Some Thoughts from the Departing Director
CNAIS looking back six years, and looking forwards
It has been a pleasure serving as Director of CNAIS for the past six years. During that time, we have seen a major increase in the institutional standing of Native and Indigenous affairs within the CU system especially at CU-Boulder. We created a formal Land Acknowledgement statement that promised to act, not just speak and acknowledge. Indeed, CU has begun offering in-state tuition to enrolled students from 48 tribes. We have created a new Associate Vice Chancellor position for Native American Affairs. We have created a new staff position in Student Affairs specifically dedicated to supporting Native students on campus. CNAIS’ operating budget has been substantially increased, allowing us to begin offering research grants to students and faculty, and the Director and Office Manager positions have been upgraded. We have also recruited a strong External Advisory Board. And the campus hosted its first Powwow in many years this past September. In the area of teaching, CNAIS is about to propose a new course on Ute/Cheyenne/Arapaho history and culture and also plans to upgrade our NAIS certificate to a Minor.
It's great to celebrate these advances. More importantly, however, CNAIS is now poised to build on this new stability and support by expanding our role on the campus and in the community. One future need is to build stronger connections to research and teaching programs in Natural Sciences, Business, and Engineering. CNAIS has unique contributions to bring to those areas, and especially to Native students in those fields. We also want to continue expanding our focus beyond Native North America to a hemispheric and even global range. Within the past couple of years, we have been working to develop improved mentoring for Native graduate students in STEM fields; we have co-hosted the UN Expert Group Meeting on “Indigenous Peoples in a Greening Economy”; we played a major role in the UN/CU “Right Here/Right Now” Global Climate Summit; we have helped pilot a Tribal Climate Leader’s Program; and we recently co-hosted a global symposium on Indigenous People and Conservation. All of these programs offer models for how the reach of CNAIS can expand beyond our core strength in Native and Indigenous Studies (primarily based in the Arts and Humanities, Music, Education, and the Social Sciences) to collaborate productively both within and beyond academic frameworks.
To expand successfully, we’ll need to increase our funding, through more grant-writing and engagement with foundations and other donors. And of course, we’ll need your support as well. Small research seed grants and summer fellowships can be crucial for graduate student success, and even money to help our Native Graduate Student Group pay for coffee happy hours is an important contribution to building connections and community. Your contributions also can allow us to hire or support undergraduate student interns, who gain valuable experience in Native Affairs, especially when coming from fields such as the natural sciences, like our current intern.
So thank you for your interest and support in CNAIS over the last six years and longer, and I hope you’ll be enthusiastic about supporting us into the future as we strive to strengthen Native studies and community at CU!
