By Lauren Knisbeck & Josh Buntin
“We acknowledge the First Nations Peoples of Wisconsin.”
That is the closing line of UW-Green Bay’s Land Acknowledgement, which is read before every major university event and gathering. The First Nations peoples have a deep and spiritual connection to the land the university is built on and the surrounding community, and UW-Green Bay (UWGB) works to ensure those origins and the history of the people the land belongs to are represented.
The First Nations Peoples are the original inhabitants of the city of Green Bay, the state of Wisconsin, and the continental United States. There are 12 First Nations tribes in Wisconsin. The Ho-Chunk Nation and the Menominee Nation are the tribes the land UWGB resides upon once belonged to. In 2018, UWGB developed the land acknowledgment as a way of honoring and recognizing the First Nations peoples of Wisconsin. UWGB also offers a doctorate in First Nations Education, which is the first of its kind in Wisconsin and in the United States and was described as an ‘innovative achievement’ by the Universities of Wisconsin (UW System). The first two graduates of the program earned their doctorates in spring 2022. One of the two graduates, Dr. Crystal Lepscier, who is an Associate Lecturer of First Nations Studies, received the Outstanding Women of Color in Education Award from the Universities of Wisconsin in November. The program itself received a Teaching Excellence Award from the system earlier this year.
Around 1.3% of the university’s 10,350 students are identified as First Nations across its four campuses, according to the university’s Factbook. The Marinette campus has a First Nations enrollment rate of 1.9%. UWGB boasts one of the highest enrollment rates of indigenous students in the Universities of Wisconsin, according to statistics provided by the system. In the United States, roughly 16.8% of Indigenous Americans have received a bachelor’s degree or higher. Additionally, since 2010, the national Native enrollment in higher education institutions has declined by 38%. UWGB gives students the opportunity to major or minor in First Nation Studies, where people can learn about the history and cultures of First Nations peoples. Dr. J P Leary, an Associate Professor of First Nations Studies, History, and Humanities, sat down with the Fourth Estate to discuss what First Nation Studies is and why it is important for people to study, whether they are indigenous or not.
“What our courses offer is an insight into another way of being a human being,” he said. Leary has been active in the sphere of educational policy and was an integral part of the team at UWGB, which crafted the doctoral program. He strongly believes that education is the pillar for understanding those who are different from us and creating empathy. “We see violence and ignorance fill that gap where knowledge and understanding should have been.” Leary further explained that many students at UWGB are eager to learn about those different from themselves because many grew up in predominantly white areas with little diversity. In his classes, he begins the semester by surveying his students’ current knowledge. Students get into groups to discuss everything they know about Native Americans and where they remember learning that information. “The highest has been a 17-to-1 non-Native to Native ratio in terms of their sources,” he said. The reflection on current perceptions and understanding of Native peoples is an important first step to dismantling any stereotypes that may be present.
In addition to his capacity as a professor, Leary serves as the faculty advisor for the Intertribal Student Council. The organization was developed for indigenous students but is open to anybody, regardless of status or tribal enrollment. The organization plans events, provides resources, helps build community for First Nations students, and increases visibility for the indigenous community on campus. The council helps grow and develop its members both academically as well as professionally. The council has existed for decades, since at least the 1990s. Faculty and staff at the Center for First Nations Education are working on developing a timeline of the council’s existence. The Fourth Estate attended a meeting of the Intertribal Student Council on Monday, December 4, to get an idea of what their organization is about and why it is important to the university. Gathered in a conference room in the Center for First Nations Education, located on the fourth floor of Wood Hall, the council shared a meal prepared by Leary, who usually prepares meals for the council’s meetings. Afterward, the members engaged in business, discussing a variety of topics, from budgeting to events planning to an incident regarding racial bias, which is being handled both by the council and Dr. Stacie Christian, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Inclusive Excellence and Bias Incident Response (BIRT) team member.
There was a lot of diversity in fields of study among the members present at the meeting. Forrest Brooks, a First Nations Studies lecturer, was also in attendance at the meeting alongside Leary. For each item the group discussed, every member had to be in agreement before it was acted on. If everyone wasn’t in agreement, they would wait until the members had a chance to consider the issue and come back to the group with their conclusion. The facilitation of their meetings was noted for being different from how other clubs on campus typically run their meetings. The council incorporated this practice after learning it from one of their elders-in-residence, who taught it as a way of showing respect and value for what others in a discussion had to say. After the meeting, the Fourth Estate spoke to Intertribal Student Council president Solana about why the organization is important. She explained it was important to address deficits in representation on campus. “So I think that that’s what makes our work so important, is that we provide a place for First Nations students and any other community member to find a fun community in a place that is indigenous and that’s for anybody, indigenous or not,” Solana said. She explained that before joining the club in 2019, she struggled to find community at UWGB.
