Overview
The Center for Indigenous Cultural Survival was created as support for individuals and collectives to share and access tools for the preservation of indigenous lifeways. As indigenous peoples, we acknowledge the need to link with others who can offer guidance and share strategies to preserve languages and lifeways that are crucial to the survival of the people, and we accept the responsibility to create new avenues for these discussions to take place. The CICS creates a forum, that goes beyond the scholar-to-scholar communication, and facilitates the transference of knowledge between those from whom our Indigenous cultures emerge as teachers. Offered through an academic setting, the CICS is able therefore, to offer multifaceted learning opportunities. Indigenous peoples face unique challenges in approaching solutions to our own survival. One way we successfully navigate processes, like the educational system, is to build relationships with those who hold previous knowledge and work collectively. Creating time and space for dialogue within indigenous cultural groups strengthens both the individual and the community. Sharing strategies of cultural and gender survival benefits us all by expanding our knowledge and creating relationships of support with one another. This level of communication, that which deals with the depth of the human experience, is not only educational but is also healing. Through the CICS, indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, whose work supports the area of indigenous cultural survival, can access undergraduate and graduate level courses, link with indigenous scholars and cultural specialists, locate unique funding sources to support their work, and begin to create more culturally appropriate and historically accountable representations of our pasts while building a stronger presence of ourselves for the future.
Educational Support
The Center for Indigenous Cultural Survival, through its collaboration with indigenous people and their communities serves to strengthen our knowledge and understanding of the challenges we face as indigenous people. The CICS consists of a staff that is made up entirely of Indigenous people, and an advisory board that is made up of Indigenous and non-indigenous professionals. The vision for the CICS is to work with Indigenous people to support the continuance of our many diverse cultures. The CICS offer two areas of support for Indigenous peoples: scholarship/education; networking/communication. Following is a list of examples of our work:
Scholarship/Education
- Provide a forum for recognition of indigenous scholarly work
- Work with indigenous communities to strengthen internal institutions and support culturally appropriate development
- Provide a model of research for and with indigenous peoples and not on indigenous communities or individuals
- Work with linguistic preservation Networking/Communication
- Strengthen networks of communication between indigenous people globally
- Dialogue and exchange with indigenous peoples globally
- Provide a forum of communication and sharing of knowledge that has proven effective in strengthening one community and may be adapted to the needs of another
Networking / Communication
- Strengthen networks of communication between indigenous people globally.
- Dialogue and exchange with indigenous peoples globally.
- Provide a forum of communication and sharing of knowledge that has proven effective in strengthening one community and may be adapted to the needs of another.
Degree Programs
The Center for Indigenous Cultural Survival is an Educational / Cultural component of the Many Nations Longhouse at the University of Oregon. Reorganized in 1998, it serves as the liaison structure between the Native American Community Longhouse at the University of Oregon and Indigenous communities in the USA and around the globe. The Center is unique in that it is also engaged in collaborative effort with the International Studies Program and other departments at the University of Oregon to offer undergraduate and masters level degrees with a major focus on Indigenous Cultural Survival: Global or in the Americas: The Center also offers an integrated masters degree in collaboration with the graduate school, with a primary focus on Indigenous Cultural Survival and two other supporting areas of study. A global board of professional; and community members dedicated to the strengthening and survival of Native Peoples and creating linkages with Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples advise the Center.
Graduate and Undergraduate degrees in collaboration with the Graduate school and other Programs with a focus on Indigenous Cultural Survival. Supporting Course and Research Areas for Degrees can include:
- Human Rights
- Law
- Development
- Cross-Cultural Communication
- Contemporary Issues
- Environment
- Arts
- Humanities
- Literature
- Public Policy Management
- Education
- History
- Indigenous Economics
- Tribal Management and Sovereignty Issues
- Future Planning
- Ethnicity and Identity
- Relationship to other Ethnic Groups
- Language and Linguistic Survival
- Native Architecture
- Film and Video
- Native Philosophy
Documents/Archives
Please feel free to copy and print these schematics and documents. These documents represent the various roles and areas where the Center for Indigenous Cultural Survival is active and describe our position within the larger University of Oregon framework.
- Document 1 - Organizatioin of Uof0 Native American Initiative
- Document 2 - Partnerships, support areas, and educational program possibilities.
- Document 3 - Describes the educational and professional support/goals for Indigenous peoples globally