by Cristina Rojas
June 27th 2023
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A salmon bake takes place during a seasonal gathering outside what was the Harrison Street Building, now renamed PSU ITECK Center.
Portland State’s Harrison Street Building has a new name — PSU ITECK Center — cementing its future as a space that will support the education and practice of Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge (ITECK) on campus.
The name change, one of President Stephen Percy’s last acts of his tenure, takes effect immediately.
“This building renaming is an important and overdue recognition of the diligent efforts of so many at PSU to extend knowledge about and strong appreciation for the customs, traditions, cultures, appreciation of the land and nature in the Native American and Indigenous communities,” Percy said. “I am pleased that I have been able to make this decision during my time as PSU President.”
Percy approved the name change in addition to a future demolition to build a new ITECK Center on the same site, contingent upon an approved building design and secured funding sources.
The ITECK Center is a one-story building that sits on the five-acre Oak Savanna in the heart of campus. For more than a decade, students and faculty from Indigenous Nations Studies have been tending the land and reclaiming it for food, medicine and ceremony. In 2019, the School of Architecture joined their efforts to imagine what an ITECK Center could look like.
Over this past academic year, the building, including its redesign, material strategies, relation to the land and proposed functions, were the focus of several architecture studio and Indigenous Nations Studies courses.
The ITECK Center, once renovated, will include community space, an indoor/outdoor kitchen and an Indigenous library for tools and other items of cultural significance. The center will support the new ITECK undergraduate certificate program, experiential learning courses and programming, including ceremony, salmon bakes and other community engagement opportunities.
“I appreciate that the ITECK Center will greatly enhance PSU’s ability to engage with tribal and urban Indigenous communities, organizations and governmental agencies,” Percy said.