In the News

Rick Williams: ‘What my great-grandmother saw at Little Bighorn’

Clint Carroll — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 19:47:10 +0000

Rick Williams: ‘What my great-grandmother saw at Little Bighorn’ Clint Carroll Sun, 09/27/2026 - 13:47

View the article in the Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine here.

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Center of the American West former board member Rick Williams shares family insights into the historic battle and offers thoughts on how perceptions have changed over time.

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Public Talk | Cheyenne Poet and Educator Dr. Richard E. Littlebear -- "There Wasn't a Name for It:" Cheyenne Language, Land, and Loss after Sand Creek

Cassie Sando — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 21:44:22 +0000

Public Talk | Cheyenne Poet and Educator Dr. Richard E. Littlebear -- "There Wasn't a Name for It:" Cheyenne Language, Land, and Loss after Sand Creek Cassie Sando Fri, 09/25/2026 - 15:44

"There Wasn't a Name for It:" Cheyenne Language, Land, and Loss after Sand Creek with Cheyenne Poet and Educator, Dr. Richard E. Littlebear

When: Thursday, October 15th | 5:30 - 7:00 PM
Where: Chancellor's Auditorium, CASE Building, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� campus or VIA ZOOM

Richard Littlebear is a Cheyenne educator, poet, and leader with a deep and far-reaching understanding of his people’s language, culture, and history. Growing up on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, he was especially influenced by his grandmother, who told him stories in Cheyenne of the massacres at Sand Creek and Washita, the momentous victory at the Greasy Grass/Little Bighorn, his people’s return to their Montana homelands after their captivity at Fort Robinson, and other momentous events.

Dr. Littlebear will reflect on his personal and tribal history, the ongoing impact of settler colonial violence and dispossession, and the continuing efforts that he and others are undertaking to save and perpetuate the Cheyenne language. Dr. Littlebear’s talk on October 15th honors Indigenous Peoples Week 2026. Held 150 years after Colorado statehood and CU’s establishment, this event invites us all to probe the vital connections linking Indigenous education and language preservation to Native American rights movements, historical reconciliation, and land return.

This event will be conversational, combining prepared remarks by Dr. Littlebear with questions moderated from audiences both in-person and via Zoom.

CNAIS is a proud co-sponsor of event. Please register for event below.

"There Wasn't a Name for It:" Cheyenne Language, Land, and Loss after Sand Creek with Cheyenne Poet and Educator, Dr. Richard E. Littlebear

When: Thursday, October 15th | 5:30 - 7:00 PM
Where: Chancellor's Auditorium, CASE Building, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� campus or VIA ZOOM

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NAIS Graduate Certificate Student Receives Fulbright Award for Study in Aotearoa New Zealand

Clint Carroll — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 19:39:47 +0000

NAIS Graduate Certificate Student Receives Fulbright Award for Study in Aotearoa New Zealand Clint Carroll Tue, 09/15/2026 - 13:39

CNAIS is thrilled to share that our very own Johnette M. Martin (PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology) has been selected for the 2026–2027 Fulbright U.S. Student Award to Aotearoa New Zealand!

The Fulbright is one of the most prestigious and competitive international exchange programs in the world, supporting exceptional scholars whose work demonstrates significant academic merit, cultural engagement, and global impact. Among Fulbright applicants, New Zealand is widely regarded as one of the most sought-after and highly competitive placements, making this achievement especially distinguished.

Johnette will conduct advanced research in Aotearoa, continuing her work on Indigenous musical sovereignty and community-centered scholarship. Congratulations, Johnette, on this extraordinary honor and on representing your communities and your university with such brilliance and purpose!

Johnette says: I am honored to share that I’ve been awarded a Fulbright award to Aotearoa New Zealand. This opportunity feels both humbling and affirming. A recognition not only of my work but also of the communities, mentors, and collaborators who have shaped how I listen, think, and create. To me, the Fulbright represents a commitment to dialogue across difference: an invitation to engage music and sound as ways of building relationships, asking better questions, and learning with and from others.

What excites me most is the chance to immerse myself in new sonic worlds while contributing meaningfully through research, collaboration, and teaching. I’m especially looking forward to the unexpected moments: the conversations, rehearsals, and everyday exchanges that challenge assumptions and open new directions for my work as a Kanaka Maoli and ᏣᎳᎩ ᎠᎰᏯ, Indigenous woman and scholar.

