Chris Walker is the Director of the Division of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Professor in the Dance Department and founding artistic director of the First Wave Hip Hop and Urban Arts Program at UW–Madison. Walker is a multi-hyphenate contemporary dance and performance artist from Jamaica whose creative research reengages the technology at the core of the traditional and urban ritual practices across the African diaspora. His research intersects dance choreography for the concert stage, movement as dramaturgy for theatre as well as devised movement collaborations with visual and performance artists for museum, alternate spaces, and video/film.

Equity and Resilience: Tribal-University Relationship Building in Education, Stewardship, and Research

Earth Partnership’s Indigenous Arts and Sciences is a Tribal university collaboration with four Native Nations in Wisconsin (Bad River, Red Cliff, Lac Courte Oreilles and Ho-Chunk Nations) and two tribal colleges (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University and College of Menominee Nation) implementing community-based and Tribally-driven participatory research and Indigenous science education. Our shared work has developed research capacity in these communities and directly led to increased equity in the UW-Madison IRB process. Tribal partners are Co-PI’s on all research and outreach projects, and intellectual and educational sovereignty is affirmed in all stages of the shared work. The presenters will inform about their process developing Tribal university collaborations transforming education systems and research practices.

Cheryl Bauer-Armstrong is the Director of the Earth Partnership program in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture. Under her leadership, she has spearheaded the ecological restoration education program from its local focus in the 1990s to a community-engagement model in over 20 states, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, and Mexico and actively partners with six of the twelve Native Nations in Wisconsin implementing culturally relevant youth education, community engagement, and educator professional development. She designs and co-teaches undergraduate courses centered on the Earth Partnership model of community-based restoration informed by inclusion, stewardship action, and resilience.

Michelle Cloud is an enrolled member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and serves as the Culture & Community Education Division Manager in the Nation’s Education Department for the past 9 years. Michelle is the Nation’s Principal Investigator for the UW-Madison Indigenous Arts & Sciences program. She is a nationally trained Seeking Educational Equity & Diversity (S.E.E.D.) facilitator and has led educator and community based social justice groups for the past decade in several school districts and communities in what is now known as Wisconsin. Michelle holds three degrees, but she is prouder of the lifelong cultural knowledge she has learned from her elders and sacred knowledge keepers.

Jared Blanche is an enrolled member of Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. He is Director of the Red Cliff Education Department and the Library. He is knowledgeable in educational resources as a licensed middle school teacher, supports the education of Red Cliff members on and off reservation, and leads school-community relations with the Bayfield school district. He is Principal Investigator on NSF ITEST and GEOPAths and NOAA B-WET Indigenous Arts & Sciences projects.