A Brief History

Back in the Fall semester of 1999, then-provost Dick Richardson saw a need: UNC-Chapel Hill, the flagship public university in a state with the largest Indian population east of the Mississippi, had no organized program focused on Indian studies.  So, with the help of Jacki Resnick (then director of UNC’s Proposal Development Initiative), he convened an “exploratory group” of faculty and staff to explore this problem and suggest solutions.  This group met periodically over the next year to discuss ways of building the strength of Indian studies on campus; it also discussed ways of increasing the Indian presence on campus. 

After a number of meetings, it became clear that the group needed a more formal structure, so its members asked provost Richardson to appoint a committee charged with these issues. Richardson agreed in principle, but because he was about to retire, he left it up to his successor, interim provost Dick Edwards, to actually create the committee and appoint its members.  So Edwards created the Provost’s Committee on Native American Issues (PCNAI) in January 2001. Within a few weeks of the committee’s founding, Edwards stepped down to make way for a new provost, Robert Shelton.  And it was during his first week in office that Shelton attended the committee’s inaugural meeting on February 9, 2001.  Remarkably, PCNAI’s birth was not the least bit delayed or derailed by the rapid turnover in administrations; indeed, this was a sign of the university’s commitment to the ideas the committee was founded to promote.

PCNAI’s founding members were deliberately drawn from many different parts of the university community.  They included faculty members Trude Bennett, Michael Green, Valerie Lambert (Choctaw), Theda Perdue, Jacki Resnick, Vin Steponaitis, and Bonnie Yankaskas; staff member Danny Bell (Lumbee-Coharie); and students Rachel Blue (Lumbee) and Brooke Locklear (Lumbee). Vin Steponaitis was appointed chair.  Many of the founding members still serve on the committee, and over the years a number of other members were added: Marcus Collins (Lumbee), Sandra Hoeflich, Kevin Maynor (Lumbee), as well as students Samantha Richardson (Haliwa-Saponi), Derek Oxendine (Lumbee), and Lindsey Smith (Chickasaw).

From the outset, the committee was charged with two roles: (1) to coordinate and support efforts across campus to build programs of teaching, research, and service relevant to American Indians; and (2) to advise the Provost on initiatives to increase the Native American presence on campus, with a focus on recruiting and retaining Indian students, faculty, and staff.  The committee’s activities have contributed, either directly or indirectly, to a number of important achievements:

• creating a permanent staff position in Native American Studies;
• encouraging the Office of Minority Affairs and the Graduate School to improve their programs for recruiting Indian students;
• establishing the Sequoyah Fellowship in the Graduate School;
• organizing a scholarly conference on “New Directions in American Indian Research” in March 2004; and
• creating a web page on Indian programs at UNC-CH. 

Above all, the committee has sought to amplify the Indian voice on campus by consistently  lobbying for programs and initiatives that benefit the Indian community and Indian studies here.

In November of 2004, Vin Steponaitis stepped down as chair of PCNAI and was replaced by co-chairs Michael Green and Danny Bell.  The initial challenge for the new co-chairs was to respond to the desire of Greg Richardson, Executive Director of the North Carolina Commission on Indian Affairs, that UNC develop a training program for tribal leaders.  During discussions about the design of a tribal leadership training program, the idea emerged for an American Indian Center on campus.  The Center could manage the training program and develop other outreach projects as well as continue the effort to improve conditions for Indian students on campus.  The committee -- with members Theda Perdue, Sandra Hoeflich, and Kevin Maynor taking the lead -- in consultation with the Office of the Provost and the Centers and Institutes Review Committee, drafted a series of proposals for a center which was ultimately approved by Provost Robert Shelton on May 23, 2006.

Dr. Bernadette Gray-Little became Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost on July 1, 2006.  Provost Gray-Little formally announced to the public the creation of the center at the American Indian student reception on September 7, 2006.  Coincident with the center announcement, the new provost formally renamed the Provost’s Committee on Native American Issues the Carolina American Indian Center Internal Advisory Committee (AICAC).  Working in concert with the center director, the AICAC has been charged to guide the Center to become the source of significant improvements in public engagement and relationships between UNC and Carolina’s Indian community, and promote collaboration in American Indian academic scholarship and research across campus, the state and beyond.