My time at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� College of Music as well as my time as part of ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��'s Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies has been central to this journey. The universal musician approach, grounded in curiosity, versatility, and a willingness to move across disciplines, has shaped how I approach music not just as an object of study but as a living, relational practice. That broadly-based training has prepared me to engage this next chapter with openness, rigor, and care. ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��'s Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies has supported and continues to support my journey as an Indigenous woman, scholar, and member of our campus community. CNAIS is a hub for guidance and community support, which has proven to be significant and necessary while navigating the Western academic institution at every level, and was the reason I could financially start my work in Aotearoa.

I’m grateful for the guidance, support, and aloha that made this possible and excited for what lies ahead.

Johnette plans to graduate in Spring 2028 with a PhD in Indigenous Ethnomusicology with the geographic focus of Oceania and the Americas, Indigenous Knowledge and Methodologies/Pedagogies.

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2026 Native Graduation Photos

Cassie Sando — Mon, 11 May 2026 18:54:04 +0000

2026 Native Graduation Photos Cassie Sando Mon, 05/11/2026 - 12:54

We had the pleasure of honoring our 2026 Graduates at Native Graduation. We are excited to share a few photos from the event!

We had the pleasure of honoring our 2026 Graduates at Native Graduation. We are excited to share some photos from the event!

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2026 Native Graduation

Cassie Sando — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 18:18:38 +0000

2026 Native Graduation Cassie Sando Sat, 02/28/2026 - 11:18

Saturday, May 2nd, 2026, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
at Koenig Alumni Center
1202 University Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302

🎓 Native Graduation! 🎉

Calling all graduating Native students! Join us in celebrating your achievements at Native Graduation on Saturday, May 2 at Koenig Alumni House (6:00 - 8:00 PM)*. Don’t miss this special event honoring your journey and success.

🎓 Sign Up for Native Graduation! 🎉

If you are not a Native Grad, you can RSVP here:

RSVP for CU Staff, Faculty, Administration

Families/friends of graduates can use the above link to share positive words for their graduate or to be on the graduation mailing list, but are not required to RSVP individually.

Calling all graduating Native students! Join us in celebrating your achievements at Native Graduation on Saturday, May 2 at Koenig Alumni House (6:00 - 8:00 PM)*. Don’t miss this special event honoring your journey and success.

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Greenland: An Indigenous Nation at the Edge of the Arctic

Cassie Sando — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:46:26 +0000

Greenland: An Indigenous Nation at the Edge of the Arctic Cassie Sando Fri, 01/30/2026 - 15:46

Greenland formally is a part of Denmark, which is responsible for its defense and foreign affairs. Internally however, Greenland is self-governing since 2009. It is the only self-governing indigenous state in the Western Hemisphere. It has a land area of over 800,000 square miles (roughly the same size as Saudi Arabia), and has a population of around 57,000.

Greenlandic is the official language. This is an indigenous language, in the Inuit-Aleut language family. Greenland is the only polity in the western hemisphere where an indigenous language is the only official language (though Danish is a “recognized” and widely-known language). Greenlandic is often considered to be the only fully non-endangered indigenous language in the Western Hemisphere, as it is the community language for the vast majority of Greenlanders, and is learned by these children in the home.

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Conversations around the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Cassie Sando — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:41:58 +0000

Conversations around the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Cassie Sando Fri, 01/30/2026 - 15:41

"What’s happening with AI is a kind of 'digital colonialism,' in which powerful (mostly Western) tech giants are using algorithms, data and digital technologies to exert power over others, and take data without consent. But resistance is possible – and the long history of First Nations resistance demonstrates how people might go about it."

– Akhil Bhardwaj of University of Bath in his article Governments are rushing to embrace AI. They should think twice

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The City of Boulder Presents: The Peoples' Crossing: Honoring Relationships with Tribal Nations

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 06:00:00 +0000

The City of Boulder Presents: The Peoples' Crossing: Honoring Relationships with Tribal Nations Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/14/2024 - 00:00

The City of Boulder extends its gratitude to American Indian Tribal Nations for the continuing opportunity to listen and learn from them and welcomes the public and the media to a unique community event developed in partnership with Tribal Representatives. Seating for this program may be limited and we ask community members and members of the media to share their interest in attending the city-Tribal Nation public program, scheduled for Thursday, March 14, by registering online.

