Events

Arlie Russell Hochschild is an American professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley and writer. Hochschild has long focused on the human emotions that underlie moral beliefs, practices, and social life generally. She is the author of nine books including, most recently, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, a finalist for the National Book Award, in which she analyzes the lives of immigrants for her emotion research. In The Managed Heart (1983), The Second Shift (1989), The Time Bind (1997) and many of her other books, she continues the sociological tradition of C. Wright Mills by drawing links between private troubles and public issues.

Hochschild seeks to make visible the underlying role of emotion and the work of managing it, the paid form of which she calls "emotional labor." For her, "the expression and management of emotion are social processes. What people feel and express depend on societal norms, one's social category and position, and cultural factors."

In 2021 she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. Additionally, she is a member of various other sociological societies; such as the American Sociological Association, the Gerontological Society of America, the Sociological Research Association, the Sociologists for Women in Society, and the American Federation of Teachers.

Hochschild has received eight Honorary Doctoral Degrees from, respectively, Harvard University, 2021, Swarthmore College, 1993, Aalborg University, 2004 (Denmark), the University of Oslo, 2000, (Norway), the University of Lapland, 2012, (Finland), Mount St. Vincent University, 2013 (Canada), Westminster College (Pennsylvania), 2018 (U.S.) and University of Lausanne, 2018 (Switzerland). She also received the Ulysses Medal from University College Dublin, 2015 Ireland, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society, 2021.

Hochschild was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award for Strangers In Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right and the book was a New York Times Bestseller. The book was also listed by the New York Times as one of "6 Books to Help Understand Trump's Win" (November 9, 2016.) She was also awarded a prize for this book (translated by Xia Fan and published by SSAP) in 2020 by the Beijing News Book Review, Beijing, Mainland China.

Hochschild has also won Guggenheim, Fulbright and Mellon fellowships, and three awards granted by the American Sociological Association—the Charles Cooley Award (for The Managed Heart) the Jessie Bernard Award (for The Second Shift, The Time Bind and Global Woman), and the Award for Public Understanding of Sociology (for lifetime achievement). In awarding Hochschild the Jessie Bernard Award, she was observed for her "creative genius for framing questions and lines of insight, often condensed into memorable, paradigm-shifting words and phrases."

The Managed Heart, The Second Shift, The Time Bind, and Strangers In Their Own Land have been named "Notable Books of the Year" by The New York Times. The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the "Best Books of 2012." The last chapter was excerpted in The New York Times (May 5, 2012). In 2022, Hochschild was inducted into the California Hall of Fame.

Reginald Dwayne Betts is an American poet, legal scholar, educator and prison reform advocate. At age 16 he committed an armed carjacking, was prosecuted as an adult, and sentenced to nine years in prison. He started reading and writing poetry during his incarceration. "A single book, Dudley Randall's The Black Poets, slid under my cell in the hole, introduced me to the poets that had me believing words can be carved into a kind of freedom.”  After his release, Betts earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College, and a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School. He served on President Barack Obama’s Coordinating Council of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. He founded Freedom Reads, an organization that gives incarcerated people access to books. In September 2021, Betts was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. He is currently working on a PhD in Law at Yale University.

At the age of sixteen, he and a friend carjacked a man who had fallen asleep in his car at the Springfield Mall. Betts was charged as an adult and consequently spent more than eight years in prison (including fourteen months in solitary confinement),] where he completed high school and began reading and writing poetry.

Speaking at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in 2016, he said: "I was in solitary confinement.... You could call out for a book and someone would slide one to you. Frequently, you would not know who gave it to you. Somebody slid The Black Poets edited by Dudley Randall. In that book I read Robert Hayden for the first time, Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton. I saw the poet as not just utilitarian but as serving art. In a poem you can give somebody a whole world. Before that, I had thought of being a writer, writing mostly essays and maybe, one day, a novel. But at that moment I decided to become a poet."

In 2009, Shahid Reads His Own Palm won the Beatrice Hawley Award for poetry.  In 2010, Betts was awarded a fellowship from the Open Society Foundation. His memoir, A Question of Freedom, won an NAACP Award for non-fiction. In 2017, Only Once I Thought About Suicide received the Israel H. Peres Prize for best student comment appearing in the Yale Law Journal. In 2018 he was chosen to be a writing fellow for PEN America's Writing for Justice Fellowship. In 2018 he was also awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Betts was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2021.

