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.
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. – Vice Chancellor Marco Barker
Additional Resources
The Institute for Ethnic Studies
Great Plains Fellows: Native American and Ethnic Studies
Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs
The Kaw Nation: People of the Southwind
Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska
Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri: In Kansas and Nebraska
* Information for this statement courtesy of Dr. Margaret Huettl.