Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert is a distinguished associate professor in the department of history and a Dean's Fellow and Conrad Humanities Scholar in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is an enrolled member of the Hopi Tribe. A graduate of The Master's College, Talbot School of Theology, and the University of California, Riverside, Gilbert specializes in researching and teaching on Native American history and the American West.
Originally from the small village of Upper Moenkopi in northeastern Arizona, Gilbert graduated from The Master's College located in Santa Clarita, California, in 1999 with a B.A. in history. In 2001, he received an M.A. at the Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. From there, he attended University of California, Riverside, and received an M.A. (2004) and Ph.D. (2006) in history. [1] He examines the history of American Indian education, the Indian boarding school experience, and American Indians and sports. Gilbert became a full associate professor in August 2013 in the American Indian Studies and History and now holds his position in the department of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Prior to this full-time teaching posts, he held the postdoctoral research associate in American Indian Studies. Prior to his postdoctoral position, he was an adjunct faculty member at The Master's College, University of Redlands, Azusa Pacific University, and San Bernardino Community College. His first book Education Beyond the Mesas examines the Hopi experience at Sherman Institute, an off reservation Indian boarding school in Riverside, CA. In this work, he demonstrates the intersection between education, indigenous studies, and history. The book reveals the complex ways that Hopi history and culture intersected with U.S. government policies. While providing a historical narrative, Gilbert's book challenges the dominant narrative that a study on the Indian boarding school experience must be unpacked primarily through a narrow view of the Indian education policies. He instead highlights Native agency and uncovers the ways Indian students—Navajos, Apaches, Zunis, and other Indian people—brought their personal identities to school and the ways they reacted to their boarding school experience as people from indigenous communities.
His second book Hopi Runners: Crossing the Terrain Between Indian and American, 1908-1932 (currently under contract) explores the manners in which Hopi marathon runners negotiated between school loyalties, U.S. nationalism, and tribal dynamics. [2] He is also a co-editor of the anthology The Indian School on Magnolia Avenue: Voices and Images from Sherman Institute. [3] Furthermore, Gilbert is the co-editor (with Coll Thrush and Charlotte Cote) of the book series Indigenous Confluences with the University of Washington Press.
He also served on the editorial board of the History of Education Quarterly, and he is a past board member of the Hopi Education Endowment Fund (2011–2013).
The Hopi are Native Americans who primarily live in northeastern Arizona. The majority are enrolled in the Hopi Tribe of Arizona and live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona; however, some Hopi people are enrolled in the Colorado River Indian Tribes of the Colorado River Indian Reservation at the border of Arizona and California.
The University of Illinois System is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Illinois, consisting of three campuses located in Chicago, Springfield, and Urbana-Champaign. Across all campuses, the University of Illinois System enrolls more than 94,000 students. It had an operating budget of $7.18 billion in 2021. Its oldest university, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was established as the state's land grant university in 1867.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. It is the flagship institution of the University of Illinois system and was established in 1867. With over 59,000 students, the University of Illinois is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the United States.
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) is the largest college of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The college was established in 1913 through the merger of the College of Literature and Arts and the College of Science. The college offers seventy undergraduate majors, as well as master's and Ph.D. programs. As of 2020, there are nearly 12,000 undergraduate students and 2,500 graduate students attending the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
The Hopi Reservation is a Native American reservation for the Hopi and Arizona Tewa people, surrounded entirely by the Navajo Nation, in Navajo and Coconino counties in northeastern Arizona, United States. The site has a land area of 2,531.773 sq mi (6,557.262 km2) and, as of the 2020 census had a population of 7,791.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) is part of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Most of the ACES buildings are located on the South Quad. In terms of staff, ACES has 186 tenure-system faculty, 78 specialized faculty, 26 postdoctoral researchers, 493 academic professionals, 565 civil service staff, 323 assistants, and 956 hourly employees.
The School of Information Sciences, also The iSchool at Illinois, is an undergraduate and graduate school at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. Its Master of Science in Library and Information Science is currently accredited in full good standing by the American Library Association. The school is a charter member of the iSchool initiative.
Sherman Indian High School (SIHS) is an off-reservation boarding high school for Native Americans. Originally opened in 1892 as the Perris Indian School, in Perris, California, the school was relocated to Riverside, California, in 1903, under the name Sherman Institute. When the school was accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges in 1971, it became known as Sherman Indian High School.
