Message from the Director

Dear Students and Friends: 

Welcome to winter semester 2012 and calendar year 2012.  As it states on our main web page, our Center is compared to a braid with three specific strands:  academics, student services, and community outreach.  Our Center is home to a Native American Studies minor.  If you have any questions about how the NAS minor, contact me and I would be happy to s it and chat with you about your possibilities.  

As you may know, this semester marks a significant milestone for the NAS community on campus and we have several notable events going on this semester.

• The Native American Student Association's 20th annual Learning to Walk Together traditional pow wow will be March 17 & 18, 2012.   We are extremely grateful to the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community for the financial contribution of 2% monies towards NASA's pow wow as well as the CNAS Native American Student Empowerment Initiative (keep and eye out for student activities).
• The Decolonizing Diet Project research subjects are approved and the project will get underway in a matter of months.  Thanks to the Cedar Tree Institute for their support of this project.
• Distribution of approximately 1400 copies of the "Voice on the Water" anthology to Michigan public high schools and Michigan public libraries will be underway this semester.
• The Center received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) with additional support from the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.  This program is entitled "Creating and Learning Art in Native Settings" or the CLANS project.  Planning will get underway very soon. 
• Aimee Cree  Dunn has numerous requests from U.P. schools for her 7th Fire project presentation.  Thanks to Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, Cedar Tree Institute and the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition for their financial support of this project. 
• The Zaagkii Project is still underway with more videos to be posted to the "Learning from the Earth" website.
• We are waiting to hear from KBIC's Weed and Seed program about hosting a weekend camp promoting academic interest in Criminal Justice to KBIC youth.
• Finally, activist and educator, Ms. Ada Deer (Menominee) will be the commencement speaker at NMU in May. 

Our Center works closely with offices such as the Multicultural Education and Resource Center (MERC), Financial Aid, 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.
Our Center is open from 8 am – 5 pm Monday-Friday. Stop by or make an appointment. Visit our resource room. Students can check out books, not only for classes/research, but for your personal reading list (we have lots of fiction). The CNAS lounge area is for anyone to relax between classes or nibble on lunch.

The Native American Student Association (NASA) meets weekly at the Center on Wednesday evenings. Amanda Weinert is the new NASA Chair.  NASA's e-mail is  nasa@nmu.edu.  Get involved!  Consider being a part of NASA and the Anishinaabe News. Visit our semester highlights page to see photos from a variety of events from previous years.

Keep visiting this Web site! We do our best to post information on many of the Native American community events, internship opportunities, scholarships and grants, news about conferences and cultural events, language lessons and news bits from around Indian Country. Do you have news you would like to share? E-mail us at least two weeks prior to your event. PDFs work very well. Be sure to visit us on Facebook and Flickr.

Miigwech, 
April

Archives:

F2010 Message from Director
S2010 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