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NHCC’s Third Annual Earth Week April 23 – 28, 2012 • Indigenous Peoples and the Land
North Hennepin Community College will celebrate its third annual Earth Week from April 23-28, an exciting program of events and speakers to educate the campus and wider community about Indigenous Peoples and the Land.
We chose this year’s theme to honor the sesquicentennial of the 1862 US-Dakota war, promote healing and understanding among native and non-native communities, and to highlight Indigenous Peoples from around the world who feel a deep connection to their land.
This program is sponsored by NHCC’s Earth Week team, Pow Wow Committee, Sustainability Council, Diversity Council, English Department, Trust and Respect, Admissions and Outreach, the Office of Diversity & Multiculturalism, Service Learning and a MNSCU Office of Multiculturalism and Diversity Grant.
Our program opens and closes with community collaborations with Brooklyn Center’s EarthFest and the Osseo Public School District’s American Indian Education Program. All events are free and open to the public. For more information about NHCC’s 2012 Earth Week Program, please contact Ana Davis at ana.davis@nhcc.edu or 763-424-0961, or Don Wendel at dwendel@nhcc.edu or 763-488-0265.
Saturday, April 14, Brooklyn Center, EarthFest 2012 12:00 – 4:00 pm at Brooklyn Center High School, 6500 Humboldt Ave N, Brooklyn Center, MN NHCC is proud to support Brooklyn’s Center’s 2012 EarthFest - celebrating the earth, bringing together community, building awareness and inspiring change. Join us for a fun, family-friendly and educational celebration of Earth Day with 80 booths, exhibits and activities, including Arctic explorer Will Steger’s keynote at 12 noon.
Monday, April 23 – Friday, April 27, Why Treaties Matter: Self-Government in the Dakota and Ojibwe Nations: A Traveling Exhibit NHCC is proud to host this traveling exhibit that explores the relationship between Dakota and Ojibwe Indian Nations and the U.S. government in this place we now call Minnesota. Through a video presentation and 20 banners featuring text and images, visitors will lean how treaties affected the lands and lifeways of the indigenous peoples of this place, and why these binding agreements between nations still matter today.
Monday, April 23 – Friday, April 27th Indigenous Food at Taher Café, NHCC Campus Center
Monday, April 23 Mni Sota: Telling the Land from a Dakota Perspective 10:00 – 10:50 am CC 206
The loss of Mni Sota, the homeland of the Dakota Nation, had a devastating impact. Ramona Kitto Stately, enrolled member of the Santee Sioux Nation, weaves a personal story of the exile of her family from Minnesota while exploring the importance of land from a Dakota perspective and a historical narrative that has been left out of the mainstream consciousness.
Earth Week Opening & Welcome 11:00 – 11:30 am Fine Arts Theater
President John O’Brien, Annamarie Hill Kleinhans, Executive Director of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, Ramona Kitto Stately, American Indian Education Specialist for ISD 279 and NHCC students Cherno Jome and Sabrina Yang open our Earth Week 2012 program. This welcome will be followed by a live performance by the Messiah’s Men, Liberian Gospel & Cappella Choir, www.messiahsmen.com. Messiah's Men share their love for God, their passion for life and helping others through their powerful and captivating music. Their goals are also to create awareness of the plight in Liberia and to reach out to the less fortunate in Africa and around the world.
Diane Wilson – A Reading 2:00 – 3:30 pm CLA 120
Diane Wilson is a creative nonfiction writer. Her essays and memoir use personal experience to illustrate broader social and historical context. Diane will read from Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past, winner of the 2006 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir, Autobiography, and Creative Nonfiction and her second book, Beloved Child: A Dakota Way of Life. Diane currently works for Dream of Wild Health, a Native owned 10-acre farm in Hugo, Minnesota..
Encounters of the Reptile Kind with Dan Nedrelo 4:00 – 5:15 pm CLA 135
Come and meet live alligators and a 14-foot python brought to us by Dan Nedrelo‘s herpetology program. Dan will use his 25 years of experience to explain the natural history of Minnesota's reptiles and amphibians. People squeamish about these creatures are especially invited to this event as Dan will help us overcome irrational fears and understand animal behavior.
Tuesday, April 24, Dr. Anton Treuer: Indigenous Language, Culture and the Land: Making the Connection 9:30 – 10:45 am CLA 120
Dr. Anton Treuer will discuss the interconnections between indigenous languages, culture and the land, with a focus on the Indigenous Peoples of Minnesota. Dr. Treuer will explore contemporary treaty issues of the Ojibwe and Dakota people.
Terry Janis: Why Treaties Matter 1:00 – 2:00 pm CLA 120
Terry Janis of the Indian Land Tenure Foundation will explore the fundamental relationship between American Indian nations, the US government and state governments. We will challenge our assumptions about sovereignty at all levels and explore the idea of a right to exist as a nation of peoples.
Live Raptor Presentation 2:00 – 3:00 pm CLA 141
The Raptor Rehabilitation Center is dedicated to restoring injured raptors to the wild. The Center’s program discusses each bird’s adaptive capabilities that help it survive and includes live raptors - owls, hawks, and eagles - that have been restored to health but are still too handicapped to return to the wild. Come early and get a seat for a close up view of the birds.
Living a Good Life and Creating a Just, Healthy Earth: An Introduction to Sustainability and the Natural Step Framework 6:30 – 8:00 pm CLA 114
Join Terry Gips, President of The Alliance for Sustainability for an inspiring, interactive introductory look at a powerful, proven educational approach to sustainability called the Natural Step Framework (NSF). Participants will learn how sustainability and the NSF can be effectively utilized, along with simple, practical steps to save money, time, health and the environment. Participants will gain a positive, new perspective and see how we can create a sustainable future.
