Reach: Summer 2009

The nation's first American Indian studies department hosted the nation's first Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) conference this May.

To honor the 40th anniversary of the University of Minnesota's Department of American Indian Studies, NAISA invited more than 600 scholars from the Americas and as far away as Taiwan, Australia, Czech Republic, Israel, and Norway to its first conference, in Minneapolis.

Before 1969, studies of Native Americans were scattershot and held mostly in anthropology departments. With the creation of the University's department, there was finally a place dedicated to the study of native languages—in this case, Minnesota's Dakota and Ojibwe—as well as Indian culture, history, education, and other topics.

Since then, American Indian studies have exploded across the United States and Canada; there are now almost 120 programs and departments in the United States and Canada, not counting the 32 tribal colleges.

The May conference was a milestone. "It used to be that while we would read each other's research, we never came together. Finally, we will be working less in isolation and instead sharing our commonalities and similar professional challenges," said Jean O'Brien, an associate professor and former chair of the Department of American Indian Studies and member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe.

To learn more about the conference, go to http://reach.cla.umn.edu/naisa