Chelsea Fuston, a Yukon native, is a senior at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. She is seeking a degree in Multidisciplinary Studies, more specifically she is learning how religion and people interact with our political system.

She is currently working on a research project on Christian Nationalism. Upon graduation from Science and Arts, Chelsea plans to earn a Master's in Public Policy and Juris Doctor in a dual degree program.  

Chelsea has won countless awards including being named a member of Hypatia Honor Society (USAO’s highest scholastic society,) and a Brad Henry International Scholar, as well as being listed on the 2023 All in Student Voting Honor Roll for her work in educating peers how to register to vote and working with USAO Administration to close campus to allow faculty, staff, and students time to vote in the November 2022 election.

Chelsea was elected as a senator on the Student Government Association as a freshman, treasurer as a sophomore and president as a junior.

A prolific writer, scholar, and editor, Dr. Khan’s work heavily focuses on the political issues and strife of her homeland, Jammu and Kashmir, India.  Through her writings, she critically observes the sociopolitical discourse in South Asia, particularly Kashmir, through an oblique focus from the margins instead of from an elitist center.

She is involved in the restoration of the State Archives in Kashmir, a project on which she is working in collaboration with senior administrators in Jammu and Kashmir.

Her goal is to engage in reflective action as an educator working with diverse cultural and social groups questioning the exclusivity of cultural nationalism, the erosion of cultural syncretism, the ever-increasing dominance of religious fundamentalism, and the irrational resistance to cultural and linguistic differences.

She believes that acknowledging our complicity in oppression, re-conceptualizing paradigmatic structures, and mobilizing cultural and political coalitions are riddled with conflict but it is the need of the day for us to engage in these processes. 

Her publications include including The Fiction of Nationality in an Era of Transnationalism and Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir: Between India and Pakistan.

Anthropologist, lecturer, community activist and bridge builder, Suzette Chang is the founder and CEO of Thick Descriptions.  Thick Descriptions provides education in science for kids during school breaks, sustainable diversity and inclusion for educators and adults. 

She identifies and navigates opportunities to bridge gaps by investing in individuals, organizations, and corporations through cultural intelligence and scientific empowerment.

From the perspectives of biology, culture, archaeology and language, Suzette works with like-minded investors to disrupt the false perception that customary beliefs define human beings and is committed to shirting ineffective perspectives of social and scientific understandings within the context of health, culture, language, history and other spaces that influence the quality of human life.

Dr. Noel Jacobs is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Oklahoma City University. Dr. Jacobs has 13 years’ experience teaching and training undergraduates, graduates and postdoctoral trainees in child psychology as well as providing direct services and psychological testing to children and families.

He writes in the area of living well and finding whole life regardless of health, and conducts research in the areas of teaching effectiveness and quality of life over time in children with chronic illnesses. 

Dr. Jacobs currently serves as Vice President of The Interfaith Alliance of Oklahoma and chairs the Beyond Coexistence initiative, the organization's community service program designed to build relationships across differences while volunteers serve the greater OKC area in tangible ways.

He is also Executive Director for The Respect Diversity Foundation and helps create teaching and learning opportunities for people of all ages, to grow tolerance and respect for others.

Rev. Dickerson is co-founder and executive director of Black Lives Matter-Oklahoma and serves on the national board for the Women’s March. 

She serves as a mentor to dynamic young movement leaders, and an extension of her village of powerful women mentors and activist Icons. She sat under the direct tutelage of the late Dr. Maya Angelou and the Legendary Clara Luper who helped develop her spirit of altruism, community service, grassroots organizing, advocacy and creative multitasking. 

Sheri’s experience inside the foster care system compels her to give back to young people in foster care systems as a volunteer for CASA, and the One Child at a Time Fostering and Adoption program.

Sheri serves as a political consultant and strategist to progressive candidates running for office in Oklahoma with her company Epiphany Consulting. She also is a facilitator and trainer with Partners In Progress LLC, specializing in Diversity and Inclusion trainings. 

