Heritage

The American Indian Studies Department was first envisioned in the 1960’s when a small ad-hoc committee presented a formal report to central administration at the University of Minnesota. This early report initiated the process to coordinate the existing curriculum and to create new courses relating to American Indian issues. The report established the need to assist American Indian students in practical and academic ways and to establish links with the state’s eleven tribes. The idea of outreach was to develop scholarly and community programs to focus on issues of importance to American Indian communities.

In 1969, another Ad-Hoc committee was established consisting of university faculty, American Indian students and representatives from the American Indian community. Many of the key individuals had a vested interest in the formulation of the department and their names linger in our historic story. The names that appeared were: Hyman Berman, Arthur Harkins, Frank Miller, Dean Crawford, Edward Defoe, Norman Moen, Thomas Scott; students included Beverly Rogers, Richard Tanner, Delores Snook, Vince Tookenay, Gregory Craig and community representatives were: Will Antell, Chris Cavender and Rosemary Christiansen.

In June of 1969, the Board of Regents approved the Department of American Indian Studies. Through the past thirty-five years a number of native scholars have contributed to the department in a variety of ways, some of those individuals need to be mentioned in the story of our heritage. The first hires included Roger Buffalohead, George Morrison, and Timothy Dunnigan. Through the next twenty years, faculty lines would be filled with native scholars including Russell Thornton, Clara Sue Kidwell, Ron Libertus, Gerald Vizenor, David Beaulieu, flo wiger, Allan Kilpatrik, Tom King, Jacqueline Peterson, and Linda Hogan. After varying lengths of time and for various reasons these faculty left the University of Minnesota. In 1990, after tenure lines in American Indian Studies were lost, faculty with tenure homes in other departments, including Brenda Child, Jean O’Brien, Carol Miller, and Frank Miller, played an active role in department teaching and administration.

In 1997, the department recaptured its lines and began to recruit new faculty. The rebuilding of our faculty began over a three-year period and the department was able to stabilize with a first time tenure track chairperson, Dr. Patricia Albers, who started in July 1998. After her initial hire the department was able to extend for three additional tenure track hires due to the support of Dean Steven Rosenstone, College of Liberal Arts. The following year, Dr. David Wilkins joined the faculty along with Dr. David Martinez and Dr. John Nichols. The outreach efforts of the department began to cultivate in the area of native language revitalization and regeneration.

One of the department’s oldest and continuing strengths is the Dakota and Ojibwe language, culture and history studies. It was here at Minnesota that one of the earliest attempts in teaching native languages along with the development of teaching materials came to be for Minnesota tribes.