UWGB's first class of doctors in Indigenous education inspires
Sheku ("hello" in Oneida) and yaw^ko ("thank you") for reading the First Nations Wisconsin newsletter.
Graduation season is upon us as hardworking scholars everywhere celebrate completing their coursework.
Higher education rates for Indigenous people remain low, but nonprofits, such as the American Indian Graduate Center and American Indian College Fund are helping to close that achievement gap.
The low rate of higher education is an unfortunate trend in my own family. I was the first one of my siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles from all sides, the Indigenous Yaqui, Mexican, Lithuanian and Irish to earn a college degree. A few family members have followed since then, though.
I believe in the importance of education and I was truly inspired by the first class of graduating doctors of Indigenous education this month. It's a program that the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay started four years ago.
The first cohort of four people who completed the program are looking forward to taking what they’ve learned and becoming teachers in their Indigenous communities in Wisconsin.
The director of the program described it as a renewal of an Indigenous way of knowing, doing and being, which includes understanding a connection with all living things and living in balance. This wisdom had been “set down” through the process of colonization, but is being picked up again.
This newsletter will take a hiatus next week as I'll be off work, but it'll return June 8.
If you like this newsletter, please invite a friend to subscribe to it. And if you have tips or suggestions for this newsletter, please email me at fvaisvilas@gannett.com.
About me
I'm Frank Vaisvilas, a Report For America corps member based at the Green Bay Press-Gazette covering Native American issues in Wisconsin. You can reach me at 920-228-0437 or fvaisvilas@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank. Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to this reporting effort at GreenBayPressGazette.com/RFA.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: UWGB's first class of doctors in Indigenous education inspires