Solana is a First Nations Studies major and spoke about how the major has helped her reconnect to her indigenous culture. “It’s kind of [unfortunate] that we have to pay for it to be taught our own culture and language that was literally forced away from us, but still like our reclaiming of that and like being able to come here and just learn about all the things and what it means to be indigenous [is important].” She explained that the club and community of First Nations have helped debunk stereotypes surrounding indigenous peoples and education on campus. “We can be educated and indigenous like we’re allowed to hold that space … we do not have to choose one or the other, like how people originally thought,” she explained. One of the ways the council addresses deficits in representation is that they will bring to the attention of the university any Native representation on campus, such as in classrooms, office spaces, or even spaces such as the Cofrin Library or the Weidner Center for the Performing Arts, which can be perceived as stereotypical or problematic. The university is very open to receiving feedback and making changes to be more inclusive. The flags of the First Nations tribes, which hang in the University Union outside the Common Grounds Coffeehouse, were an addition to increased representation brought by the work and urging of the Intertribal Student Council, along with the Land Acknowledgement.
First Nations Studies and the Intertribal Student Council have engagement and membership outside of indigenous peoples, such as Grace Bedell, who is a First Nations Studies major and a member of the Intertribal Student Council with European-American ancestry. She started as a Humanities studies major but switched to First Nations Studies after taking a couple of classes to fulfill general education requirements and ended up falling in love with the subject. She found a community in First Nations Education and joined the Intertribal Student Council not long after she switched majors. Speaking to the Fourth Estate about what appeals to her about her field of study, Bedell said, “It’s more than philosophy. It’s like a way of being. But there are many kinds of beliefs and thoughts about existing here, why we’re here, our purpose here, and how we should be together. That I really just kind of agreed with.”
Bedell acknowledged her initial trepidation about enrolling in the major due to her identity as a non-Native student. “I knew that I had to come in here and be very conscious of my position not only as a European-American student but as just somebody who’s grown up, like, with certain other privileges,” Bedell said she was originally concerned about taking away from Native students within the major, but eventually realized that being part of the space and community is beneficial to everyone and helps promote allyship. Bedell said she’s learned a lot more than just the academic side of her major. “It’s just kind of about knowing and learning about different cultures and worldviews and, I guess, we do a lot to compare, compare and contrast between like First Nations cultures and then like the dominant mainstream culture of our society. And we go, okay, what can we learn from X, Y, and Z to create a better circumstance for people moving forward?”
The First Nations experience extends beyond the area of study and the student council. Indigenous students at UWGB have a variety of experiences on campus in and outside of the First Nations Education Center. The tribal flags are carried at UWGB’s commencement ceremonies, and Jake Hoffman, who is an indigenous student at UWGB, spoke to the Fourth Estate about his experiences at the university. Hoffman says that to him, being an indigenous student does not make him different from any other student at UWGB, but he appreciates the resources and outreach available to him. “The biggest support is the First Nations office in Wood Hall as they offer a place to study, chat with other students, they have elder hours where any student can come learn stories of First Nations people from generations ago for free,” he said.
Hoffman acknowledged the importance of the university recognizing the First Nations of Wisconsin to appreciate the land the university rests on as well as the ancestors that came long before the country was founded. “It’s also important to understand the trails of boarding schools, riots, Wounded Knee, and other historical events that shape and scar First Nations People to date,” Hoffman said. While he is not a First Nations Studies major, he has taken one class in the subject and hopes to take First Nations and the Sacred to learn more about other tribes’ histories and practices to compare to his own. Learning about First Nations people and histories may be a first for some students who enroll in one of the courses. “Sometimes [these events] happened, you know, in their community or in communities near to their hometown, and they’re hearing about it for the first time in a university classroom. That can be really disorienting,” Leary said. The professor explained that, in his experience, students have been mostly receptive to learning about First Nations culture and history.
A unique offering within the department revolves around the Oneida Language Project. In an effort to save the language, which is endangered, work was done to create a written system for the oral language in the past few decades. Since the 1970s, a community of Oneida language speakers has taught the language for credit. There are estimated to be only a dozen native Oneida language speakers in Wisconsin. The First Nations Studies department offers a variety of courses to students in and outside of the major. Leary teaches a handful of these courses, but he thinks his American Indians in Film class is his most popular. “It’s the easiest one to meet people where they’re at,” he said in terms of students’ knowledge of First Nations topics. “Films are empathy machines, you know, and thinking about the power of story, thinking about the power of films to really connect us and give us insights into other people’s experiences, people quite different from us and other times and places.”
