Monday, Oct. 14 marked Indigenous People’s Day, a day devoted to celebrating Indigenous peoples and communities around the United States. The University of Connecticut’s Native American Cultural Program (NACP) works to ensure that Indigenous communities are recognized throughout the year, rather than just on one day.
According to their website, the NACP hosts various events to uplift Native students at UConn, most notably the Powwow in the spring and the Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebration that occurred on Monday. The Indigenous Peoples’ Day event included a ‘Paint your Culture’ activity, as well as Lunch with NACP, which were all open for anyone to join. After these activities, there was a cultural beading event, specifically for NACP members, according to their website.
UConn is located at a crossroads between tribes, but is mostly occupied by Mohegan and Pequots, as well as Narragansett passing through, according to Christopher Newell, director of the NACP at UConn.
“Historically, the university had no relationship with the tribes, but that is rapidly changing with the hiring of Native faculty and the creation of the School of Critical Inquiry, which gives Native faculty a physical office to be placed in,” stated Newell.
Newell has worked with UConn to strengthen Indigenous relations for more than five years. Before he was director of the NACP, he was a tribal community member.
“Part of my job was to work with the university to create better relationships with the five tribes here in [Connecticut],” commented Newell.
Newell is also a UConn alum, having graduated with a bachelor’s degree in general studies. Although he has only worked for the NACP for two years now, he has been affiliated with the university through Akomawt Educational Initiative since 2018, a program focused on providing competent education about Native Americans and contemporary issues, according to their website.
Newell also brought light to an idea UConn is working on with tribes to convert the university’s Avery Point campus into a Native-Serving Institute. Native-Serving Institutes are federally and privately funded institutions with an undergraduate student body that is at least 10% made up by Native Americans, according to the Western Interstate Commision for Higher Education, an organization that promotes student life across universities in Western regions.
“This will be similar to a Tribal College, but not quite the same, and UConn is actually on the road to being one of the first universities to do that,” Newell said.
According to Newell, the relationship reparations have been a slow, but positive change.
“The impact of all this change is that Native people not just in Connecticut, but even Rhode Island and Massachusetts are noticing the efforts the university is taking towards being an institution that recognizes native students’ needs,” said Newell.
A notable Native alum is Rodney Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation (‘99), who spoke at UConn last year according to Newell.
Jillian Watts, a graduate student in the department of allied health sciences and NACP graduate assistant, affirmed Newell’s sentiment.
“At first, I think it was quite difficult for Native students to feel included… as there was a lack of trust between these individuals and the University because of ancestral trauma. However, past students worked diligently to get the University to become aware of how these students were feeling and the underrepresentation of Natives on campus,” Watts said.
NACP was initially called the Native American Cultural Society (NACS), according to Newell. The NACS was originally entirely student-run and was a much smaller group. Three specific alumni were an essential part of making this change: Sage Phillips (‘22), Samantha Gove (‘24), and Zoe Blevins (‘22). Phillips also went on to do her graduate education at UConn.
“These three students were the major engines behind the building of NACP. The steps forward made recently is a testament to their hard work,” Newell said.
According to Newell, the students had recruited him to join the NACP and make the efforts more permanent.
These efforts have created a community for Native students to feel comfortable at UConn, despite the not-so-positive history native students have with universities that came from land-grants, like UConn.
Now, I think we are finally starting to see trust [between Indigenous students and the university] being rebuilt, which is what we always hoped for.
Native American Cultural Program Graduate Assistant Jillian Watts
“The indigenous community is small, but as tight knit as it gets… The Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) program is a vibrant hub for research, scholarship, and outreach among scholars, students, and Indigenous community members,” Watts said.
Watts also spoke of the NAIS program’s role in connecting students with resources they might need.
“We also…work to provide Native and Indigenous students in their first year at UConn with the connections and resources necessary to thrive while adapting to the new … challenges of college, including being away from your Tribal community,” Watts added. “…NACP also runs a mentorship program for middle and high school-age students. The Indigenous community is a family here …at UConn.”
The Indigenous community at UConn has received greatly benefited from the NACP, according to both Newell and Watts.
“Now, I think we are finally starting to see trust [between Indigenous students and the university] being rebuilt, which is what we always hoped for,” Watts said regarding the impact of NACP on the native community.