Native American Heritage Month

Each November, the Student Life Center for Belonging and Social Change sponsors programming for Native American Heritage Month (NAHM) which celebrates and educates students, staff, faculty and allies about the diversity within over 574 tribal nations that were here before, during and after contact.

There will be a variety of events including Alternative Thanksgiving, an alternative celebration to the Thanksgiving holiday, a highlighted event sponsored collaboratively between the Native American Indigenous Peoples Cohort (NAIPC) and Student Life Center for Belonging and Social Change.

For any questions about a particular event or NAHM programming in general, please contact Madison Eagle at eagle.41@osu.edu.

If you require an accommodation such as live captioning or interpretation to participate in this event, please contact Madison Eagle. Requests made two weeks in advance will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.

Are you hosting an event for Native American Heritage Month? Let us know! Submit your event, and we'll add it to this calendar!

Calendar of Events November 2023

Tattoos and Indigenous Peoples
Date: November 6

Time: 6-7:30 PM

Location: Knight House, 104 E 15th Ave

Join us for a group Dialogue and Q&A with a local Indigenous Tattoo artist. We will be discussing Indigenous perspectives on Tattoo art, and hearing from the artist about how he manages appropriation, culture and tradition.

While this event is open to all, it will center the experiences of Native American and Indigenous students.

Registration: https://go.osu.edu/NAHMTattoos

Indigenous Communities and Psychedelic Medicine

Date: November 9

Time: 6-8pm

Location: Stillman Hall 100

Join the Center for Psychedelic Drug Research & Education, the College of Social Work and the Center for Belonging and Social Change for an evening presentation and panel discussion on the topic of Psychedelics and Indigenous Communities. Learn more about the traditional cultural use of psychedelics medicines, conservation efforts, and clinical application of Indigenous practices. Our presenters include Dawn Davis, Mariah Delmindo-Moore, and Rafaelle Lancellotta to share their expertise and lived experiences.

Alternative Thanksgiving

Date: November 20

Time: 7-9 PM

Location: Nationwide & Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center, Bob Evans Auditorium, 2201 Fred Taylor Dr, Columbus, OH 43210

Alternative Thanksgiving Celebration is an open alternative event to the Thanksgiving national holiday. This is an event where friends and allies will learn about history, traditions, and current issues of Native American and Indigenous peoples with the goal to connect the campus community to the lived experiences of Native American and Indigenous peoples at OSU.

Traditional Indigenous foods will be served. Space is limited; RSVP’s required by filling out go.osu.edu/AlternativeThanksgiving2023.

This event is in partnership with Undergraduate Student Government.

If you would like to contribute to the Native American Heritage Month 2023 Calendar of Events, please fill out this form. Once events have been confirmed and approved, they will be added to this webpage.

Campus-Wide Events:

OSU Community Day for Sarah Rosalena: In All Directions

Sunday, November 5, 2023

10:00 AM - 5:00 PM

Columbus Museum of Art at the Pizzuti

632 North Park Street

Sarah Rosalena (Wixárika) is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher based in Los Angeles. This exhibition of Rosalena’s work is a collaboration between the CMA and the Department of History of Art at The Ohio State University. Attending to themes of cosmology, colonial exploration, and extraction, Rosalena constructs a form of Indigenous futurism through the combination of Wixárika artistic practices and advanced computing technologies. 

Learn more about the exhibition here.

'Warrior Lawyers: Defenders of Sacred Justice': Documentary Screening and Q&A Session

Monday, November 13, 2023

5:30 p.m.

Drinko Hall, Saxbe Auditorium, Room 130

Join the Moritz Office of Inclusive Excellence on Monday, November 13, 2023, at 5:30 p.m. for a free documentary screening and Q&A with producer and director Audrey Geyer! 'Warrior Lawyers: Defenders of Sacred Justice' (2021) is a one-hour PBS documentary that is particularly timely and relevant given our country's current reckoning with racial inequity, institutional racism, and social injustice.

Register for free at go.osu.edu/warriorlawyers.

The program focuses on the stories of Michigan Native American Lawyers, Tribal Judges, and their colleagues who work with Native Nations, their citizens, and mainstream institutions to achieve Sacred Justice. These unseen role models strive daily to address and resolve unique and complicated historical, governmental, legal, judicial, and social welfare issues, which are most often rooted in discrimination, historical trauma, and cultural destruction. Take a journey into past and present-day Indian Country to learn of untold stories that shine a light on Native Americans rising to create a new path for today and for the next Seven Generations.

Following the screening, director, and producer Audrey Geyer will be available virtually to answer questions from viewers. Geyer has been a video director/producer for over 20 years. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Visions, a non-profit 501(c) 3 independent video production organization, located in Metro Detroit. Visions' mission is to produce social affairs documentaries that tell stories of Midwest communities and cultures underrepresented in the media that helps foster empathy in our viewers, expand their knowledge, and encourage dialogue, inclusiveness, and social change. Visions has produced two documentaries on contemporary Native American issues: ‘Our Fires Still Burn: The Native American Experience’ and ‘Warrior Lawyers: Defenders of Sacred Justice.’

For questions, email law-moritzoie@osu.edu

No Dakota Pipeline, Idle No More, and The Ghost Dance of 1890: Acts of Native Resistance

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

12:30 - 1:30 p.m.

Page Hall Lecture, Room 130

In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, join us for an inspiring discussion with Robin Raven Prichard on the history of Native American resistance through protest and cultural dance practices.

Many narratives of the 1890’s Ghost Dance tell stories of loss and destruction. But contemporary acts of Native resistance show that the Ghost Dance continues – in the occupation of Alcatraz, the Wounded Knee occupation, Idle No More and No Dakota Pipeline protests. Contemporary protests show the resurgence and revitalization of Native American cultures and the engaged resistance that points toward Indigenous regeneration and renewal. Thus, each protest is not an endpoint but rather an event in a circular chain of time that signals the endurance and survivance of Native Americans.

Robin Raven Prichard is a scholar/artist working between the worlds of contemporary Western dance and Indigenous dance. In her First Act, she danced throughout the U.S and Australia for award-winning choreographers, Opera Australia, and created her own award-winning choreography. In her Second Act, she was a professor of dance for two decades at universities in the U.S. and Australia. She has won two Fulbright Fellowships (2002 and 2023) to research Indigenous dance in Australia and New Zealand. She publishes regularly on dance education and history; in 2023, three books in which she contributed book chapters won national book awards.

If you plan on attending please rsvp for this event using the QR code below. Whether in-person (lunch provided!) or via zoom, please RSVP.