13 minute read
Searching for answers
BY | GREG SKOOG (SJU ’89)
Exploring hard topics, employing undergrad student research, engaging in difficult conversations and recommending solutions. ... These are the tools of liberal arts inquiry that will help acknowledge our past and shape our future. And right now, Bennie students are leading that push in so many different ways. These next pages highlight just a few of those areas.
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Defining decolonization
Colonization – of the type that took place in North America – involved the removal of Indigenous people from the land. Beyond that, it involved the attempted elimination of those cultures by multiple means, including the forced assimilation process found at Native boarding schools. Colonization has resulted in the removal of Indigenous peoples from most forms of representation – in our history, in our curriculum, in our media – so that we’re left primarily with crude stereotypes. Decolonization is the unwinding of that process and regaining native presence, culture and representation. The practical elements of that can vary depending on whom you ask.
The work of repatriation
BY | BELEN LUCRETIA BENWAY ’21
BELEN LUCRETIA BENWAY ’21
“Native Americans have been healing from the injustices of colonization for decades, and I think all the steps forward we take as a University and College to pay respect to the resilience of this group of people is important. Sharing these photos is a symbol of our school extending respect and tribute.”
This is a line from the chapter I wrote in the book Inclusion in Higher Education: Research Initiatives on Campus. This line perfectly encapsulates the mission I had from the start of my research working in the Saint Benedict’s Monastery archives.
I started working in the archives sophomore year with the goal to uncover as much information and as many photos as I could detailing the forgotten history of the industrial schools that were operated at Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s. It was truly astonishing to me to find out that at one point in our history, there were more Indigenous students on these grounds than white. I felt like if I could learn more about the past I could possibly shed light on that same community in the present. It soon became a much bigger project than I ever expected, with our community’s reach of industrial schools stretching to the White Earth Nation and Red Lake Nation as well. I found a wide range of photographs from each school.
The first phase of my work was to physically spend lots of time in the archives looking through photos and trying to analyze them in the hope of placing faces with names. The sisters were pivotal partners in my work and without their help and support I wouldn’t have been able to uncover nearly as much information. Not only were they so sweet and always had an extra cup of coffee to offer me, but they also really held a plethora of knowledge. Every time I would come into the archives they would have a few more files they thought would help me. The archives are huge and there is so much information down there, it can be really easy to get lost in all the materials.
Some of the photographs hadn’t been seen in the 100+ years since they were taken! It feels like you are touching history. And from that moment on I felt like I had to get these photos out and shared. I wanted everyone to know about this history and about all the students who were here before them. We cannot ignore the dark past of industrial schools in the United States and their goal to assimilate Native American youth through education. While I do think these particular schools were better than many others during this time, it’s all relative because it was still so tragic. Native American children were still taken from their families with little or no choice. I think it’s important to address that in order to be able to heal ancestral and historical trauma and create a more inclusive community on campus now. If working in the archives taught me one thing, it really highlighted to me how proud I am to be a part of such a resilient group of people. Native Americans have fought for survival for so long, and now is the time for us to honor our ancestors and pay tribute to them.
The more photographs I compiled, the more excited I was to share them with others. It was important that we did it in the right way, though, and on the terms of their Indigenous descendants. We reached out to the respective tribes and they played a big role in the steps after uncovering the photos. We cannot respect the people and culture if we don’t go to them and ask what they want. We cannot just assume we know.
Another part of my work in the archives was looking through documents like school course catalogs and registers of students’ names. These types of documents were helpful to try to get an idea of family names and who was possibly in the photos. I tried my best to get a few names of students matched with the photos to make the process of sharing with specific family members possible.
From the start of this work, it felt like something I was called to do. I am Dakota Mdewakanton Sioux from Prairie Island Indian Community in southeast Minnesota. I grew up very close to our reservation and was submerged in the culture. I loved learning more about my heritage and have always been keen on history, so this work felt natural to me.
I am proud to be Indigenous, proud to be a Bennie and overjoyed that I get the opportunity to share my work and make a difference.
Creating a community
Marissa Johnson ’22
When Marissa Johnson ’22 (who is a member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa) arrived on campus, “there was really no one like me here that I knew of right away. And that feeling can be pretty lonely.”
She met Ted Gordon, visiting assistant professor of sociology, when she sat in on a community event (targeted primarily at faculty) on “decolonizing our syllabus.” Gordon connected her with some other Native students on campus and told her there had been interest in students forming a club, but there hadn’t yet been anyone to step up and drive that process. “And I told him, ‘Well, I can do it. Let’s get it started. Let’s get it rolling.’ ”
So Marissa spent her first year meeting students and planning to start a club. “We would meet every so often and we were developing a constitution, forming goals, contacting faculty and staff. … And that eventually got off the ground.”
The result has been the Indigenous Students Association (ISA), which launched in spring 2021 with Marissa as president. Membership is open to Indigenous and nonIndigenous students alike, with members representing a variety of Native Nations.
The heart of the club’s mission is to “provide a space for students who identify as Native American and Indigenous to celebrate their culture.” But so far, Marissa and the club feel compelled to push hard for formal acknowledgement of our institutions’ role in history and for practical steps toward decolonization.
It’s a lot. And Marissa and her fellow ISA board members admit that while pushing for decolonization and inclusiveness is crucial, it’s exhausting and has taken a noticeable toll on each of their academic and personal lives.
But, “that’s kind of the big thing that we’re tackling right now,” she says. “Getting the support of the student senates and the administration and putting these positions in place so that students in ISA don’t have to do it. Then we can go to school and go to class and go to club after classes are done and have fun. … Then we can be about community building and planning bingo and trivia like other clubs can do.”
