EPET Fall 2020 Brown Bag Series: Professor April E. Lindala

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY & EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY
FALL 2020 BROWN BAG SERIES
PROFESSOR APRIL E. LINDALA
Embodying and Teaching ‘Relational Accountability’ and Indigenous Ways of Knowing: Building Collective Pathways for Native Student Survivance in Higher Education

Abstract: This talk will unpack the terms ‘relational accountability’ stemming from Shawn Wilson (Cree) and ‘survivance’ utilized by Gerald Vizenor (Anishinaabe) as well as center on the meaningfulness of collective pathways in tandem with individual intellectual journeys. Lindala will discuss her collection of observations of working within and around the discipline of Native American Studies as well as share some of the growing pains felt along the way. She will also discuss reflections of programs she has created or been involved with during her time as Director of the NMU Center for Native American Studies; activities that were often designed to foster Native student wellness, growth, emergence, and survivance. Activities include Creating and Learning Art in Native Settings, Reimagine STEM, and the Native American Student Empowerment Initiative.

Bio: April E. Lindala, MFA is a full professor of Native American Studies at Northern Michigan University. She served as the director of the NMU Center for Native American Studies for thirteen and a half years. Under her leadership, the NMU Center for Native American Studies became the first program at Michigan to offer a Native American Studies bachelor’s degree, and core Native American Studies graduate course was included in the Masters of Educational Administration with an American Indian emphasis in which that graduate program received an endorsement by the Tribal Education Departments National Assembly. Professor Lindala has served as the PI or co-PI for
multiple awarded grants from local, state, tribal, and federal entities including two from the National Endowment for the Arts awards, two National Science Foundation awards [INCLUDES pilot – Indigenous Women Working within the Sciences and Collaborative EAGER – Ancestral Knowledge Towards Sustainable Computing], and one from the Office of Victims of Crime [Serving Native Survivors Circle project]. In the summer of 2019, she served as the project coordinator for the Giikaandaasowin Ojibwe village project at Waaswaaganing in which Ojibwe artists mentored and taught community members the steps of making a birch bark canoe. Lindala has worked to support Native American student success in higher education for over 25 years. She also has over twenty years of experience working with tribal nations, tribal educational institutions, and inter-tribal organizations in the Upper Great Lakes Region. She is the host and co-producer of the current weekly program, Anishinaabe Radio News, on WNMU-FM Public Radio 90. She is a powwow dancer, a singer, an artist, and an author. She is currently co-editing an anthology featuring Great Lakes Indigenous voices through MSU press.

For Information on how to join please contact Sharon Hammond!

hammo166@msu.edu