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Mission and Vision
The Center for the American West is a recognized hub for illuminating the role of the western United States in regional, national and global issues. We bring people together to explore the ongoing complexities of and challenges facing the western United States through education, research, programs, and projects.
University of Colorado Boulder Land Acknowledgment
The University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado's flagship university, honors and recognizes the many contributions of Indigenous peoples in our state. CU Boulder acknowledges that it is located on the traditional territories and ancestral homelands of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute and many other Native American nations. Their forced removal from these territories has caused devastating and lasting impacts. While the University of Colorado Boulder can never undo or rectify the devastation wrought on Indigenous peoples, we commit to improving and enhancing engagement with Indigenous peoples and issues locally and globally.
We will do this by:
- Recognizing and amplifying the voices of Indigenous CU Boulder students, staff and faculty and their work.
- Educating, conducting research, supporting student success and integrating Indigenous knowledge.
- Consulting, engaging and working collaboratively with tribal nations to enhance our ability to provide access and culturally sensitive support and to recruit, retain and graduate Native American students in a climate that is inclusive and respectful.
Internships
The Center for the American West offers internship opportunities for CU-Boulder undergraduates (juniors and seniors) to work for public and private organizations on projects that deal with Western topics and issues and offer professional training for the student.
In Spring 2026, interns worked with The Nature Conservancy developing professional skills, technical skills, and field work experience!
Seo-Hirabayashi Families Student Fellowship Symposium 25-26
On May 4th, 2026, the Center of the American West hosted its first iteration of the Seo-Hirabayashi Families Student Fellowship Symposium. When the idea to develop a student fellowship focused on Japanese-American Incarceration in the American West arose--a special thank you to Julia Shizuyo Popham for her contribution in developing this idea--we initially had the funds to award our new fellowship to six students. After we received a large number of thoughtful, lively proposals from students all across campus with different expertise, experience levels, we decided to pull out all the stops to expand the program. With financial support from Dean Daryl Maeda of the College of Arts & Sciences, Director Jennifer Ho of the Center for the Humanities and Arts, and Chair Phoebe Young of the Department of History, we awarded fellowships to twelve students for our inaugural fellowship opportunity.
Seo-Hirabayashi Student Fellowship Projects
Events and Exhibits
On September 30th, the C4AW will host an exhibit opening for the CU Boulder campus Culture Crawl. In partnership with the Macky Auditorium Gallery, the exhibit will span from the first floor gallery to the second floor C4AW offices. Artists will be on site to lead gallery tours and lunch from Tocabe will be available to the first 50 guests.
Never Vanishing: Reclaiming Indigenous Relatives, Landscapes, and Resilience in the American Southwest features commissioned works from three local Indigenous artists — JayCee Beyale, Chelsea Kaiah, and Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand — who seek to challenge the persistent myths of the American West, especially as they emerged from the work of author and filmmaker Zane Grey.
In the early 20th century, novelist Zane Grey wrote prolifically about the American Southwest, depicting it as a romantic, barren landscape ripe for exploration and adventure. Eventually turning his novels into films, Grey’s work further perpetuated ideas of Native people as “vanishing” with the arrival of American settlers. Now in response, exhibiting artists Beyale, Kaiah, and Maldonado Bad Hand offer contemporary works that seek to reclaim relatives, landscapes, and the pressing concerns of Indigenous communities in the Southwest from the mystique Grey built around them. In doing so, the original artworks in Never Vanishing highlight Native survival, creativity, and resilience.
Research and Outreach
Announcing a New PACES Grant to Build Local Community Connections around the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site
The Center for the American West and the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies (CNAIS), in partnership with the Sand Creek Massacre Foundation (SCMF), are launching a new project to support community-building efforts in Kiowa County and Eads, CO near the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site. SCMF is the non-profit partner for this National Park Service (NPS) site. SCMF works to broaden the site's efforts to educate the public about the legacies of the 1864 massacre for the Cheyenne and Arapaho people, Eastern Plains communities, and American society more broadly. The proposed project responds to a direct request from SCMF.
Upcoming Events
Event Video Highlights
CU Culture Crawl: Charrería on Parade
Dr. Henrietta Mann and the Legacy of Sand Creek
The Lords of Yesterday and the Imperatives of Now
The Plant and the Plaintiff: A Seo-Hirabayashi Fellowship Kick-Off Event
In the News
Thomas Andrews, University of Colorado Boulder professor of history, has been appointed faculty director of the Center of the American West. His appointment became effective in July.
Andrews’ research and teaching focus on western American, environmental, animal, Indigenous and 19th- and 20th-century U.S. history. He is the recipient a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Library of Medicine/National Institutes of Health Grant for Scholarly Works in Biomedicine and Health, a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Award and other fellowships.
The history of Native people and the National Park Service in the United States is fraught. Dispossession, cultural insensitivity, and outright erasure characterize the long relationship that the NPS has with Indigenous groups. But change is possible, as Drs. Christina Hill, Matthew Hill, and Brooke Neely (Research Associate, Center of the American West) adeptly demonstrate in National Parks, National Sovereignty: Experiments in Collaboration (U of Oklahoma Press, 2024).
Alumnus and professional photographer Chris Sessions explains how one of his first photo assignments 30 years ago in a CU Boulder class evolved into a cultural art exhibit at the Center of the American West.