IUP Students Complete Service-Learning Project at Navajo Nation

Ten students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania completed a unique service-learning project at the Navajo Nation in Arizona as part of an anthropology class taught by Abigail Adams and Amanda Poole.

The class, Navajo Nation Learning Program, was offered during the spring semester; the service-learning trip was held May 12 to 19. The Navajo Nation-Diné Bikéyah-that the students visited is the largest Indigenous reserve in the United States and the original homeland of the Navajo people.

Funding for the students' experience was provided by Tim and Deb Cejka, 1973 graduates of IUP, who have been long-time supporters of creating and promoting diverse, equitable, and inclusive environments that cultivate a sense of belonging. The Cejkas were honored for this commitment with the 2025 Keepers of the Flame Award from the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, nominated by IUP.

"We are very impressed by this unique service-learning project at the Navajo Nation in Arizona," Tim Cejka said. "Spending time with Navajo people, learning, living, and understanding their culture, will have a lifelong positive impact on the students."

Adams, who chairs IUP's Native American Awareness Council, has done field studies at the Navajo Nation in New Mexico since 2000.

"Being familiar with Navajo culture, its ideology about kinship, matrilineality (tracing of kinship through the female line), and community, I knew this would be a great experience for students, an opportunity for them to truly plug into a cultural immersion experience," she said. "In developing the course, Dr. Poole and I were interested in helping our students to expand their understanding of our nation, as this culture is part of the fabric of who we are," she said.

To develop the service-learning opportunity, Adams and Poole worked with AllPeopleBeHappy, a global company that works with communities to offer learning experiences through sustainable development projects, focusing on economic equity.

"The students understood that they were not tourists," Adams said. "The experience was built on the Navajo value of reciprocity, gaining knowledge in return for labor and attention. During the day, the students did some kind of service-learning project-working in a farmer's field, for example-and in return, learned about the Navajo language, about Navajo foods and culture, practiced basketweaving and social song dance, and learned about the Kinaalda, a women's coming of age ceremony.

"We also visited important cultural sites in the area, including where the Navajo hid during The Long Walk (a forced relocation of thousands of Navajo people by the US government in 1864). All of these learning opportunities were directed by a Navajo family," Adams said.

One of the most unique aspects of the program was the opportunity for students to learn Navajo history from members of the Navajo Nation.

"This was a little jarring to the students, but it helped them to understand that the Navajo people have a vibrant, enduring culture and language, and to realize that Indigenous people are modern people, with modern needs, and a true survival story, not just people of the past," she said.

"IUP is extremely fortunate to have faculty experts who apply their real-life field experiences to benefit our students," IUP Chief Compliance Officer Elise Glenn said. "Dr. Adams and Dr. Poole have developed an important relationship with the Navajo Nation, and their work helps IUP to grow our awareness and our involvement there, which is of great benefit to our students," she said.

"Having a course that is part of the anthropology program, with a service-learning opportunity embedded within it, grows the cultural depth and breadth of IUP in very significant and meaningful ways," she said. "This class truly helps students truly grow beyond the in-class experience.

"This experience is truly practicing authentic cultural anthropology, and certainly transformational for our students, to have the opportunity to see a culture that is tens of thousands of years old, embedded within our culture," Glenn said.

Adams described the students as "amazing."

"The students were so respectful of the Navajo values and culture, and they truly bonded with one another," Adams said.

"While the students found multiple experiences impactful in different ways, the students shared that the Navajo sweat lodge ceremonies were extremely powerful, especially the final event in which you articulate what you want for the world," she said.

"My hope is this is something we do annually. It was very clear that the students were transformed, and that they feel an affinity of experience, something they will never forget," Adams said. "It was a wonderful experience for me, too, as their professor; being with them made me feel like a student again."

To complete the class, students authored papers focusing on the ecology of the Navajo Nation, the impact of the land on the Navajo people, Navajo food traditions, and a synthesis of their immersion experience, including how their time in the Navajo Nation related to the text for the class, Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World.

"This was one of the best educational experiences I've ever had," said Deb Slagle, an ecology, conservation, evolution, and biology May graduate of IUP.

"The trip was an intense, fantastic, life-changing learning experience. I had never flown or been further west than Wisconsin before. The family of guides were all amazing. I have so much respect for them, their people, and Mother Earth now. I experienced things such as the sweat lodge, Coal Mine Canyon, and the Grand Canyon in ways visitors cannot.

"We were able to hear their stories directly, learn some of the language, some customs, experience their traditional dances by dancing while Navajo ceremonial music was played," Slagle said. "Helping Hopi farmers with irrigation farming was exceptionally rewarding. All the guides made us part of their family. There was no possible way to experience everything we did from just a classroom and books. You have to be there, physically and mentally, to connect with them and their customs," she said.

"I learned so much from being at the Navajo Nation," said Jules Acklin, an archaeology major in the Cook Honors College from Monroeville, "It was truly a transformative experience, and I truly believe that I've come out of this changed."

Since its founding in 1875, IUP has evolved from a teacher-training institution into a doctoral research university recognized for its commitment to student success and achievement. IUP's Impact 150 comprehensive campaign is designed to honor a legacy of educational excellence while looking toward a future of innovation, public service, and leadership in healthcare education, including the first college of osteopathic medicine at a public university in the commonwealth.