Native American & Indigenous Studies, Minor

• How were Native American and indigenous people portrayed in history, media and popular culture, from pre-European contact to the present day?
• What contemporary issues do Native American and indigenous people face, such as land and environmental rights, food and health issues, economic development and environmental concerns, the exercise of indigenous sovereignty, and language revitalization?
• How does one study indigenous peoples using historical, anthropological, sociological, literary, and public health approaches?
• What sort of jobs and occupations would benefit from knowledge about Native American and indigenous issues, locally or nationally, such as jobs in education, law, health professions, science, administration, or government?

These and related questions comprise the focus of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the Program introduces students to issues facing Native American and indigenous people from a variety of perspectives. The NAIS Program offers a minor that prepares students to deal with these issues in their potential lines of work.

The Seneca Nation of Indians

St. Bonaventure University sits on the historic homeland of the Seneca Nation of Indians and is within twenty miles from the Seneca Nation’s Allegany Territory. The past few years saw a cultural exchange developing between the University and the Nation in the form of Iroquois dance and song shows on campus and a number of workshops that educated St. Bonaventure faculty on the Iroquois cultural traditions.

The NAIS Program is a logical progression of this cultural exchange that comes out of ideas developed during those workshops and is intended to promote the understanding of the history of contact between European settlers and Native Americans, as well as of the way Native Americans live today.

Program information