LARKIN PODSIEDLIK
➜ Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer told her story “Corn Tastes Better on the Honor System” on the Emergence Magazine podcast. Winner of the 2016 Ely S. Parker Award, the highest AISES honor, Dr. Kimmerer is a best-selling author and distinguished teaching professor at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, where she directs the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.
➜ Ohio State University PhD candidate Michael Charles, pictured, was interviewed for an article posted on Cleveland.com on the injustice behind “land grant” universities. The Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862 took nearly 11 million acres around the country from 250 tribes by force or unfair treaties and created public universities, like Ohio State. The current movement to recognize and remedy racial injustice is encouraging people like Charles to urge schools to acknowledge their history and become better allies for their Native students.
➜ Council of Elders charter member Dr. Henrietta Mann was interviewed for a feature on Colorado Public Radio: “CSU’s Morrill Act Origin Is a Generational Wealth Built Off of Indigenous Lands.” The piece reports on an investigation by High Country News of how Morrill Act funding, acquired through the sale of Indigenous lands, was instrumental in establishing “land grant” universities, like Colorado State University.
➜ AISES CEO Sarah EchoHawk was invited to participate in a 2020 Virtual Prosperity Summit session focused on asset building in American Indian and Alaska Native communities. Among other topics, EchoHawk spoke about culturally appropriate adjustments AISES has made to the Wells Fargo Hands on Banking program (offered as the AISES Native Financial Cents program). Wells Fargo is an Emerald Sponsor of the Prosperity Summit.
