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2007 News

Alumna Tina Tsinigine appointed to the Navajo Nation Bar Association, November 5th 2007.

NNBA's Dec. 2007 newsletter and photo of newly admitted members

Navajo Nation Bar Association web site

Professor Michael Yellow Bird's book, "For Indigenous Eyes Only" was a finalist for Best Book on Native American Subject at the New Mexico Book Awards. Professor Yellow Bird is a citizen of the Sahnish and Hidatsa First Nations. Michael Yellow Bird co-edited the book with Waziyatawin Angela Wilson.

"For Indigenous Eyes Only" excerpt and ordering information



Diedre L. White Man (Meskwaki, Dakota, Ojibwe), Master’s student in indigenous nations studies, received the 2007 Outstanding Nontraditional Woman Student Award.

She has a bachelor’s degree from Haskell Indian Nations University and is a graduate of West High School in Davenport, Iowa. The ceremony was April 17, 2007. The Outstanding Nontraditional Woman Student Award goes annually to a nontraditional woman student who has demonstrated academic achievement and has made a contribution to the campus through her involvement.

Press Release

KU Indigenous Nations Studies 2006 Graduate, Anna Sarcia, is named the new coordinator of Pathways to Prosperity (P2P), a poverty reduction program on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation involving community collaboration focusing on inclusion, economic development and infrastructure. Anna was chosen by the Pathways to Prosperity Board of Directors with unanimous concurrence from the Turtle Mountain Tribal Council from a field of 11 highly qualified applicants. Anna previously worked as a Community Outreach Specialist with the project concurrently with her graduate studies at KU. Quoting an Turtle Mountain Times Article, she was chosen for the promotion to the new position because of her leadership ability, good rapport with the staff, and ability to hit the ground running. The funding organization for the project is the Northwest Area Foundation.

Full Story
Pathways to Prosperity web site

Power, Place, and People: African American and Indigenous Stories - a unique traveling exhibit created by KU Indigenous Nations Studies students and Haskell Indian Nations University Students along with lecturer Bobbi Rahder. Indigenous Nations Studies Program Student participating include Olivia Pewamo, Prairie Band Pottawatomi; Johnny Williams, Prairie Band Pottawatomi; Anna Sarcia, Turtle Mountain Chippewa; Jancita Warrington, Hochunk, Menominee, and Prairie Band Pottawatomi; Jessica James, Bannock, Paiute, and Washoe; Alex Naha, Omaha; Deidre Whiteman, Meskwaki and Dakota; Myron Dewey, Paiute, and Yana Reid, Lakota. Students in the Grant Writing class wrote the grant proposal to the Kansas Humanities Council that was approved for $9,996. Ford grant funds in the amount of $9,996 were used to match the KHC grant and to produce the exhibit artwork and panels. KHC grant funds were used to produce the exhibition in a mobile format, enabling it to travel throughout Kansas.

After being displayed at the Spencer and the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum in 2007, the Kansas State Historical Society's KITES Program will take the exhibition to the four Kansas tribes: Sac and Fox, Prairie Band Pottawatomi, Iowa, and Kickapoo Nations. The exhibition will also travel to schools, museums, libraries, and community centers in these targeted communities: Nicodemus, Kansas City, Hill City, Wichita, Colby, Coffeyville, Great Bend, Liberal, Topeka, and Hays.

Shifting Borders website

Shifting Borders Conference archive photos Fall 2006

Shifting Borders Exhibit Information (PDF)

Professor Stacy Leeds, past candidate for Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Lawrence Journal World, Feb. 5, 2007

University Relations Press Release, January 2007

Temashio Anderson, Nasbah Ben, and Heidi Mehl traveled to Kiev in May 2006 for the Chernobyl Commemorative Round Table, a commemoration of the tragedy of the Chernobyl catastrophe, an event that continues to impact the health and well being of Ukrainians twenty years after the nuclear reactor exploded and spewed radiation over huge regions of Europe and the Former Soviet Union. In May students made the long trip from Lawrence to speak with college students who have grown up in the aftermath of the catastrophe and exchange stories and insights about coping with nuclear tragedy. Heidi also traveled to the Altai region of Siberia on her Graduate Fellowship from the National Security Agency to continue her Master's research on water quality and Indigenous peoples. Ben, Anderson and Mehl had all been to the region before as undergraduate participants in Dr. Ray Pierotti’s NSF Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biology (UMEB) program.

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Center for Hazardous Substance Research

Dr. Michael Yellow Bird has completed the editing of a book entitled Indigenous Social Work around the World: Towards Culturally Relevant Education and Practice with co-editors Professor John Coates (1st editor, St. Thomas University, New Brunswick, Canada) and Professor Mel Gray (2nd editor, University of Newcastle, Australia). This is the first international publication of this kind, and is expected for release in early Fall 2007 by Ashgate Press. Additionally, Professor Yellow Bird has an invited essay entitled “On the Justice of Charging Buffalo: ‘Who Stole American Indian Studies? Redux’” that is in press with the Wicazo Sa Review Journal. Michael Yellow Bird was also selected to serve as a member of the Indigenous conference executive committee for the international inaugural “Indigenous Voices in Social Work: Not Lost in Translation” conference to be held at Oahu, Hawaii, June 4-7, 2007.
Dr. Sharon O’Brien has written “Tribal Governments” for the forthcoming Smithsonian Handbook, Vol. 2, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C. and an essay entitled “Indian Treaties as International Agreements” for the forthcoming Indian Treaties, ABC-CLIO, 2008. A revised edition of American Indian Tribal Governments, University of Oklahoma, is forthcoming.
Dr. Ray Pierotti was awarded a curriculum development grant for Indigenous science. As part of the grant, Professor Pierotti spearheaded the first distance learning project for the Indigenous Nations Studies Program, co-teaching a course taken by students at Northern Arizona University and the University of Kansas.
Dr. Stephanie Fitzgerald has a forthcoming essay: “The Cultural Work of a Mohegan Basket” in Early Native Literacies: A Documentary and Critical Anthology, Bross, Kristina and Hilary Wyss, eds. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007. She has also been elected to the Executive Committee of the Modern Language Association’s Division on American Indian Literatures. Dr. Fitzgerald joined the Indigenous Nations Studies Program and the English Department at KU in Fall 2006.
Dr. Devon Mihesuah's Keynote Talk at the Sixth Annual American Indian Studies Consortium Conference, Arizona State University, February 10-11, 2005, “Indigenizing the Academy” was published in Wicazo Sa Review Journal, Volume 21, Number 1, Spring 2006. Her essay, “Overcoming Hegemony in Native Studies Programs,” was published in Unlearning the Language of Conquest Scholars Expose Anti-Indianism in America (University of Texas Press, 2006). She gave a featured address on “The State of Indigenous Health” at the Potawatomi “Working Together for Balance” Diabetes Conference in October 2006 at Harrah's Prairie Band Casino on the Potawatomi Reservation. Her book, Recovering Our Ancestors' Gardens: Indigenous Recipes and Guide to Diet and Fitness, University of Nebraska Press, 2005, that won the Special Award of the Jury of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, for Finalist for Best in the World Cookbook, was featured in the Lawrence-Journal World, in ”Simple Sustenance: Confronting Obesity and Dietary Problems by Returning to Our Roots,” February 15, 2006: D1-2.