News

A new educational initiative shows how Indigenous territory became UW–Madison.

An educator, civil servant, and proud member of the Menominee Nation, Ada Deer ’57 was a political activist and trailblazer who laid the groundwork for the successes of many American women. Ada was the first Menominee Tribe member to graduate from UW–Madison, and she served as a tireless advocate for Native rights and a just society.

LA 360: Indigenous Field-Based Learning for Land Stewardship is a weeklong summer field course that interweaves Native history and culture with science education. First offered in 2022 at College of Menominee Nation, this course is a unique collaboration involving Wisconsin’s three land-grant institutions: LCOOU, CMN and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. It is coordinated by Earth Partnership Indigenous Arts and Sciences, an initiative in the UW–Madison Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture focused on culturally relevant environmental education.

Members of the Ho-Chunk and UW–Madison communities gathered on May 4 to dedicate the Ho-Chunk Clan Circle, a series of sculptures representing the 12 clans of the Ho-Chunk Nation. The space outside the Bakke Recreation & Wellbeing Center was created in partnership with Ho-Chunk artist Ken Lewis and other advisors representing the Ho-Chunk Nation. UW–Madison occupies ancestral Ho-Chunk land, a place the Ho-Chunk Nation call Teejop.

Carla Vigue, director of tribal relations at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, was included in Madison 365’s fourth annual edition of Wisconsin’s Most Influential Native American leaders.

The University of Wisconsin–Madison will award an honorary doctorate degree this May to Cecil Garvin, a highly respected Ho-Chunk elder who has devoted much of his professional life to the preservation and promotion of the Ho-Chunk language and culture.