Posts Tagged ‘University of Northern Colorado’

29
Jun

Tetona Dunlap – Native American sorority forms at Haskell Indian Nations U

   Posted by: admin    in Education, Haskell Indian Nation University, Native women

Tetona Dunlap is a graduate student in journalism at the University of Montana. She is an enrolled member of the Eastern Shoshone tribe from the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.

Tetona Dunlap

Tetona Dunlap

A group of five women at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, have established the first sorority and only Greek organization on campus.

The women are members of the Alpha Pi Omega, the nation’s oldest American Indian sorority that was established at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

Established in 1994, the sorority has more than 400 sisters nationwide representing 70 tribes. It comprises nine undergraduate chapters and four graduate chapters in five states. There are currently chapters at Oklahoma State University, University of New Mexico and Dartmouth College, to name a few.

According to the Alpha Pi Omega website, Haskell joins four other schools in the process of creating chapters on their campuses. Some of these schools include the University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Northern Colorado and Harvard University.

I commend these women for their hard work and foresight in bringing this organization to the campus of Haskell.

In fact, I am a little surprised that Alpha Pi Omega is not already well established at Haskell. However, in an interview with Indian Country Today, Alpha Pi Omega’s grand expansion director Cho Werito said, “They have the potential to be the biggest chapter.”

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23
Jan

Remember the Fightin’ Whites? Bill takes aim at race-based nicknames

   Posted by: admin    in Sports

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Eight years ago, the University of Northern Colorado’s Solomon Little Owl got a lot of national attention when he started an intramural basketball team called the Fightin’ Whites.

Little Owl, the school’s Native American Student Services Director, pulled the highly successful stunt to bring attention to the insulting nature of Indian-themed nicknames.

So he likes the idea of the bill proposed by Colorado state Rep. Suzanne Williams, D-Aurora, that would prohibit the state’s public and charter schools from using such mascots unless OK’d by the state Indian Affairs Commission. We posted a little about the bill here last week, and today’s Greeley (Colo.) Tribune has this story that adds detail.

Schools that fail to comply could face fines of $1,000 a month, the Tribune’s Nate Miller reports.

Eaton High's Fightin' Red mascot

Eaton High's Fightin' Red mascot

“Many Native Americans look at the Reds or the Savages as very detrimental labels for themselves,” Williams, who is Native American, tells Miller. “They don’t see themselves that way. And it’s the question, would you want your children to be called Savages?”

Some in Eaton, Colo., whose mascot is Fightin’ Red, take offense at Williams’ bill. While they give a nod to schools like Arapahoe High in suburban Denver – which sought and gained permission from the Northern Arapaho tribal leaders in Wyoming to keep using the nickname – they say Williams’ bill goes too far.

Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley, who was a member of the Eaton school board, dissed the bill as political correctness.
“I think it’s clearly a local control issue,” he tells Miller. “For the state to be stepping into that area I think is really outrageous.”

Gwen Florio

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