Our collaborative event – “The Peoples' Crossing: Honoring Relationships with Tribal Nations" – welcomes Tribal Nations who have traversed, lived in and stewarded lands in the Boulder Valley since time immemorial to share their perspectives, histories, cultures and traditions with the Boulder community. "The Peoples' Crossing: Honoring Relationships with Tribal Nations" event will be held from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 14, at the University of Colorado-Boulder's Williams Village Multipurpose Room, 500 30th St. The program schedule currently includes:

We appreciate Tribal Representatives guidance in developing this program intended to sustain and honor city-Tribal Nation relationships and help build broader community connections to foster respectful and meaningful engagement with Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities.

Flag processions to open and close the public program to honor Native American veterans and Tribal Nations.
Moderated panels with Tribal Representatives on topics, such as Tribal Sovereignty, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, cultural resource management, meaningful engagement with Tribal Nations and issues Tribal Nations are facing today.
Dancers and singers-drummers from the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.
A reception intended to help community members and organizations meet and learn from Tribal Representatives.

The name for this program honors The Peoples Crossing – a west Boulder area that Tribal Representatives named in 2021 and honors Boulder as a crossroads for Indigenous Peoples since time immemorial. The area has become an important symbol for the city in its ongoing, collaborative work with Tribal Nations.

To attend, please refer to the City of Boulder event webpage: “The Peoples' Crossing: Honoring Relationships with Tribal Nations".

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The Blinding Light of Race in Science and Society

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 06:00:00 +0000

The Blinding Light of Race in Science and Society Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/12/2024 - 00:00

Dr. Michael L. Blakey

Tuesday, March 12 at 5:00pm
Eaton Humanities, Humanities 1B50
1610 Pleasant Street, Boulder, CO 80309

National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Anthropology, Africana Studies, and American Studies
Director of the Institute for Historical Biology
College of William & Mary

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology, the Center for African & African American Studies, the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies, the Institute of Behavioral Science, the Institute for Behavioral Genetics, the Department of Classics, the Department of Geography, the Department of Integrative Physiology, the Department of Sociology, the LGBTQ Studies Program, the International Affairs Program, and the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History

ABSTRACT

This lecture concerns the origins of White supremacy as a cover for the immorality of slavery and colonialism. Anthropology will legitimize the idea of White supremacy in both its biological and cultural subdisciplines, by degree. I show the contestation of racist science by African diasporic intellectuals from the beginning until the present. One of the many twists and turns White supremacy takes in popular discourse and scientific theories is the current 'evasive racism' and 'unmarked whiteness' that have made the denial of racism into the new racism. There is typically a moral gloss over discriminatory behavior from Christian to 'natural' justifications for inequity, to the current performative anti-racism, that disguises on-going material discrimination. Current 'diversity regimes' achieve this 'moral cover' by misdirection, to pose 'All Lives Matter (which we already know) in place of Black Lives Matter (which White people need to learn).

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Professor Michael L. Blakey:

Michael L. Blakey is National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Anthropology, Africana Studies, and American Studies, and Founding Director of the Institute for Historical Biology at William & Mary. He received the B.A. at Howard University, the M. A. and Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and completed specialized studies at Oxford and London Universities. Blakey held professorships at Spelman College, Columbia, Brown, La Sapienza, and Howard University, where he founded the W. Montague Cobb Biological Anthropology Laboratory. He has served as president of the Association of Black Anthropologists (1987-1989), and member of the editorial boards of American Anthropologist (2012-2016) and American Antiquity (2021-). Blakey represented the United States on the Council of the 4th World Archaeological Congress in Cape Town, South Africa (1999). He is a member of the Scholarly Advisory Committee of the National Museum of African American History and Culture of the Smithsonian Institution (2006-), where he previously held the position of Research Associate in Physical Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History (1985- 1994). He was a Key Advisor to the Race: Are We So Different exhibition and website (understandingrace.org) of the American Anthropological Association (from 2008).

