麻豆传媒

News — When Denise Bates was working on her first book, The Other Movement: Indian Rights and Civil Rights in the Deep South, and the subsequent ones that followed, she had in-depth conversations with Indigenous leaders, who had many lessons to share from their experiences. 

One was Ernest Sickey, chairman of the Coushatta Tribe and first executive director of the Office of Indian Affairs in Louisiana, with whom she worked for many years. “I had this sense that there’s so much to share here that’s beyond just the history,” says Bates, professor of history and dean of University College. 

“Mr. Sickey and I used to discuss what it would look like to take some of the collective wisdom of longtime tribal leaders like himself and develop a program for emerging Indigenous leaders,” she says. “While times may have changed since Sickey and his contemporaries led their communities through hard times, their experiences and approaches remain relevant.”

Fast forward a number of years, and Bates developed the curriculum for the Indigenous Leadership Academy within the American Indian Policy Institute at Arizona State University (ASU), where she was based at the time, to help program participants learn strategies to become leaders within their communities throughout the United States. 

“People have these big ideas, have a passion to do something or to change something, but unless you have the tools with which to make those changes, it’s more difficult,” says Bates. “That’s the goal of the program, to provide the tools.”

Now the  is being offered jointly by ASU and Tufts’ , with the support of the Office of the Vice Provost for Inclusive Excellence, starting in January 2025. While the program is national in scope, with the new partnership, it hopes to attract more participants from the East Coast, and in particular New England.

Vernon Miller, director of the , will co-facilitate the program. “He’s got a lot of leadership experience he’s bringing to the table,” says Bates. Prior to coming to Tufts, Miller was a chairman of the Omaha Tribal Council, a member of the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Association, and president of the Omaha Nation Public Schools Board of Education on the Omaha Indian Reservation, among other positions.

“The most important factor for me as a former tribal leader is being able to have that lens as a teacher to help the participants,” says Miller.

The 10-module program, offered mostly online with an in-person component, includes lessons about everything from leadership and tribal sovereignty to valuing Indigenous knowledge and fostering collaboration.

The first module, for example, examines the history of Indigenous leadership practices. “What did that look like for our communities prior to colonization, of Western notions of how leadership should be?” says Miller. 

Many tribal communities traditionally had a number of chiefs, but the U.S. government only wanted to deal with one leader. Because of that, tribes had to change their traditions and elect a single leader, now variously called chairman, principal chief, president, or governor. 

Another lesson is how Indigenous communities “can engage in a way that we’re advocating for our issues,” he says. “As a sovereign nation, we’re not working with the county or state government, we’re working directly with the federal government.”

Getting the Word Out

As of this fall, the Indigenous Leadership Academy, which offered its first program in spring 2022, has had 133 participants representing 63 tribal nations from 28 states and the District of Columbia. The participants’ response to the program has been very positive, says Bates, who is now on the advisory board of the American Indian Policy Institute at ASU. 

The benefits are not just the lessons learned—“the fundamental core skills that one needs to be a leader in any context,” says Bates—but also the bonds created within each cohort and with alumni of the program. “They have a very vibrant LinkedIn group, so that if you’re part of a current cohort or an alum, you’re part of this larger group,” she says. “Many of the program’s graduates have become elected leaders in their tribal communities or hold prominent positions in Native-serving organizations. They have really grown into a force and are very much supportive of each other.”

With the new partnership with Tufts, the program leaders are hoping to diversify its geographic reach, spurred by targeted recruitment on the East Coast. 

“I’m excited,” says Miller. “I think it’s a great way for Indian Country, which is how we refer to Native people within the U.S., to really understand Tufts and the direction we’re going in with leadership development. I also think this is a great opportunity to further establish Tufts in the realm of providing opportunities for Indigenous people.”

The  period for the next session of the Indigenous Leadership Academy, which runs January 4 through March 10, 2025, is open through December 13. All applicants are automatically considered for scholarships.