Thank you, Darren Parry!

We want to express a lot of gratitude to Darren Parry, who has been our Spring '23 Practitioner-in-Residence. Darren Parry is the former chairman for the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation and teaches Native American History at Utah State University. He is on numerous boards, including PBS Utah and Utah Humanities. During his time as Chairman, the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation was able to purchase land at the site of the Bear River Massacre--one of the deadliest massacres of Native people in US history.

Throughout his semester with us, Darren gave multiple public talks. We started the semester with a talk titled "History, Healing, and Re-story-ation" which focused on the Bear River Massacre in advance of the 160th anniversary of the tragic day. Watch the recording and read a recap of the talk and the history of the Bear River Massacre in this article from @theU.

Darren also gave multiple workshops for our students, faculty, and campus partners. One focused on working "Beyond the Land Acknowledgement." In this workshop, Darren said he appreciates land acknowledgements when they’re done well, but he also emphasized that they’re not enough. They’re just the beginning of the numerous ways academic institutions can meaningfully work with and respect Tribes. He proposed many steps we can take beyond the acknowledgement, such as:

• waive tuition and give scholarships for Native American students
• hire more Indigenous faculty
• collaborate, respectfully and reciprocally, with Tribes on academic research and course curriculum
• design resource centers for Native students that reflect their culture
• return land currently owned by universities back to Tribes

You can read the University of Utah's land acknowledgement here. 

Darren helped us close out the semester with a keynote address for the U of U Earth Week. He also moderated a panel for Earth Week on food sovereignty, one of his current passions. His keynote address focused on the importance of incorporating Indigenous wisdom and culture into climate science and policy. 

We are so grateful for Darren's wisdom, generosity, insights, and kindness. You can see recordings of past events we've hosted with Darren on our YouTube Channel.