EARTH DAY CONFERENCE
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
APRIL 19-22, 2007
PHOTOS AND BIOGRAPHIES
OF CONFERENCE PRESENTERS
AND ORGANIZERS
Unless otherwise noted, all photos courtesy of Phil Handrick,
Director of the Canadian Studies Center, MSU
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| Cathy Abramson |
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Cathy Abramson received her Associates degree from Lake Superior State University in Executive Secretary Studies in 1976. Following a hiatus to be a full-time mother, she returned to Lake State as a non-traditional student, and graduated in 1994 with a B.S. in Business Administration-Marketing.
After her graduation, she worked for the Sault Tribe Education Division, as Program Administrator of the Johnson O’Malley Program, and as Program Director of the Youth Education & Activities Program. She was elected to the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians’ Tribal Council in 2004 as a Representative of Unit I.
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| Phil Bellfy |
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Phil Bellfy is an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Minnesota Chippewa. He's an Associate Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University. He's a Founding Member of MSU's American Indian Studies Center and serves on the Advisory Board of MSU's Canadian Studies Centre. He also serves as Faculty Advisor to the MSU Chapter of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES). He is an AISES Sequoyah Fellow.
His manuscript, Three Fires Unity: The Anishnaabeg of the Lake Huron Borderlands, won the University of Nebraska's North American Indian Prose Award for 2003. As Co-director of the Center for the Study of Indigenous Border Issues, Phil organized this year's conference.
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| Ellen Brown |
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Ellen Brown is currently completing the first year of her Masters degree in Anthropology at the University of Western Ontario.
Her thesis will examine the anthropological issue of identity in the cultural and political borderlands of the Great Lakes region from the late-18th century to the mid-19th century. Specifically, she will be focusing on the Ironside family and how father, son, and family negotiated their identity in the region.
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| Ward Churchill |
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Ward Churchill (Keetoowah Band Cherokee) is one of the most outspoken of Native American activists and scholars in North America and a leading analyst of indigenous issues. He is a Professor of Ethnic Studies and Coordinator of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado. He is also a member fo the Leadership Council of the Colorado chapter of the American Indian Movement.
Churchill's many books include Marxism and Native Americans, Fantasies of the Master Race, Struggle for the Land, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, From A Native Son, Critical Issues in Native North America, The COINTELPRO Papers, Indians R Us?, Agents of Repression, Since Predator Came, and A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas.
In his lectures and numerous published works, Churchill explores the themes of genocide in the Americas, racism, historical and legal (re)interpretation of conquest and colonization, environmental destruction of Indian lands, government repression of political movements, literary and cinematic criticism, and Indigenist alternatives to the status quo.
Churchill is also a past national spokesperson for the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, has served as a delegate to the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations (as a Justice/Rapporteur for the for the 1993 International People's Tribunal on the Rights of Indigenous Hawaiians), and as an advocate/prosecutor of the First Nations International Tribunal for the Chiefs of Ontario.
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| David Close |
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David Close is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon. He's currently a PhD candidate in Fisheries Science in the Department of Fish and Wildlife here at Michigan State University.
David has been working in fisheries since 1988, and is currently a Fisheries Research Scientist for his Tribe. He has developed leading projects aimed at restoration of Tribal fisheries in the Pacific Northwest.
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| Regna Darnell |
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Dr. Darnell’s research with the First Nations (Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking) peoples of Southwestern Ontario, Canada focuses on building bridges between indigenous knowledges concerning human health, the natural world and the spiritual relations of human persons within it, and the usually discrete academic disciplines consolidating Western knowledge of similar phenomena.
Dr. Darnell is Distinguished Professor and founding director of the First Nations Studies Program at the University of Western Ontario. She has worked with Algonquian and Iroquoian languages and cultures for nearly four decades.
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| Aimee Cree Dunn |
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Aimée Cree Dunn, a lifelong resident of the northern Great Lakes area, is currently an adjunct instructor for Northern Michigan University's Center for Native American Studies and Department of English.
Her teaching and research emphasize a connection to place, the international Indigenous experience, rural perspectives and traditional ecological knowledge. Although there is no group officially recognized as such, she considers herself Northwoods Metís.
