indigenous

Students are invited to respond to the critical need of developing a culturally responsive fundraising strategy for the Barbie’s Village tiny home project with a local nonprofit, The Future Generations Collaborative. Students will learn more about the county's ninth largest urban Native population, and the impact colonization has had on the community, specifically access to housing.

Curriculum and Material Development for Heritage/Indigenous Language (INDIGENOUS LANG ACTIVISM) 

The goal of this course is to give students a solid background in historical and societal issues that influence language diversity through hands-on collaboration with current language sustainability efforts. This capstone partners with endangered language communities in the Northwest (tribal language programs in general and the Warm Springs Tribal Language Program, specifically) to work together to support those programs by giving students “on-the-ground” skills to accompany class studies. Capstone students will develop language and/or pedagogical materials that will support the endangered language programs/teachers in their work to offer language classes in their communities. General class instruction will be exclusively online or hybrid and those students who can meet at the PSU campus may be able to participate in a visit to the language communities to increase students’ practical understanding of the language and community issues for their final work. All students who are interested in Indigenous and/or language activism are welcome to this capstone (regardless of any prior familiarity with Indigenous languages or history), and especially those who are interested in supporting our community partner’s fund-raising efforts and curriculum/teaching activities.  Students in this capstone are strongly encouraged, as a class goal, to foster a healthy online community and collaborate with peers through group work. Members from our community partner and other guest speakers will also join online (likely using Zoom), and other online meeting times will be determined by class and community participants’ availability and schedule.

Mentoring & Empowerment at NAYA

This class is an opportunity to explore hands-on the complexity surrounding education, equity, and empowerment, with a specific focus on collaborative peer mentoring, which often includes academic tutoring. Our community partner is the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA). At NAYA, students will have the opportunity to interact with bright youth from diverse cultures and work with them on improving their academics and future prospects.