Holly Hatfield is an Assistant Professor of Economics at USAO and a PhD candidate in economics at the University of Utah.  Her approach to economics was shaped by her role as Executive Director for a non-profit organization doing water management programs in Kenya from 2009 to 2013, where she witnessed communities solve economic problems without markets.  

In five years of lead instructor experience, Holly has specialized in teaching economic history and history of thought with an emphasis on how and why groups are given systematically different rights over their own labor. 

She earned the Higher Education Teaching Specialist designation from the University of Utah's Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence (CTLE) and served as a CTLE fellow from 2018 to 2020 where she advised faculty and ran workshops on making the most of challenging discussions in the classroom.

Joey D. Schmidt, graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a JD-MBA in 1985.  He also has a Doctorate in Law and Masters in Business Administration.  

In 1995, he started Central Law to help farmers facing bankruptcy.  Schmidt has helped save over 100 farms and is one of the foremost specialist in Farming Issues. 

He has been admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals, United States Bankruptcy Court, throughout the District Courts for the states of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas.

Specializing in economics and finance, Carter worked in banking for over 14 years for both large and small banks in Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, serving as Vice President over Loan Administration.  She also worked for the Federal Reserve Bank at the office of the Tenth District as a Compliance Examiner in Kansas City, Missouri, and then transferred to Oklahoma City as a Safety and Soundness Examiner. 

She has served as a board member for Neighborhood Housing Service in Oklahoma City, Habitat for Humanity in Norman, First Congregational Church in Norman, the Fred Jones Museum of Art Docents Association at OU and the University Women’s Association at OU.

Christopher Garneau teaches sociology at the University of Oklahoma.  His ttwo main areas of research are political sociology and sociology of religion.  Much of his publication record deals with political tolerance—which is the willingness to extend civil liberties to marginalized social groups.

In his research on political tolerance, he finds that while Americans are becoming more tolerant in general, changes in tolerance greatly differ by a wide variety of social factors. His articles on political tolerance have been published in The Sociological Quarterly, Sociological Forum, and Sociology of Religion.

He is currently engaged in research dealing with politics and environment, populism, and links between religion and politics.

Kellie J. Lewis (Pawnee/Kiowa/Wichita) is a citizen of the Pawnee Nation and the owner of Tribal Administrative Services, LLC, and TalkJive Media, located in Oklahoma City. She co-hosts the daily show “Them Damn NDNs”, and moderates the weekly podcasts “Ask A Lawyer,” a public service with Oklahoma Indian Legal Services, Inc. (OILS), “The Crow’s Nest” with Dr. Kevin Crow of the USAO faculty.

She possesses a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy, one of the first to earn a degree in that field from USAO, and a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from the University of Oklahoma.

Kellie has experience working with Tribal Environmental, Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and Historic Preservation programs. She has given presentations about the impact of social and internet media in Indian Country and First Amendment issues within Tribal governments to the Oklahoma Indian Bar Association and at the annual Sovereignty Symposium.

She coordinates outreach events for OILS to provide no cost legal clinics to Tribal citizens across Indian Country in Oklahoma and serves as a board member of the Pawnee Nation Tribal Development Corporation, her Tribal Nation’s economic development authority.

W. Douglas Catterall is a professor of history at Cameron University.  Interested in the intersection of anthropology and history, Catterall’s work concerns how individual and group identity, community structures, and networks interacted with the larger worlds of states, economies, diasporas, and migrations in Northern Europe and the Atlantic world.

His first project, Community without Borders: Scots Migrants and the Changing Face of Power in the Dutch Republic, c. 1600–1700 (2002), examined the formation of a Scots migrant community in the Dutch Port of Rotterdam. A second project is a co-edited collection of essays on women in Atlantic world ports entitled Women in Port: Gendering Communities, Economies, and Social Networks in Atlantic Port Cities, 1500–1800 (2012).

His present research seeks to understand the place of a single network within the 18th-century Scots diaspora. Doug has also developed a strong interest in ties between history and contemporary policy, which he is exploring with a colleague in political science, and in the linkages between public history and the classroom.

