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University honors legacy, history with new Native American center

The ��ƷSM����ӰƬ has hosted some of the most impressive Native American scholars and artists, including Vine Deloria, Jr., historian, activist and author of Custer Died for Your Sins, poet Joy Harjo, novelist Linda Hogan, biologist and wildlife tracking expert Jim Halfpenny and anthropologist D’Arcy McNickle.

Now, the campus has joined the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Minnesota and many other institutions in creating a Native American and indigenous studies program.

“We’ve had amazing people here at CU, very impressive academic figures, but we didn’t seem to have the right confluence of energies until now,” says Penelope Kelsey, associate professor of English and Director of the new Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies.

“Now we have a critical mass of faculty members across a wide array of disciplines that have made this happen.”

The CNAIS describes itself as “a vibrant organization that brings together the best of theory and practice, cross-disciplinary research, and collaboration among the University and its constituents, to improve educational access for Native American students and advance research on issues facing Native American and Indigenous peoples in the U.S. and around the world.”

The center has some 50 faculty affiliates from across campus, ranging from Pueblo musicologist Brenda Romero of the CU-Boulder College of Music and internationally renowned printmaker Melanie Yazzie, to MacArthur Fellow Patricia Limerick at the Center of the American West and history Professor Elizabeth Fenn, whose book Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People, just won the  for history.

The program currently offers a graduate certificate and will launch an undergraduate certificate for the fall 2015 semester.

Of course, there was a “center” of a kind long before there was a center, degrees or building plans. The idea really began with a long-running faculty research series and, in 2012, the first Native American graduation ceremony on the Boulder campus since the tradition fell away in the 1990s.

“Most of the big research universities have special ceremonies for native students,” Kelsey says. “We just decided to make it happen, do the fundraising.”

Professor of Linguistics Andrew Cowell, an expert in the Arapaho language, and Professor of Law Kristen Carpenter began the research series in 2010, securing funding from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Faculty Affairs and the Office of the Chancellor, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, and dean of Arts and Sciences. The support funded a staff position, the NAIS program coordinator and start-up money for grant-writing and library acquisitions.

Meanwhile, the graduate school and departments of English and history assisted with an initial NAIS graduate instructor position.

“I’d been informally doing the director job for a while,” Kelsey says. “Last year we really started formalizing everything.”

"Part of the legacy of Sand Creek is that the Southern Arapahos in particular lost a great deal, including much of the language. Yet, Arapahos consider Boulder Valley their ancestral home. Imagine the healing that could happen by helping to bring the language back to the southern branch.”

The center-to-be also played a big part in organizing a September 2014 event commemorating the 150thanniversary of the Nov. 29, 1864 Sand Creek Massacre in eastern Colorado—in which territorial militias slaughtered more than 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, most of them women, children and elders—featuring speakers and descendants of those killed.

Boulder Valley was the home territory of the Southern Arapaho tribe, led by Chief Houusoo (“little raven”) and Chief Nowoo3 (Niwot or “left hand” in the Arapaho language), whose name graces so many events, streets and businesses in Boulder County today.

But the tribe was all but shattered after Sand Creek, sent south to Oklahoma and north to Wyoming to live on reservations. In fact, a proposal to rename Kittredge West and Central Halls for the two leaders in the Hinono’ei language remains under consideration.

Today there are very few Arapaho academics, but opening CNAIS in the heart of historic Cheyenne-Arapaho country has already helped CU-Boulder bring one of the most promising emerging scholars, Angelica Lawson—a Northern Arapaho who specializes in Native American portrayal in film—currently at the University of Minnesota, to CU-Boulder.

“Universities with NAIS programs need to hire the best people in the field, being mindful to recruit outstanding people from the tribes in the area wherever possible,” Kelsey says.

Perhaps most important, the CNAIS may help CU-Boulder bring Cheyenne and Arapaho students to campus, perhaps even to learn the Arapaho language; currently, there are none.

“Part of the legacy of Sand Creek is that the Southern Arapahos in particular lost a great deal, including much of the language. Yet, Arapahos consider Boulder Valley their ancestral home. Imagine the healing that could happen by helping to bring the language back to the southern branch,” Kelsey says. “We are on Arapaho land. It doesn’t seem like a lot to give back.”

Clay Evans is a free-lance writer in Boulder.