UIC Native American Support Program celebrates 55‑year legacy

Zoë Harris, interim associate director of the Native American Support Program (left), and UIC student Emily Manzo take part in Heritage Day powwow. (Photo: Mike Fan)

The Native American Support Program at UIC is one of the longest-running student-support programs on campus. Now it's expanding its reach by building on decades of leadership, community connection and student success.

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The program, founded 55 years ago, has formed strong partnerships with local and national organizations, including the Chicago American Indian Community Collaborative, a network of 17 Native American organizations in the Chicago area whose founder, Louis Delgado, was a UIC alum.

On campus, the Native American Support Program is a central gathering space for Native students from many tribal nations. The program's office is in the Student Services Building, 1200 W. Harrison St., Suite 2700.

The program offers academic and career coaching, plus culturally relevant activities on campus such as its annual Heritage Days, powwows and regular lectures.

To celebrate its legacy, the program has begun an oral history project that will document its 55-year history through interviews and extensive archives.

"There are hundreds of tribes represented here in Chicago," said Zoë Harris, interim associate director of the program and a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. "We're a very intertribal community, so that means that people are always bringing different perspectives to the work that we do."

The program also brings Native professionals and non-Native people working on Native issues to campus from fields including academia, museums, government and philanthropy, providing students with access to a wide range of expertise and career pathways.

"We have a lot of folks who are in the community who have come through the program, been students at UIC and have gone on to do really awesome things," said Angela Walden, special advisor on Native students at UIC.

For students, the program provides community and continuity throughout their academic journeys. Emily Manzo, who transferred to UIC from community collegeand will graduate in May with a degree in urban elementary education, said the program has continued to provide resources as she considers graduate school.

UIC hosts the Heritage Day Powwow - an evening of Native dancing, drumming, arts and community celebration. (Photo: Mike Fan)
Left to right: Cyndee Fox-Starr of the American Indian Health Service of Chicago, Zoë Harris and Angela Walden during Heritage Day powwow. (Photo: Mike Fan)

"The office has created a space and a sense of community to amplify our voices," said Manzo, a member of the Apache Tribe.

Walden, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, said because the number of tribes is so extensive, the program serves to bring the community together and plays a key role in giving Native students and faculty a sense of belonging at UIC and representation in higher education broadly.

That impact on students is being preserved and shared through the oral history project, which is supported by a Henry Luce Foundation grant. The project will culminate in a permanent exhibit in the program's offices and will open to the public in the fall.

"We're interviewing previous directors, alumni, current students and community so we can present that back to students so they can see themselves," Walden said.

The program recently received a $303,000, multiyear grant from the 11th Hour Project, a program of the Schmidt Family Foundation, which focuses on environmental issues and human rights. The funding strengthens a program that has long served as a resource for Native students, faculty and the broader Native community in Chicago, which has one of the largest urban Native populations in the country.

In total, the Native American Support Program has received approximately $485,000 in grant funding over the past two years.

The 11th Hour Project grant will be used to grow the staff and strengthen the program's ability to serve as a campuswide resource that highlights Native scholarship, history and current issues.

"The 11th Hour Project saw the value in allowing us to do a little bit of expansion so that we can start to infuse that knowledge and those actions across campus," Walden said.

The Native American Support Program also has used grant funding for cultural programming such as Heritage Days celebrations and powwows on campus, where students, staff and community members gather to share traditions like singing, drumming and dancing, and participate in lectures on Native issues.

Alex DeLuna, a third-year accounting student and a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said the program strengthened their experience at UIC by providing opportunities for them to connect with others through shared culture. As a returning student, DeLuna said those connections were especially meaningful. The powwow was especially noteworthy because friends and family attended to show support, DeLuna added.

"Heritage Days at UIC was absolutely a highlight for me, specifically the powwow. I felt it bridged my little worlds at UIC," DeLuna said. "It was really cool to be at the powwow and see my friends and see my professor and get to hang out."