AIC Staff

Dr. Clara Sue Kidwell is currently Director of the American Indian Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is an enrolled member of the White Earth Chippewa tribe, and is also of Choctaw descent. She received a B.A. in Letters (1962) and a M.A. and Ph.D. in History of Science (1970) from the University of Oklahoma. Before joining the faculty there in 1995 she served for two years as Assistant Director of Cultural Resources at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution.  Her previous teaching positions include, Associate Professor and Professor of Native American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley (1974-95), Visiting Assistant Professor in Native American Studies at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire (1980), Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota (1972-74), Instructor of Social Sciences at Haskell Indian Junior College in Lawrence, Kansas (1970-72), and Instructor at the Kansas City Art Institute (1968-69). Prior to coming to North Carolina she was director of the Native American Studies program and Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Her publications include Choctaws and Missionaries in Mississippi, 1818-1918 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), A Native American Theology (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2001), co-authored with Homer Noley and George Tinker; Native American Studies (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2005) co-authored with Alan Velie, and The Choctaws in Oklahoma: From Tribe to Nation 1855-1970 (Norman:  University of Oklahoma Press, 2007).

Brandi L. Brooks is a recent graduate of the University of North  Carolina  at

Chapel Hill with a B.A. in Communications Studies (2007).  She is a member

of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and is originally from Laurinburg, NC.  During her undergraduate career she was an active member of various student organizations including the Carolina Leadership Development Program - NC Fellows Class of 2007, UNC Dance Marathon, UNC Ambassadors (Tour Guide), Orange Country Rape Crisis Center, American Indian Science & Engineering Society, and the Carolina Indian Circle. Her desire for developing and coordinating various student and parent programs eventually led to a deep passion for fundraising and event planning.  As a former President of the Carolina Indian Circle, she was appointed to the Provost's Committee on Native American Issues and participated in the creation and development of the American Indian Center.