Message from the Director

Dear Students and Friends:

Winter semester 2013 is well underway! For those of you new to NMU – welcome and for those of you who are returning – welcome back!  Our faculty and staff are very supportive of Native student efforts and are active participants in sharing knowledge of Native peoples to the NMU campus and surrounding communities. We offer twenty-two different courses in Native American Studies and have been working hard to create a baccalaureate program for future NMU students.

People often ask me what we do at our Center and I’ve come up with this metaphor…think of a braid - three specific strands:  academics and research, 2) student empowerment, and 3) community outreach. 

Academics and research: 

•    NAS offers a twenty-four credit minor,
•    NAS offers a concentration of on-line courses as part of the Masters of Education Administration,
•    Many NAS courses fulfill liberal studies and the world cultures requirements,
•    The Decolonizing Diet Project is an exploratory study of the relationship between people and indigenous foods of the Great Lakes Region. 

Student Empowerment: 

• The Anishinaabe News is back in action. Our new graduate assistant, Gabe, has already edited two issues in the fall 2012 semester and plans to do two more this semester. More students are needed to help write articles, take photos. Submissions of poetry, drawings, etc. are also encouraged.
• The Center will once again offer workshops as part of the Native American Student Empowerment Initiative. Keep an eye out for these announcements. Special thanks to the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community for support of this initiative.
• Students are always welcomed to visit the Center for Native American Studies resource room as part of their studies. Special thanks to the NMU College of Arts and Sciences and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community for support of our resource room.
• Our Center works closely with offices such as the Multicultural Education and Resource Center (MERC), Financial Aid, Housing and the Registrar to make sure students are getting the answers they need. We may not have all of the answers, but we know where to find them.

Community Outreach:

•    The 7^th Fire Project was a huge success last academic year. Aimee Cree Dunn, coordinator, will be once again offering this interactive program to a limited number of classrooms. Thanks to the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community for their continued support. 

The Center for Native American Studies (Whitman Hall 112) is open from 8 am – 5 pm Monday-Friday. Stop by or make an appointment. The CNAS lounge area is for anyone to relax between classes.

The Native American Student Association (NASA) meets weekly at the Center. NASA's e-mail is  nasa@nmu.edu.  Consider being a part of NASA.

We do our best to post information on community events, internship opportunities, scholarships and grants, conferences and cultural events, language lessons and news bits from around Indian Country. Visit our semester highlights page to see photos from a variety of events from previous years.  Do you have news you would like to share? E-mail us at least two weeks prior to your event (PDFs work very well). Also, be sure to visit and LIKE us on Facebook and Flickr.

Best wishes to you during the 2013 winter semester.

April

Archives:

Fall 2012 Message from Director
Fall 2010 Message from Director
Summer 2010 Message from Director
Winter 2010 Message from Director
Fall 2009 Message from Director
Summer 2009 Message from Director
Winter 2009 Message from Director
Fall 2008 Addendum from Director
Fall 2008 Message from Director
Summer 2008 Message from Director
Winter 2008 Message from Director