Recognizing the Land

The University of Nebraska is a public, land-grant institution with campuses and programs across the State that reside on the past, present, and future homelands of the Pawnee, Ponca, Oto-Missouria, Omaha, Dakota, Lakota, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Kaw Peoples, as well as the relocated Ho Chunk (Winnebago), Iowa, and Sac and Fox Peoples.*

This knowledge allows us to better understand that our opportunity to impact the State of Nebraska and beyond and occupy these lands is a result of a history of Native and Indigenous peoples’ experience of displacement, violence, settlement, and survival—which continues to inform our present and future.

Please note that this page does not serve as the official Land Acknowledgement of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This page serves as a resource and support for recognizing the original (past, present and future) homelands of Native and Indigenous peoples.

We are currently reviewing and updating this page (including the video previously used). We have removed the video from the website. If downloaded, we ask that there be a discontinued use of the video. Please contact the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at diversity@unl.edu for any questions, information, and guidance.

As a land-grant institution, we strive to connect the land, knowledge, and access. Truth and acknowledgment are critical to building mutual respect and connection across all barriers of heritage and difference. We begin this effort to acknowledge what has been buried by honoring the truth. We are standing on the ancestral lands of the First Peoples who occupied this area we now call Nebraska. We pay respects to Native elders past and present.

Please take a moment to consider the many legacies of violence, displacement, migration, and settlement that bring us together here today.

Additional Resources

University of Nebraska-Lincoln - Native American Coalition

University of Nebraska-Lincoln - The Institute for Ethnic Studies

University of Nebraska-Lincoln - University of Nebraska Inter-Tribal Exchange - U.N.I.T.E.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln - Native American Studies

University of Nebraska-Lincoln - Great Plains Fellows: Native American and Ethnic Studies

Official Nebraska Government Website - Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs

High Country News - Land-Grab Universities

Jesse Popp - "Want to reach out to an Indigenous scholar?" The Conversation, (2021)

Pawnee Nation

Ponca Tribe of Nebraska