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| Frank Ettawageshik -- Chairman of the Little Traverse Bay Band of Ottawa Indians |
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| Frank Ettawageshik lives in Harbor Springs, Michigan, with his wife, Rochelle. They have four adult children and two grandchildren. An Odawa (Ottawa) Indian from northern Lower Michigan, he grew up in Harbor Springs, on Little Traverse Bay, in the Odawa homeland of Waganakising (the Crooked Tree). He opened Pipigwa Pottery & Gallery in 1974 in Traverse City, Michigan. In 1989 Frank was elected to the board of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (LTBB) where he served as Vice-Chairman until April of 1991, then as Tribal Chairman through July of 1999 where he represented LTBB in its dealings with the State of Michigan, the United States, and other Tribes. He provided leadership in the passage of reaffirmation legislation by the United States Congress for Federal recognition of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. Frank was Chairman of the Tribe’s Economic Development Commission from 2002-2003. In 2002, Frank became a founding partner in Michigan Tribal Advocates (MTA), established to advocate for tribal governments to the State of Michigan. When he was reelected Chairman of the Tribal Council in July of 2003, he relinquished his role in MTA.
Frank was elected Chairman of the LTBB’s Executive Branch in 2005 under the Tribe’ new Constitution which separates the powers of the Legislative (Tribal Council) from the Executive (Chair and Vice-chair). He also currently serves as a Board Member of the Michigan Indian Education Council, the Crooked Tree Arts Center, Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority, Great Lakes Resources Committee, the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, the Little Traverse Conservancy, and sits on the Board of Advisors for the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C., and is a Research Associate for the Michigan State University Museum. As an artist and owner of Pipigwa Pottery, and through much research, Frank has worked to revive the making of traditional Indian pottery in the Great Lakes area, and through giving lectures, trainings and workshops throughout Michigan. In addition to creating pottery, Frank is a storyteller following the tradition passed down from his father.
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| Rick Fehr |
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Rick Fehr is a Ph.D. Candidate in Environmental Studies, York University, Toronto.
Originally from Wallaceburg Ontario, Rick's research focuses on the Environmental History of Walpole Island and the surrounding area. With an emphasis on resistance to colonization, Rick's research seeks to destabilize historical narratives that often reaffirm colonial power structures.
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| Joel Geffen |
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Joel Geffen worked as a forester for the U.S. Forest Service, and later as a forest archaeologist and land-use historian for the Yakama Nation, before receiving a doctorate in Religious Studies from UC Santa Barbara. He is working on a second doctorate in Geography at UCLA.
His areas of specialization are American ideas of nature and contemporary Native American issues. He has written about the values held by fish and wildlife biologists, the role of religious and spiritual beliefs in resource management, and Native American views of ecological restoration and species protection.
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| Susan Gray |
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Susan Gray is Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University and co-editor of Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. She is completing a multi-generational biography of a mixed-race family entitled, Lines of Descent: Family Stories from the North Country.
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| Karl Hele |
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Karl Hele is the Director of First Nations Studies, University of Western Ontario, and a Co-director of the Center for the Study of Indigenous Border Issues. Born in Sault Ste. Marie, Karl is a member of the Garden River First Nation community of the Anishinabeg people, and educated at schools in Sault Ste. Marie.
He has earned a B.A. (Waterloo) in 1993, a M.A. (Toronto) in 1994, and a Ph.D. (McGill) in 2003. His dissertation examined the Ojibwa encounter with nineteenth-century missionaries to Sault Ste. Marie. Karl continues to work on topics that interest him, personally, but also are of interest to the Bawating Ojibwa community, as well.
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| Joyce King -- Director of the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force |
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| Joyce King is known as Tekahnawiiaks (Deh-gunna-wee-yuks). She is from the Mohawk Nation, Turtle Clan and a lifetime resident of the Mohawk Territory at Akwesasne. She has the experience of working with all three Mohawk governments in Akwesasne: the Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs (Traditional council under the Haudenosaunee Confederacy); St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council (American elected council), the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne (Canadian elected council). During her employment with the MNCC she served as Managing Editor for Indian Time newspaper and managed the Akwesasne Notes Bookstore.
