On Thursday evening, the Native American Student Association (NASA) held its first event of Native American Heritage Month. In an interactive exercise, students attending the event learned about the 400 years of colonization that the Wabanaki people faced at the hands of Europeans in the land now known as Maine.
For National Day of Remembrance for Indian Boarding Schools on Friday, September 30, Bowdoin’s Native American Student Alliance (NASA) installed a memorial on steps of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) that was removed by the College.
On Wednesday evening, Dr. Aomawa Shields delivered this year’s Kibbe Science Lecture titled “The Search for Life (and A Life) on Planets, Including This One.” The event was held in Kresge Auditorium, with Shields presenting via Zoom.
Native American Students’ Association (NASA) welcomed artist, activist and model Geo Soctomah Neptune to campus in conjunction with the opening of the Wabanaki basket-making exhibit at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA).
Shandiin Largo ’23, a NASA leader and student curator, sees the exhibit as a display of Native American voices on campus, with special consideration to the historical relationship between Native people and museums.
On Monday night, Representative Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) spoke to members of the Bowdoin community over Zoom on a range of issues, including the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the recent presidential election and climate change. Haaland was elected to the House of Representatives in 2018, and, as a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, was one of the first two Native American women to serve in Congress.
In their third year co-running the Native American Student Association (NASA), Amanda Cassano ’22 and Sunshine Eaton ’22 are taking the lead in organizing events to celebrate Native American Heritage Month this November.
The first event, on November 9, will feature Representative Deb Haaland (D-NM) in a virtual conversation with the Bowdoin community.
The Bowdoin Outing Club (BOC) launched its first virtual speaker series on Thursday with a talk by Len Necefer co-hosted by the Native American Students Association (NASA). Each event in the semester-long series is accessible on CampusGroups and open to all students, regardless of their membership status with the BOC.
Maine celebrated its first Indigenous Peoples Day on Monday. For many Bowdoin students, their awareness of Native Americans comes only from history books or environmental justice readings. Native students are very much present on campus, and Indigenous people have been present in the Brunswick area since well before Bowdoin’s founding.