The potential to lead
Faith Gronda ’22
This spring, Faith Gronda ’22 of New Brighton, Minnesota (and a member of the Wyandot of Anderdon Nation), was awarded a Newman Civic Fellowship through Campus Compact in pursuit of her goal to “decolonize our campus while transforming it into an institution at which Native and Indigenous students could thrive.”
“The Newman Civic Fellowship,” according to Andrew Seligsohn, Ph.D., president of Campus Compact, “is a one-year learning, networking, skill-building experience for students who have already been identified as deeply committed to the betterment of their community. They come to us having been nominated by their presidents or chancellors. And we see it as an opportunity for these students ... to build a network of the most engaged student civic leaders, who can become resources to each other.”
Faith says “The fellowship provides really strong connections to other students at other institutions that are doing extremely important work. And it creates a network of people who are aspiring to change their institutions … not even just change the institution, but make a change in the world.”
Her hope is to tap into that network and help CSB/SJU begin leading a way forward. “I want to try and connect with students from other institutions that may have the same institutional history that we do and have conversations to see if this is something that they are talking about – if this is something they are working on. And, if not, I’d like to inspire change and try to create at least that conversation on other campuses. This part of Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s history is traumatic and horrible, and we’ve neglected it for far too long. … But at the same time, if our institutions truly prioritize this work and our community collectively dedicates its time and resources, we can change the narrative and become an example of an institution that actually reconciles with our history in a positive way.”
“Faith has thoughtfully worked to promote awareness of Indigenous peoples on our campus, and to address root causes of inequity keeping Indigenous peoples from meaningful inclusion,” said CSB Interim President Laurie Hamen. “I look forward to continuing our work with Faith and with the ISA.”
“By creating this change together,” Faith concludes, “I hope one day my college will serve as an example of an institution known for actively and honestly engaging with its past while uplifting Native and Indigenous agency, history, culture and perspectives.” You can check out their work using the QR code to the right. Simply point your smartphone camera at the code and follow the link.
ETL adapts to tell the story
Extending the Link (ETL) is the student-run documentary film crew at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University. In a typical year, the ETL team begins brainstorming topics in the spring, researches over the summer, travels to capture their story in the fall, then edits and produces their film over the winter.
“This year was obviously far from anything that resembled the ‘typical’,” admits Charly Frisk ’21, ETL’s co-director for the past two years. Travel restrictions made remote shooting impossible. Gathering restrictions meant team meetings were held over Zoom at 9 in the evening … after everyone completed their three-hour block-scheduled class. It wasn’t ideal. “Team morale was low,” Charly admits.
In September though, Grace Savard ’22 floated an idea. What if they switched formats and made a podcast? “Documentary storytelling, as it turns out, is more than film,” says Charly. “ETL just needed to be creative in how to share the stories.”
Settling on a topic involves hours of brainstorming and conversation. In this case, inspiration came from a Teaching Native American History and Culture course. “It came to light there, in a conversation with Vance Blackfox, director of communication at the National Boarding Schools Healing Coalition, that under 10% of the U.S. population is aware that these schools were in operation,” says Charly. “Prior to this year, students’ and alums’ awareness of the boarding schools here likely mirrored – or might have even trailed – those national statistics.”
As ETL saw it, this was an undertold story.
“Our most critical intention with the podcast,” says Charly, “is to provide an engaging and creative platform from which people in our community may understand this issue of boarding schools, situated within the broader national context, so that students and alums of CSB/SJU can understand the lasting impacts of the histories of our institutions.
“In ETL, to hear another person’s story is to listen with the ear of your heart. Which is to say, you devote the most genuine amount of listening attention to the storyteller and bring the lessons forward – to continue the capacity of the story to impact others and influence change. To listen and to do – that is our purpose.”
You can check out their work using the QR code to the right. Simply point your smartphone camera at the code and follow the link.
Building a framework for action
The Entrepreneur Scholars program at the Donald McNeely Center for Entrepreneurship provides CSB and SJU students from all disciplines the opportunity to design and implement a world-class business venture.
Selected students – E-Scholars – pursue their interest in entrepreneurship through a series of three courses over two years. E-Scholars get access to mentors. They travel to learn from successful entrepreneurs. And ultimately, they have the chance to plan, create and launch a new venture. For Maija Eickhoff ’21, an environmental studies major from St. Cloud, that new venture is a registered nonprofit called Azhen (meaning “to return” in Ojibwe).
“In the first semester (of the Entrepreneur Scholars program) we worked to identify problems and gaps in whatever market we’re interested in getting into,” says Maija. “At the same time, I was taking a class where we were discussing the boarding school history here on campus. It seemed like there was a nice bridge there between this big problem of Native people disproportionately being impacted by the long-term effects of colonialism and, on the flip side, my opportunity to, literally, make any business I’d want.”
Azhen will be a student-guided venture focused on creating and generating resources – through fundraising and volunteer efforts – to return to White Earth Nation. What that looks like for the newly registered nonprofit is taking shape over the summer as an initial group of 10-15 students make plans for a fall launch. And when her project is launched, Maija (as an alumna) will let students take it from there. “I’ll sit on the board, and other community members could have involvement that way and can still be volunteers, but it will be guided by current students.”
Maija sees a distinction between the roles of Azhen and the newly formed Indigenous Students Association. “The key separation,” she explains, “is that ISA should be a place for community within and around Native students. Azhen will be dedicated to doing more of the legwork of decolonization. Because it’s not Native students’ job to do all that.”
ISA President Marissa Johnson ’22 agrees. She sees Azhen as a platform for Bennies and Johnnies – Native and nonNative – with a passion for social justice to come together in collective effort.
According to the Entrepreneur Scholars program mission statement, “Consistent with the mission of the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, our entrepreneurial studies program especially encourages student projects which seek to promote the common good and make meaningful contributions to the global community.”