In 1989, Joyce received an Order in Council as a 107 Justice of Peace (a Federal Canadian appointment). In 2001, Joyce became the Cultural Researcher for the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force, which is mandated by the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy to protect and restore the environment. Two years later, she successfully became the Acting Director and two years later, the HETF Co-Chairs, Oren Lyons (Onondaga Nation, Political Co-Chair) and F. Henry Lickers (Seneca Nation, Scientific Co-Chair) appointed her as the HETF Director.
Joyce Tekahnawiiaks King is a Mohawk Educator and lectures throughout North America and had the opportunity to present in Japan. She also was part of a documentary film in Germany with three other Native Americans. Tekahnawiiaks is a supporter of the Akwesasne Freedom School and traditional teachings. As well, she is a certified New York State mediator.
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| Maria Maybee |
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| Ms. Maybee is a member of the Seneca Nation of Indians born into the Heron Clan. She lives on the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation along the last 25 miles of the Cattaraugus Creek which feeds into Lake Erie, 30 miles south of Buffalo. Her driving force is family, as she works toward healthy resources for all future generations to practice cultural sustenance, medicinal and spiritual traditions.
Ms. Maybee currently is a board member of Great Lakes United; she has facilitated the New York hub of the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, and established the Indigenous Peoples hub; coordinated United States volunteers for Canadian Bird Studies Great Lakes Marsh Monitoring Program. Previously she interned with Seneca Nation of Indians Environmental Protection Department working on a study to determine current levels of exposure to tribal members from the West Valley Nuclear Facility and participated in the creation of a documentary on the same issue. Currently she is a member of the Cattaraugus Creek Task Force, focusing on many issues ranging from nuclear waste, superfund sites, gravel mining, to municipal landfills and municipal waste water.
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| Deb McGregor |
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For over fifteen years, Deb has been an educator and trainer at both the university and community levels and has been involved in curriculum development, research and teaching. Her focus is on Indigenous knowledge in relation to the environment.
Currently, Dr. McGregor is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, with a cross-appointment in Geography and Aboriginal Studies. She has taught various courses on Indigenous Knowledge as part of this Aboriginal Studies Program.
In addition, she is also employed as an Aboriginal Relations/Senior Policy Advisor for Environment Canada.
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| David McNab (Image from York University) |
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David T. McNab is a Professor of Native Studies at York University. He received his PhD from the University of Lancaster for his doctoral dissertation on Herman Merivale (1806-1974) and the British Empire in 1978. His research interests include Aboriginal history and literature, Aboriginal land and treaty rights, British imperial history, Canadian history, and Ontario history. Professor McNab has written widely on these topics.
Professor McNab also serves as an advisor on land and treaty rights and governance issues for a number of First Nations and other Aboriginal organizations in Ontario and Newfoundland.
Although he was unable to attend this conference, David is included here as he is a Co-director of the Center for the Study of Indigenous Border Issues.
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| Paula Mohan |
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Paula teaches ethnic studies at University of Wisconsin, Whitewater. Her primary research is concerned state-tribal relations with a special focus on shared decision-making on environmental issues and resource management.
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| María Cristina Manzano Munguía |
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| María Cristina Manzano Munguía |
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Maria was born in Puebla, México. Her indigenous background and need to understand the oppression, poverty and assimilation towards Indigenous peoples led her to pursue her interests in socio-cultural anthropology since 1990. She holds an undergraduate degree from the Universidad de las Américas-Puebla, México (1995), and an M.A. degree in cultural anthropology from the University of Guelph, in Ontario (2002).
She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the department of Anthropology at the University of Western Ontario. Her doctoral research explores issues related to state projects, Native non-government organizations, Aboriginal leaders, and the Native community dwelling in London, Ontario.
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| Maaganiit Noori |
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Maaganiit Noori received her PhD in English and Linguistics from the University of Minnesota. Her work primarily focuses on the recovery and maintenance of Anishinaabe language and literature. She also holds an MFA in Creative Writing and is an active member of the Native American Journalist Association.
She is a regular facilitator at language conferences and is Chair of the 14th Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium. She also serves as current Chair of the Indigenous Languages Sub-Committee for the Association for the Study of America Indian Literatures.