Blakey was Scientific Director of the New York African Burial Ground Project (1992-2009), the most sophisticated bioarchaeological project in the United States. His team began ethical bioarchaeology, the term ‘descendant community,’ and its use in an empowered public engagement intended for the democratization of knowledge. The Manhattan site became a U.S. National Monument in 2007. He continues to help facilitate descendant communities’ empowerment to tell their own stories and memorialize their dead. The African Burial Ground’s clientage model of public engagement contributed to the new best practices of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2018. Blakey has been appointed Co-Chair of the American Anthropological Association’s Commission for the Ethical Treatment of Human Remains mandated to consolidate and advance the highest ethical standards for the treatment of all human skeletons and tissue samples at archaeological sites, museums, and laboratories in the United States (2022-2024). In 2021, Blakey was presented the President’s Award of the American Anthropological Association, the Legacy Award of the Association of Black Anthropologists, and, in 2022, the Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence at William & Mary. He is currently completing a 1,500-page monograph on race and racism in science and society, adding to his approximately 90 reports, refereed articles, and edited volumes.

Link to Flyer
Link to Events Calendar

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3rd Annual 'Celebrating the Indigenous Americas'

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 06:00:00 +0000

3rd Annual 'Celebrating the Indigenous Americas' Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/11/2024 - 00:00

CELEBRATING THE INDIGENOUS AMERICAS SOUTH-NORTH/NORTH-SOUTH TRANSHEMISPHERIC DIALOGUES

Hosted by the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Latin American & Latinx Studies Center

The 3rd Annual Celebrating the Indigenous Americas will be a week of virtual and in-person events hosted by the Latin American and Latinx Studies Center at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� from March 11-15, 2024. All events are free and open to the public.

For five days, Indigenous artists, advocates, community leaders, educators, scholars and allies will be hosted virtually and in-person at the University of Colorado from different parts of the Americas to celebrate the ever-renewed presence of Latin American Indigenous and Native American languages and cultures in daily life, activities and professions. The keynote speakers are Emil Keme, Maya K’iche’ Professor at Emory University, and Karyn Recollet, Cree Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto.

Planned panels and roundtables will cover critical perspectives on Latinx Indigeneities, Indigenous Migration, Queer Indigeneities, Restitutions and Museums, Indigenous Media, Indigenous Democracies, Teaching Indigenous Languages in Higher Education, Professions in Indigenous Languages, and what Land Back means for Universities. We also invite audiences to join us for a music/dance workshop, film streaming, and games.

This event is sponsored by U.S. Department of Education: UISFL Grant (International and Foreign Language Education), LALSC, CNAIS, University Libraries, WGST, the Museum of Natural History, the School of Education, ARMC, PWR, ETHN, CHA, GEO, CAW, A&S and LING.

Please refer to Program for specifics.

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In the News

Rick Williams: ‘What my great-grandmother saw at Little Bighorn’

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Public Talk | Cheyenne Poet and Educator Dr. Richard E. Littlebear -- "There Wasn't a Name for It:" Cheyenne Language, Land, and Loss after Sand Creek

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NAIS Graduate Certificate Student Receives Fulbright Award for Study in Aotearoa New Zealand

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2026 Native Graduation Photos

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2026 Native Graduation

Saturday, May 2nd, 2026, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pmat Koenig Alumni Center1202 University Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302

🎓 Native Graduation! 🎉

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Greenland: An Indigenous Nation at the Edge of the Arctic

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Conversations around the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

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The City of Boulder Presents: The Peoples' Crossing: Honoring Relationships with Tribal Nations

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The Blinding Light of Race in Science and Society

Dr. Michael L. Blakey

Tuesday, March 12 at 5:00pm Eaton Humanities, Humanities 1B50 1610 Pleasant Street, Boulder, CO 80309

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3rd Annual 'Celebrating the Indigenous Americas'

CELEBRATING THE INDIGENOUS AMERICAS SOUTH-NORTH/NORTH-SOUTH TRANSHEMISPHERIC DIALOGUES

Hosted by the ���Ҵ�ý�ƽ������ Latin American & Latinx Studies Center

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Saturday, May 2nd, 2026, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
at Koenig Alumni Center
1202 University Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302

Tuesday, March 12 at 5:00pm
Eaton Humanities, Humanities 1B50
1610 Pleasant Street, Boulder, CO 80309

Hosted by the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Latin American & Latinx Studies Center