Wednesday April 25 Green Fair 10:00am – 1:00 pm Campus Center
Sustainability Festival showcasing local green and sustainable businesses and organizations Student Celebration Day Campus-wide events honoring student work.
Building Green: Tim Eian 10:00 – 11:00 am CLA 133
Thinking about building or remodeling a home, or want to know more about energy efficient technology to reduce your carbon footprint as well as your heating and cooling bills? Tim Eian has focused his architectural skills on incorporating the latest technology in energy efficient new and remodeled homes, which use a tiny fraction of most houses.
Chase Manhattan 11:30 am – 1:00 pm Campus Center
Live performance from NAMMY winning Minneapolis Native Hip Hop Rap artist Chase Manhattan
The Amazing Honeybee 1:00 – 2:00 pm CLA 134
Minnesota Hobby Beekeepers Association President Terry McDaniel will enlighten and inform about the amazing honeybee colony as a working organism. Terry will discuss the importance of pollination and our reliance on honeybees for a third of our food supply, colony collapse disorder (CCD), and the impact of monoagriculture, pesticides and herbicides on honeybee health.
Film Screening: The Dakota 38 2 – 3.40 pm CLA 118
In the spring of 2005, Jim Miller awoke from a dream in which 38 of his Dakota ancestors were hanged. At the time, Jim knew nothing of the largest mass execution in United States history ordered by Abraham Lincoln on December 26, 1862. Four years later, Jim and a group of riders decide to retrace the 330-mile route of his dream on horseback across the great plains to arrive at the hanging site in Mankato, Minnesota on the anniversary of the execution. This is the story of their journey- the blizzards they endure, the communities that house and feed them along the way, and the dark history they are beginning to wipe away.
The Politics of Wild Rice 4:00 – 5:15 pm CLA 120
Join our panel of experts for a lively discussion of the scientific, cultural and legal aspects of wild ricing, particularly the threat to wild rice beds because of degraded water quality. Paula Macabbee, lawyer for Water Legacy, speaks on the legal restrictions for maintaining water quality. Nancy Schuldt developed the Fond du Lac Tribe’s water quality monitoring program and has conducted investigations related to restoring Reservation waters. Robert Desjarlait, a Red Lake Ojibwe-Anishinabe painter/Native historian and educator, talks about the cultural value Native Americans place on wild rice.
Thursday April 26 An American Indian Perspective 9:30 – 10:45 am CLA 116
John Bobolink and Norman Benson will take us on a walk through history from an American Indian Perspective, to where we are today. Norman is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes Mandan, Hidatsa, & Arikira, has worked for 29 years in Chemical-use prevention and education, and has been at the Saint Paul Public Schools Indian Education Program for the past 14 years. John is an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Indian Reservation, has worked in education for the past 20 years; the past 10 at the SPPS Indian Education Program.
Creating a Sustainable Community Summit 11:00 am -12:30 pm Atrium
NHCC Honors Seminar students will lead an Appreciative Inquiry summit to explore how we experience community at NHCC. The purpose is to identify the strengths of our diversity and generate ways that enhance the sense of belonging and experience of sustainable community.
Art and the Spirit of the Land 12.30 – 1.45 CLA 146
Ramona Kitto Stately, Dakota moccasin maker, Douglas K. Limon, Oneida bead worker, Gordon Coons, Ojibwe painter and Peter L. Johnson, Mississippi River artist, will discuss their art and its connection to culture and the environment during this interactive discussion and exhibit.
Wolves – By the International Wolf Center 2:00 – 3:00 pm CLA 141
The presence of the wolf in an ecosystem helps preserve the health of that system. Nancy Gibson, co-founder of the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minnesota, will discuss the life of wolves and how their populations will decrease if a legal hunting season is instituted.
Film Screening of The Garden 6:30 – 8:00 pm CLA 120
From the ashes of the L.A. riots arose a lush, 14-acre community garden, the largest of its kind in the United States. Now bulldozers threaten its future. Join us for this award-winning documentary, which explores the power of community versus corporate greed.
Friday, April 27 Ojibwe Elder Nick Hockings’ American Indian Culture Program 10:00 – 12:00 pm Fine Arts Theater
Nick Hockings, Ojibwe elder and founder of award-winning Waswagoning Indian Village will lead an interactive American Indian cultural education program with traditional dance and drum prior to NHCC’s collaborative Wacipi with Osseo’s Indian Education Program. Nick is a member of the Lac Du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe Indians. He is a traditional pipe carrier, and is a certified teacher of the Ojibwe language and culture.
Pipestone Drum Group & Traditional American Indian Feast 12:00 – 2:00 pm Campus Center
Join us for traditional American Indian drum and dance, music by NAMMY winners “Best Group” Pipestone, traditional dancing by students of Osseo’s American Indian Education Program and a free feast.
Spring Choral Concert: Music of the World 7:30 – 9:30 pm Fine Arts Theater
Saturday, April 28, Osseo 17th Annual Wacipi and Indian Education Day co-hosted by NHCC 1:00 – 6:00 pm at Osseo Junior High School, 10223 93rd Avenue North in Osseo
Doors open at noon. Join us for Osseo Indian Education program’s Wacipi, co-hosted by NHCC – a uniting of communities through education and celebration. Enjoy artisan exhibits, demonstrations, and Native American dance, and experience our continent’s rich indigenous history by visiting with educators and community members whose task is to infuse Native American education and culture into all subject areas.
