About Us
Mission Statement
The Indigenous Faculty and Staff Alliance is K-State's affinity group for Native American, First Nations, and Indigenous peoples. The organization was created in 2015 to address the need for support, growth, and greater visibility of Indigenous people, nations, and perspectives on K-State’s campus, Kansas, and beyond. This includes incorporating Indigenous knowledges and methodologies into both the academy and campus life. Given that not only K-State, but also every university in the U.S. is on Indigenous lands, the recognition that America’s history begins and continues through Indigenous contexts is essential. Kansas State is on the ancestral lands of the Kansa (Kaw people) and Kansas is the home of four tribal nations: the Iowa, Kickapoo, Prairie Band Pottawatomie, and Sac and Fox.
Our mission, then, is to create decolonized spaces at the university and increase the presence, promotion, and support of Indigenous faculty, staff, and students at K-State.
K-State IFSA Land Acknowledgement
(January 15, 2020)
As the first land-grant institution established under the 1862 Morrill Act, we acknowledge that the state of Kansas is historically home to many Native nations, including the Kaw, Osage, and Pawnee, among others. Furthermore, Kansas is the current home to four federally recognized Native nations: The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, the Kickapoo Tribe of Kansas, the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, and Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska.
Many Native nations utilized the western plains of Kansas as their hunting grounds, and others – such as the Delaware – were moved through this region during Indian removal efforts to make way for White settlers. It’s important to acknowledge this, since the land that serves as the foundation for this institution was, and still is, stolen land.
We remember these truths because K-State’s status as a land-grant institution is a story that exists within ongoing settler-colonialism, and rests on the dispossession of Indigenous peoples and nations from their lands. These truths are often invisible to many. The recognition that K-State’s history begins and continues through Indigenous contexts is essential.