His teaching has ranged widely, from world history and western civilization at the survey level to early modern Europe and the Atlantic and Mediterranean worlds at the seminar level. His interest in the Tuning Project springs from the hope that the experimental and energetic possibilities in good teaching can fruitfully coexist with the structural realities of educational attainment and university transformation.

Don Holladay is a retired attorney. He is a former trial lawyer, whose practice included constitutional litigation. He served as lead counsel in the federal court lawsuit that successfully challenged Oklahoma’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

He has argued before federal appellate courts and written many published op-eds in the areas of equality and social justice. He taught as a visiting professor and adjunct at the University of Oklahoma College of Law for over 30 years. He is a past co-recipient of the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Courageous Lawyer Award.

His past legal activities include gubernatorial appointment to the National Uniform Laws Commission and serving on the faculty of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. He and his wife Kay live in Norman.

Sara Jane Rose founded Sally’s List in 2010.  Since 2010, Sally’s List has empowered candidates to run for political office and campaign staff to incite change in Oklahoma. As a nonpartisan organization, the women of Sally’s List support community-building issues like public education, healthcare, and a strong economy.

The organization’s training programs mobilize women to make a long-lasting impact in their communities.  Sally’s List namesake, political trailblazer and advocate Sally Rae Merkle Mock, passed away in 2009. But her legacy of working diligently to empower women and improve Oklahoma communities lives on through their work. 

The success of Sally’s List includes former candidates who are now serving in the Oklahoma House, Senate, Norman City Council, and on the Tulsa School Board. From our first small class of candidates, Sally’s List has grown exponentially – training, supporting, and electing women to office at the federal, state, and local levels.

Yvita Fox Crider is an Independent Consultant with the Fox Crider Consulting Group. She holds a M.A. in Political Science, International Relations, and a Certificate in International Human Rights from Webster University Geneva, as well as a Human Rights Consultancy certification from the US Institute of Diplomacy and Human Rights in Washington D.C.

Her current work involves helping to spearhead the Oklahoma Square One Project, a statewide initiative to reimagine Oklahoma’s responses to safety and harm and to change the damaging narratives that drive Oklahoma’s system of incarceration. Her previous work included serving as the Director of Statewide Engagement for Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform as well as leading a task force of educators to research Oklahoma’s juvenile justice system and propose recommendations for its improvement and population reduction.

Before transitioning to the reform sector she was an educator and then served as the Director of Leadership Development for the Oklahoma City region of Teach For America. Her work involved advocating for the equitable access of marginalized communities to high-quality education and training educators to more effectively address harmful systems and policies affecting their classrooms and the communities in which they serve. Prior to moving to Oklahoma, Yvita lived and worked overseas in faith-based ministry as well as in the international humanitarian sector at the United Nations in Geneva and with various other INGOs. 

Dr. Şakin Erin is an assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He studies social network analysis, world systems, Islam in the United States, and Kurdish nationalist movement. 

Kris Steele is Executive Director of TEEM (The Education and Employment Ministry), a nonprofit dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty and incarceration in Oklahoma. TEEM offers educational opportunities, cognitive behavior courses, life skills instruction, job training and employment placement assistance to individuals impacted by the criminal legal system.

He also serves as co-Chair of the Square One Project’s Reimagining Justice Locally initiative to support and empower local residents to reimagine a new vision of justice for their community.

Kris is an Advisor of Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform, a coalition comprised of community groups, business leaders, health professionals and faith leaders dedicated to advancing effective approaches to community safety by increasing access to treatment and programs designed to address root causes of crime.

Kris earned a bachelor’s degree in Religion from Oklahoma Baptist University, and master’s degree in Education from East Central University.

Prior to joining TEEM, Kris served as State Representative from 2000-2012, and Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives for the 53rd Legislature. During his tenure in office, he led the charge on a number of reforms in the areas of health care, human services and criminal justice.

Kris and his wife, Kellie, are blessed with two daughters: Mackenzie (20) and Madison (19) and currently reside in Shawnee.

Michael Korenblit is a co-founder of the Respect Diversity Foundation (RDF), a non-profit, tax-exempt educational organization, founded to teach understanding, respect and acceptance for all people. Through RDF’s Speaker’s Bureau and numerous programs, educators work with students, teachers and community organizations throughout the state. Since its founding in 2000, RDF has worked with over 395,000 students, teachers and adults.

