Core course offers look at Native history

By Kelli Mutchler
Assistant News Editor

As Native American students shape the history of their community by attending Creighton in increasing numbers, the university’s history department is being shaped by Native Americans’ understanding of the past.

A Native American non-Western history course, which will be offered this spring, comes at a time of record enrollment among Native American students at Creighton.

Native American History, or NAS 108, was brought into the core curriculum through efforts by Dr. Tracy Leavelle, assistant professor of history, and the Rev. Raymond Bucko, S.J., professor of sociology and anthropology and director of the Native American Studies program.

Once a course in the Native American Studies major, the redesigned history course was proposed to the core curriculum board last spring and accepted as a history course.

Bucko and Leavelle hope that making the class into a core option will not only get more students interested in the subject and involved in the major, but will also offer a very different perspective of the history of North America.

“We simply assume Native Americans are part of our cultural experience, but their culture is unique and distinct, and that’s why this class is important — it recognizes that,” Bucko said.

Because Native Americans are not always geographically separate from a Western understanding of history, Bucko said people consider the two different understandings to be one version of history. But it is only in the past 400 years that Native American history has become intertwined with Western history.

Leavelle, who will teach the course this spring, plans to cover a broad overview of Native American history, from ancient times to the present.

Topics will include the way Native American people explain their origins, various oral traditions, Native American responses to colonization and the development of the United States and more contemporary issues.

“The purpose of the class is always to provide a Native perspective on this history, not just an outside, European perspective,” Leavelle said.

To accent this perspective, Leavelle said he will use many primary resources, such as Aztec writings and first-hand accounts from Native activists in the ’60s and ’70s.

Leavelle, who came to Creighton three years ago with the idea of teaching a Native American history class, said he also will deal with regional issues and regional Native American history.

He said it is important to adapt any class to the location at which it is being taught.

Bucko, who sees Omaha as the heart of Native American country, agrees. He said the history class will help students understand their experience in this area of the Midwest.

Though Leavelle said the course material may be challenging because it covers racial, ethical and violent issues on a massive scale, he looks forward to teaching it.

He said that while Native American students may find the history difficult to deal with, and non-Native students may find the history uncomfortable, he thinks they will also find an exciting and relevant history. Leavelle considers it important that he and the class become resources for Native American students at Creighton.

“This history isn’t over. Native communities across the United States and elsewhere face increased challenges and yet they’re amazingly strong and resilient communities. We need to understand this is a history that didn’t end in the 1900s,” Leavelle said.

Colleges and universities are facing a common challenge: keeping students from Native American communities in school until graduation.

Don Bishop, associate vice president for Enrollment Management, said the retention rate among Native Americans is currently a national issue.

He said schools that admit Native Americans need to pay more attention to providing the support structures those students need, which is something Creighton has tried to promote.

Among the 28 Jesuit universities, Creighton has the highest percentage of Native American students, Bishop said. It also has one of the highest enrollments of Native American students per capita of all private universities in the nation.

Although the numbers themselves look small — there are currently 14 Native American students in a freshman class of 972 — Bishop emphasized that it is also important to take into account how many Native American students applied, how many of those applications were incomplete and how many students will return sophomore year.

“The issue is not how many freshmen you enroll, but how many will you graduate?” Bishop said.

He said part of the struggle to keep Native American students enrolled stems from their strong cultural ties to families. When something happens at home, many students leave and return to their families.

But Bishop said many people at Creighton have focused on such Native American issues, and, from an admissions standpoint, have a stated priority to increase Native American enrollment.

This continuing interaction is something that dates back to relations between the Jesuits and Native Americans in the 1600s, Bucko said.

“It’s essential to our tradition, and Creighton maintains that,” he said.

For more information about when NAS 108 is offered, visit www.creighton.edu/registrar. For more information about the Native American Studies program, visit www.puffin.creighton.edu/NAS.