Most importantly, she is a part of a busy and happy household in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which includes her husband Asmat, and daughters Shannon and Fionna.
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| Aaron Payment -- Chairman, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians |
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After serving eight years on the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indian Tribal Council, Aaron Payment was elected to the position of Chairman in 2004. A Sault Tribe member, Aaron also has historic ties to the Garden River First Nation and the Little Travese Bay Band of Ottawa Indians.
Aaron holds a Masters degree in Public Administration from Michigan State University. Before being elected to the Trbal Council, he taught at Lake Superior State University in their Native Studies Program.
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| Ken Poff |
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Ken Poff is a member of the faculty in the Department of Plant Biology at Michigan State University. In his long and varied career, Ken served as Acting Associate Dean for Diversty and Pluralism in the College of Natural Science, and was a Founding Memebr of MSU's North American Indigenous Faculty and Staff Association.
Ken is "retiring" to his working farm outside of Charlotte, Michigan. He is a Sequoyah Fellow of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society. Long active in the American Red Cross, Ken currently serves as the national chair of their Diversity Comittee.
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| Dean Sayers, Chief of the Batchewana First Nation |
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As Chief of the Batchewana First Nation, Dean Sayers signed a treaty regarding the preservation, protection and enhancement of the St. Mary’s River ecosystem on November 8, 2006. The Treaty was also signed by the leaders of the Bay Mills Indian Community, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, and the Garden River First Nation. The Four Tribes represent all of the Indigenous People of the area, and all four Tribes share jurisdiction over, and responsibility for, the entire St. Marys River watershed.
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| Jefferson Reddog Sina |
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Reddog was one of the founding faculty of MSU's American Indian Studies program, and is finishing his second year at MSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine. Of Polar Inuit and East Baffin Island Inuit First Nations ancestry, he is very concerned over issues that affect the health of Indigenous Peoples. He hopes to do one or more rotations with Indian Health Service, as well as a possible stint in Nunavut.
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| Mico Slattery |
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Mico is the full-time instructor of Native Studies at the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. He has degrees in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Colorado State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he studied under Vine DeLoria and Ward Churchill. He is currently a PhD candidate in American Studies at Michigan State.
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| Victor Steffensen |
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Victor Steffensen, is a descendent of the Gulf People of Cape York, and is the project leader of the Traditional Knowledge Revival Pathways (TKRP) project in Australia.
Victor, and two Kuku-Thaypan Elders, Dr Tommy George and Dr George Musgrave, began the project in 1999. The Project involves the recording of their traditional knowledge and re-applying the traditional methods back into community and environmental managment. This grassroots project was quickly noticed by other clan groups in Australia and is now involved with up to 16 traditional groups across the State of Queensland and growing well beyond.
While working to save the knowledge with multi-media technology, the TKRP project is developing many components to support the recognition of Traditional knowledge into mainstream values, and to demonstrate the need to keep this program going, and to expand its scope. In order to save knowledge for the future generations before it is lost, this project understands that it is crucial for everyone to re-connect our responsibilities and spiritual connections to the environment.
Although this Project will be presented in New Zealand in the weeks following this conference presentation, this is the first time that the Project has ventured overseas to the United States.
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| Christianne Stephens |
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Ms. Stephens is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Anthropology at McMaster University. Her areas of expertise include medical anthropology, historical epidemiology, historical trauma, risk perception and Aboriginal health issues in Canada.
Ms. Stephens is a member of the University of Western Ontario Schulich School of Medicine’s Ecosystem Health Research Team and has conducted health-related research at the Walpole Island First Nation for the past four years. Her current research deploys ethnographic data to investigate water quality issues in the Walpole Island community.
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| Naomi Williams |
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Ms. Williams is a graduate of Lambton College’s Environmental Technology Program and is currently pursuing an Honours Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Studies at the University of Windsor. She is employed by the Walpole Island Heritage Centre as their Environmental Technologist. Ms. Williams has 10 years of experience working in various student and contract positions at the Heritage Centre.
In Ojibway culture, it is a woman’s traditional responsibility to ensure that the water is safe and uncontaminated. She combines this traditional responsibility with western science to fulfill her job.
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| Conference Participants -- Click Photo for Larger Image |
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