Michael is co-author of the best-selling book UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN, the true story of his parents who were Holocaust survivors. The book is a love story.

Mike is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma with a Bachelor’s degree in education. He worked 19 years for the Close Up Foundation, in Washington, D.C., an educational organization teaching students & teachers about our governmental & political process & current issues. He directed Close Up’s Television and Video Department, where he produced the Ace Award winning television series which aired on the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network. He produced numerous award winning documentaries including Democracy and Rights about the 1957 desegregation of Little Rock High School.

In 1973 he arrived in Durban, South Africa, as an undergraduate student. Soon thereafter, during the height of apartheid repression, he became chaplain to students at both black and white universities in Durban. In 1976, he began to speak out on behalf of schoolchildren who were being shot, detained and tortured.  In 1993, he became Chaplain of the Trauma Centre for Victims of Violence and Torture in Cape Town, which assisted the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). This work led to the establishment, in 1998, of the Institute for Healing of Memories (IHOM) in Cape Town. The IHOM aims to allow many more South Africans to tell their stories in workshops where they work through their trauma.

The IHOM is based in Cape Town, South Africa, but Fr Michael has worked in many other countries, in Africa and across the world. The organization now works with groups including those affected by political violence; those affected and infected by HIV and AIDS; refugees and asylum seekers; prisoners and war veterans. The IHOM is also represented in the United States.

A prolific writer, scholar, and editor, Dr. Khan’s work heavily focuses on the political issues and strife of her homeland, Jammu and Kashmir, India.  Through her writings, she critically observes the sociopolitical discourse in South Asia, particularly Kashmir, through an oblique focus from the margins instead of from an elitist center. She is involved in the restoration of the State Archives in Kashmir, a project on which she is working in collaboration with senior administrators in Jammu and Kashmir. Her goal is to engage in reflective action as an educator working with diverse cultural and social groups questioning the exclusivity of cultural nationalism, the erosion of cultural syncretism, the ever-increasing dominance of religious fundamentalism, and the irrational resistance to cultural and linguistic differences. She believes that acknowledging our complicity in oppression, re-conceptualizing paradigmatic structures, and mobilizing cultural and political coalitions are riddled with conflict but it is the need of the day for us to engage in these processes. Her publications include including The Fiction of Nationality in an Era of Transnationalism and Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir: Between India and Pakistan.

Anthropologist, lecturer, community activist and bridge builder, Suzette Chang is the founder and CEO of Thick Descriptions.  Thick Descriptions provides education in science for kids during school breaks, sustainable diversity and inclusion for educators and adults.  She identifies and navigates opportunities to bridge gaps by investing in individuals, organizations, and corporations through cultural intelligence and scientific empowerment. From the perspectives of biology, culture, archaeology and language, Suzette works with like-minded investors to disrupt the false perception that customary beliefs define human beings and is committed to shirting ineffective perspectives of social and scientific understandings within the context of health, culture, language, history and other spaces that influence the quality of human life.

Dr. Schmitt is a Stuart Hall Fellow and Research Associate of English and American Studies within the Cultural Studies Program at the Technische Universität Dortmund in Germany.  He is the author of many publications including British White Trash:  Figurations of Tainted Whiteness and co-editor of Intersections of Whiteness (2019). His research, publications and teaching focus on social abjection, the intersections of race and class and their cultural figurations,  theories of British Cultural Studies and Critical Race/Whiteness Studies.

Dr. Noel Jacobs is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and licensed health service psychologist in the section of General and Community Pediatrics at OU Health Sciences Center, where he serves patients with a range of chronic conditions. Dr. Jacobs has 13 years’ experience teaching and training undergraduates, graduates and postdoctoral trainees in child psychology as well as providing direct services and psychological testing to children and families. He writes in the area of living well and finding whole life regardless of health, and conducts research in the areas of teaching effectiveness and quality of life over time in children with chronic illnesses. Dr. Jacobs currently serves as Vice President of The Interfaith Alliance of Oklahoma and chairs the Beyond Coexistence initiative, the organization's community service program designed to build relationships across differences while volunteers serve the greater OKC area in tangible ways. He is also Program Director for The Respect Diversity Foundation and helps create teaching and learning opportunities for people of all ages, to grow tolerance and respect for others.

