We’ve been preparing for this for the past 60 years! This coming Monday, October 17, from 8:30 am–5:00 pm (MDT), we will present the IAIA Making History Symposium. Whether you join us in the Center for Lifelong Education (CLE) on campus, participate in panels and Q&A sessions via Zoom, or watch the day’s events online, you will enjoy the engaging conversations and presentations given by historians, celebrated alums, current and former IAIA team members, staff from the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), IAIA President Dr. Robert Martin (Cherokee), and President and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium Carrie Billy (Navajo).

If you want to study our history before the symposium or learn more after attending, our library has put together an excellent collection of historical documents, photos, videos, oral histories, and reading lists that capture the journey of IAIA from as early as 1959 to the present. This collection includes campus newsletters and newspapers from 1962–1972, proposals and reports from IAIA co-founder and first president Lloyd Kiva New (Cherokee) that explicate the impetus for establishing IAIA, and links to our digital archives.

Looking for something to do Sunday afternoon? MoCNA—celebrating its 50-year anniversary—will be hosting an opening reception for its newest exhibit, The Stories We Carry, from 3:00 pm–5:00 pm. Guest curated by IAIA Assistant Professor Brian Fleetwood (Mvskoke Creek), The Stories We Carry features contemporary jewelry created by more than 100 Indigenous artists (including many IAIA alums) across several decades, selected from MoCNA’s permanent collection. At this event, MoCNA will hold a cake-cutting ceremony to commemorate the anniversary of the day that the US Congress chartered IAIA as a college dedicated to studying, preserving, and disseminating Indigenous art forms.

If you have not yet registered for the symposium, you can still do so via Eventbrite. For more information on this and other IAIA and MoCNA events, visit our Happenings page, and don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and Facebook to stay up to date.