American Indian boarding schools, also known more recently as American Indian residential schools, were established in the United States from the mid-17th to the early 20th centuries with a primary objective of "civilizing" or assimilating Native American children and youth into Anglo-American culture. In the process, these schools denigrated Native American culture and made children give up their languages and religion. At the same time the schools provided a basic Western education. These boarding schools were first established by Christian missionaries of various denominations. The missionaries were often approved by the federal government to start both missions and schools on reservations, especially in the lightly populated areas of the West. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries especially, the government paid Church denominations to provide basic education to Native American children on reservations, and later established its own schools on reservations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) also founded additional off-reservation boarding schools. Similarly to schools that taught speakers of immigrant languages, the curriculum was rooted in linguistic imperialism, the English only movement, and forced assimilation enforced by corporal punishment. These sometimes drew children from a variety of tribes. In addition, religious orders established off-reservation schools. In October 2024, U.S. President Joe Biden issued an official apology on behalf of the federal government for the abuse suffered in these boarding schools. In his apology, Biden discusses the history of boarding schools and blames the government for not apologizing sooner. He recognizes this kind of apology had never been issued before and addresses it to a crowd of Indigenous people.
Jean Fredericks (1906–1990) was a Hopi photographer. He grew up in Old Oraibi, Arizona, a village located on Third Mesa on the Hopi Reservation.
Arthur Cutts Willard was the ninth president of the University of Illinois and an innovator in the field of heating and ventilation. Known for being approachable, a gentleman and well-dressed; he was known and admired by many. He received worldwide acclaim for his research and contribution to the heating, ventilating field; in particular for his contributions to the Holland Tunnel. In addition to his contributions to heating and ventilation industry, Willard was an educator in heating and ventilation and mechanical engineering between 1906 and 1933. He taught at George Washington University and the University of Illinois. Willard was appointed president in 1934 and served until 1946. Although he served as president during a difficult time for the university and the nation, he continued to have the highest expectations of his students. During his time as president he obtained funding for construction and addition of many buildings on the University of Illinois campuses. Willard strongly believed education needed to be more broad and focus on the social and economic problems facing the nation. At the end of service to the university, the Institute of Aviation was established at University of Illinois Willard Airport, and it was named in honor of A.C. Willard.
Dorothy Espelage is an American psychologist. She is the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina, and an international expert in bullying, youth aggression, and teen dating violence. She has authored several books including Bullying in North American Schools, Bullying Prevention and Intervention: Realistic Strategies for Schools, and Handbook of Bullying in Schools: an International Perspective.
The University Library at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign comprises a network of physical and digital libraries. It provides resources and services to the university's students, faculty, staff, and the broader academic community.
The history of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign dates back to 1862. U of I is a public research-intensive university in the U.S. state of Illinois. A land-grant university, it is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign opened on March 2, 1868, and is the second oldest public university in the state, and is a founding member of the Big Ten Conference.
Lomayumtewa C. "Loma" Ishii is a Hopi associate professor and researcher, working in the Applied Indigenous Studies department at Northern Arizona University.
Jenny L. Davis is an American linguist, anthropologist, and poet. She is an Associate Professor of Anthropology, American Indian Studies, and Gender & Women's Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign where she is the director of the American Indian Studies Program. Her research is on contemporary Indigenous languages and identity, focusing on Indigenous language revitalization and Indigenous gender and sexuality, especially within the Two-Spirit movement.
Pedro de Tovar was a Spanish explorer, military man and colonial administrator. He was part of Francisco Vazquez de Coronado's expedition and led the first expedition to Cibola in 1540. Tovar was also the first European to hear about the existence of the Grand Canyon, although he did not get to see it. He was also a member of Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán's troops during the conquest of Nueva Galicia, as well as collaborating in the colonization of Guadalajara and the foundation of Culiacán, in modern Mexico. After that, he was alcalde of Nueva Galicia and Culiacán.
Native American outing programs were associated with American Indian boarding schools in the United States. These were operated both on and off reservations, primarily from the late 19th century to World War II. Students from boarding schools were assigned to live with and work for European-American families, often during summers, ostensibly to learn more about English language, useful skills, and majority culture, but in reality, primarily as a source of unpaid labor. Many boarding schools continued operating into the 1960s and 1970s.
Riverside Indian School (RIS) is a Bureau of Indian Education-operated boarding school in unincorporated Caddo County, Oklahoma, with an Anadarko address, for grades 4–12.
Mark Erno Hauber is an American ornithologist and Endowed Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research considers the development of avian recognition systems.