Addressing a stain on our history, Northwestern announced yesterday its prospective membership in the Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies.
The University will join NCAIS this summer to further the administration’s efforts to address founder John Evans’ association with the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864.
The consortium will provide the university collections in American Indian history and resources to instate programs such as conferences, workshops and fellowships to faculty and graduate students. Northwestern will join 19 other institutions such as University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Harvard University. NCAIS launched its programs in July 2009 and limited its membership to 20 institutions.
Northwestern Provost Daniel I. Linzer says the new membership will help further the University's efforts to offer academic opportunities in Native American studies.
The initial attempts to rectify the University’s lack of discussion regarding the founder’s ties to Sand Creek began in 2012 after Adam Mendel (WCAS ’13) and Northwestern’s Native American and Indigenous Student Association devised a petition insisting Northwestern recognize the previous president’s ties to the massacre and the launch of a Native American studies program among other initiatives. A year later, Northwestern established the John Evans Study Committee to research John Evans and the historical ties to Sand Creek as well as create a Native American Outreach and Inclusion Task Force to address the petition’s original demands.
Northwestern graduate student Alanna Hickey will be participating in the NCAIS summer institute and assistant professor of African American and Latino/a Studies John David Márquez will be the faculty liaison to the consortium.