coordinating Centre for NEIHR Networks 
Nominated Principal Investigator – Indigenous Engagement Platform for Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse (CRISM)

Attention Student Parents – ISAP is partnering is Sci-Fi Science Camps!

Do you have school-aged children? During ISAP Summer Start we have 20 spaces available for youth, aged 5 to 14, to join us on campus! Sci-Fi Science camps will plan morning and afternoon activity sessions August 26-28^th, and participating children will join the ISAP group for lunch and snacks. Pre-registration is required, and spaces are limited, so if childcare is key to your ability to attend Summer Start 2024, sign-up and reserve spaces for your kids today.  

Celebrating Next Steps 

We’ll wrap up Summer Start with a Celebration of your entrance to post-secondary studies in the College of Arts and Science. Students, families, and friends are invited to join us for the annual ISAP Summer Start BBQ: 4-6pm Wednesday August 28th in the Arts Thorvaldson Greenspace

Questions about ISAP Summer Start?