Advisory Committee

Brenda Child, Ph.D. (Red Lake Ojibwe), Northrup Professor and Chair, Department of American Studies, University of Minnesota

Dr. Child is the author of several award winning books including Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940 (Nebraska, 1998); Holding Our World Together: Ojibwe Women and the Survival of Community (Penguin, 2012); and My Grandfather’s Knocking Sticks: Ojibwe Family Life and Labor on the Reservation (MHS Press, 2014). Her scholarship focuses on gender, labor, and family life in the Great Lakes and the history of Indigenous education.

Jon Reyhner, Ed.D., Professor of Education, Department of Educational Specialties, Northern Arizona University (1995- )

Dr. Reyhner taught junior high school for four years in the Navajo Nation and was a school administrator for ten years in Indian schools in Arizona, Montana, and New Mexico. He served as a commissioned author for the U.S. Government’s Indian Nations at Risk Task Force and has written extensively on American Indian education and Indigenous language revitalization, including co-authoring Language and Literacy Teaching for Indigenous Education and American Indian education: A History. He co-chaired the Fourth and Eighth Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposia at Northern Arizona University in 1997 and 2001 and currently coordinates the Symposia Steering Committee. He has also edited a column on issues in Indigenous education for the magazine of the National Association for Bilingual Education since 1990. He currently maintains the website Teaching Indigenous Languages with links to full text on-line copies of his co-edited books, including Honoring Our Teachers (2017) and Honoring Our Elders (2015).

Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert, Ph.D. (Hopi), Professor and Director of American Indian Studies, Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Dr. Gilbert is enrolled with the Hopi Tribe from the village of Upper Munqapi. A scholar of Native American history and the history of the American West, he has published extensively on the Hopi boarding school experience and the history of Hopi long distance running. Prior to his current post at UA, he served as Professor and Director of the American Indian Studies Program and Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Charles M. Roessel, Ed.D. (Diné), President, Diné College

“Dr. Roessel is the former Director of the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) where he oversaw 183 K-12 schools and two Tribal Colleges and Universities. As the Director, Dr. Roessel spearheaded a $1 billion reform and reorganization effort that focused on tribal sovereignty, self-determination and self-governance as a cornerstone of school improvement. During his tenure, the bureau increased its budget by $143 million. Prior to his work at the BIE, Dr. Roessel served as the Superintendent of Rough Rock Community School where he implemented a Navajo Language Immersion program, improved the financial operations, and secured $56 million in funding that resulted in the construction of a new elementary school, dormitories and renovation of the high school. He is a former Adjunct Instructor at Diné College, an award-winning author and an appointed member for the editorial board of the Journal of American Indian Education.”
-Native News Online

K. Tsianina Lomawaima, Ph.D. (Mvskoke/Creek Nation, not enrolled), Distinguished Scholar of Indigenous Education, Center for Indian Education, and Professor in the School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University

Dr. Lomawaima is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Education. Her scholarship on the federal off-reservation boarding school system is rooted in the experiences of her father, Curtis Thorpe Carr, a survivor of Chilocco Indian Agricultural School in Oklahoma, where he was enrolled from 1927 to 1935. Her books include To Remain an Indian: Lessons for democracy from a century of Native American education (2006); Uneven ground: American Indian sovereignty and federal law (2001; with David E. Wilkins); Away from home: American Indian boarding school Experiences (2000; co-edited with Margaret Archuleta and Brenda Child); and They called it Prairie Light: The story of Chilocco Indian School (1994).

Patty Talahongva (Hopi), Curator, Phoenix Indian School Visitor Center and Phoenix Indian School alumna

Patty Talahongva was entering her junior year of high school when she was sent to live at the Phoenix Indian School. While there she began her career as a journalist, writing for the Phoenix Gazette’s Teen Gazette newspaper. She covered stories about life at the boarding school, education and extracurricular activities. She has worked in television news, radio and print as well as producing a number of documentaries. Most recently she helped renovate the former elementary school building at Phoenix Indian, which is now part of a city park. The project led by Native American Connections turned the vacated building into the Phoenix Indian School Visitor Center. Patty was the curator until recently. Ironically, she was working at the site of her old boarding school when she landed the position of executive producer of Indian Country Today, once again leading her into the world of journalism.

Away From Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories is made possible by:

Generous support provided in memory of Alice Brown Fleet (Creek/Seminole/Cherokee)
National Endowment for the Humanities
Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust

thin banner of photographs of the inside of the Boarding School exhibition