Rev. Dickerson is co-founder and executive director of Black Lives Matter-Oklahoma and serves on the national board for the Women’s March.  She serves as a mentor to dynamic young movement leaders, and an extension of her village of powerful women mentors and activist Icons. She sat under the direct tutelage of the late Dr. Maya Angelou and the Legendary Clara Luper who helped develop her spirit of altruism, community service, grassroots organizing, advocacy and creative multitasking.  Sheri’s experience inside the foster care system compels her to give back to young people in foster care systems as a volunteer for CASA, and the One Child at a Time Fostering and Adoption program. Sheri serves as a political consultant and strategist to progressive candidates running for office in Oklahoma with her company Epiphany Consulting. She also is a facilitator and trainer with Partners In Progress LLC, specializing in Diversity and Inclusion trainings. 

Mr. Pérez served as a Senior Assistant District Attorney for Brooklyn, New York, in charge of social and procedural justice policy. He founded Online Racial Justice Training after the murder of George Floyd. The training is aimed at contextualizing racial injustice in history and law for schools, lawyers, and institutes supporting racial justice agendas. He has conducted extensive workshops and lectures promoting training for better equity and diversity decisions within the American justice system. Mr. Pérez teaches courses on law and communities of color at Wesleyan University.

Serena is a community organizer, managing campaigns with United We Dream Network. Her Bachelor of Arts in International and Area Studies and Spanish from the University of Oklahoma together with her Master of Science in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science led her to social justice work. For over 6 years, she has worked with diverse immigrant communities — from refugee resettlement with Catholic Charities to employment-based and temporary visas with the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, and with undocumented and mixed-status families as Executive Director of Dream Action Oklahoma.

Kellie J. Lewis (Pawnee/Kiowa/Wichita) is a citizen of the Pawnee Nation and the owner of Tribal Administrative Services, LLC, and TalkJive Media, located in Oklahoma City. She co-hosts the daily show “Them Damn NDNs”, and moderates the weekly podcasts “Ask A Lawyer,” a public service with Oklahoma Indian Legal Services, Inc. (OILS), “The Crow’s Nest” with Dr. Kevin Crow and “The Isle of Dr. Garneau” with Dr. Chris Garneau, both members of the USAO faculty. She possesses a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy, one of the first to earn a degree in that field from USAO, and a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from the University of Oklahoma. Kellie has experience working with Tribal Environmental, Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and Historic Preservation programs. She has given presentations about the impact of social and internet media in Indian Country and First Amendment issues within Tribal governments to the Oklahoma Indian Bar Association and at the annual Sovereignty Symposium. She coordinates outreach events for OILS to provide no cost legal clinics to Tribal citizens across Indian Country in Oklahoma and serves as a board member of the Pawnee Nation Tribal Development Corporation.

Dr. Cornel Pewewardy (Comanche-Kiowa) is Professor Emeritus, Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University. Dr. Pewewardy’s research explores the theoretical and philosophical foundations of postcolonial Indigenous research paradigms that focused on historical and political insight into the lingering impact of colonization, considering the issues faced by Indigenous peoples today and identities to survive in the twenty-first century. Across his work, Professor Pewewardy seeks to advance policy and practice that address persistent racial and socioeconomic inequities within Indigenous education and reflect the voices and expertise of historically underserved families and communities. From his early work as an educational administrator to more recent work on creating Indigenous charter schools, he focuses on strategies to enhance higher education institution’s connectivity and partnerships with Indigenous nations to advance the education of Indigenous students and explore university-tribal engagement. In addition, he and colleagues have been working closely with teachers and school leaders to construct a progressive model specific to the continuum of consciousness educators experience as they develop their understanding and employment of decolonizing theories and pedagogies.

Presenting the Transformational Indigenous Praxis Model for almost three decades at professional conferences across the U.S., Pewewardy has applied his theoretical model to the work of educational practice, primarily using case studies with Indigenous learners, systems and structures in efforts to nurture Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies in educational settings toward decolonization.