January 23, 2024
Native American Student Body hosts Dan Wildcat for MLK Week lecture
The Native American Student Body with the Indigenous Faculty and Staff Alliance join in the observance of MLK week by welcoming Daniel R. Wildcat, professor at Haskell Indian Nations University, to offer a lecture on "Indigenuity," a play on the words Indigeneity and ingenuity — skill or cleverness, inventiveness or aptness of design.
Wildcat's lecture is at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 24, in the Wildcat Chamber of the K-State Student Union. Wildcat plans to connect Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "maladjusted" speech in 1966 and to discuss Native people's ability to survive and thrive in the face of exclusions and attempted erasure. His recent book, "On Indigenuity: Learning Lessons of Mother Earth" will be available for signing by the author.
Wildcat, a Yuchi citizen of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, notes that his service as teacher and administrator at Haskell spans 38 years. In 2013, Wildcat was the Gordon Russell visiting professor of Native American Studies at Dartmouth College. Wildcat received an interdisciplinary doctorate from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. In 1994, he collaborated with the Hazardous Substance Research Center at Kansas State University to create the Haskell Environmental Research Studies or HERS, Center and subsequently started the HERS summer undergraduate internship program with KU professor Joane Nagel.
Currently, Wildcat serves as principal investigator of a $20M, five-year, NSF-funded project to develop the Rising Voices: Changing Coasts Research Hub at Haskell. His books include "Power and Place: Indian Education In America," with Vine Deloria, Jr.; and "Destroying Dogma: Vine Deloria's Legacy on Intellectual America," with Steve Pavlik. His book "Red Alert: Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge" suggests Indigenous ingenuity — Indigenuity — is required to reduce the environmental damage in the Anthropocene. He is a co-author of the Southern Great Plains chapter of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. Wildcat's new book is titled, "Indigenuity: Learning the Lessons of Mother Earth."
Funding for this special presentation came from Student Governing Association's Heritage Month Funds.
For more information, please connect with Joseph Pondillo, josephpondillo@k-state.edu, Jimmy Owen, jimmyowen@k-state.edu, president and vice-president of the Native American Student Body. LaVerne Bitsie-Baldwin and Debra Bolton serve as advisors to Native American Student Body.