Twyla Baker | |
---|---|
7th President of Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College | |
Assumed office October 2014 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Twyla Beth Baker October 4, 1976 New Town, North Dakota, U.S. |
Political party | Democratic |
Children | 7 |
Alma mater | University of North Dakota |
Twyla B. Baker (born October 4) is an American Indian (Hidatsa) academic administrator serving as the seventh president of Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College since 2014. She was previously a Native health researcher focused on health statistics and elder abuse.
Baker was born on October 4, 1976 [1] in New Town, North Dakota on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. [2] She is an enrolled member of Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation. [2] Her parents spoke Hidatsa but Baker did not learn the language. [3] She attended Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College (NHS College). [4] She earned a B.S. in environmental geology and technology (2002) and M.S. in education general studies (2005) from the University of North Dakota (UND). [4]
From 2009 to 2013, Baker was the project director of the UND national resource center on Native American aging. [4] In this role, Baker established a database based on surveys of Native elder health statistics on diabetes, suicide, and other health issues. [3] She also worked in tribal data sovereignty and policy. [3] During this time, she completed a Ph.D. in teaching and learning and research methodologies in 2013 from UND. [4] [2] Her dissertation was titled Mental health and social engagement among American Indian elders. [1] Her doctoral advisor was Steven LeMire. [1] The doctoral research led Baker to become the principal investigator of the National Indigenous Elder Justice Initiative. [3]
In 2013, Baker returned to NHS College as the dean of students at the invitation of Alyce Spotted Bear who was working as the vice president of Indian studies. [4] Six months later, she became its interim president. [3] In October 2014, she was appointed the seventh president of NHS College. [4]
In 2020, Baker alongside Prairie Rose Seminole and Ruth Buffalo formed a Native American caucus group within the North Dakota Democratic–Nonpartisan League Party. [5]
Baker has seven children. [3]
North Dakota is a landlocked U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south, and Montana to the west. North Dakota is part of the Great Plains region, characterized by broad prairies, steppe, temperate savanna, badlands, and farmland. North Dakota is the 19th largest state, but with a population of less than 780,000, it is the 4th least populous and 4th most sparsely populated. The state capital is Bismarck while the most populous city is Fargo, which accounts for nearly a fifth of the state's population; both cities are among the fastest-growing in the U.S., although half of all residents live in rural areas.
The University of North Dakota is a public research university in Grand Forks, North Dakota. It was established by the Dakota Territorial Assembly in 1883, six years before the establishment of the state of North Dakota.
The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes, is a Native American Nation resulting from the alliance of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara peoples, whose native lands ranged across the Missouri River basin extending from present day North Dakota through western Montana and Wyoming.
Arikara, also known as Sahnish, Arikaree, Ree, or Hundi, are a tribe of Native Americans in North Dakota. Today, they are enrolled with the Mandan and the Hidatsa as the federally recognized tribe known as the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.
Mandan is an extinct Siouan language of North Dakota in the United States.
The Mandan are a Native American tribe of the Great Plains who have lived for centuries primarily in what is now North Dakota. They are enrolled in the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation. About half of the Mandan still reside in the area of the reservation; the rest reside around the United States and in Canada.
Horatio Emmons Hale was an American-Canadian ethnologist, philologist and businessman. He is known for his study of languages as a key for classifying ancient peoples and being able to trace their migrations.
The Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, which was established in 1974, preserves the historic and archaeological remnants of bands of Hidatsa, Northern Plains Indians, in North Dakota. This area was a major trading and agricultural area. Three villages were known to occupy the Knife area. In general, these three villages are known as Hidatsa villages. Broken down, the individual villages are Awatixa Xi'e, Awatixa and Big Hidatsa village. Awatixa Xi'e is believed to be the oldest village of the three. The Big Hidatsa village was established around 1600.
Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College is a public tribal land-grant community college in New Town, North Dakota. It is chartered by the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation headquarters at New Town. The college has branches in Mandaree and White Shield.
Edward Lone Fight served as Chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation from 1986 to 1990. In 1988 Lone Fight met with President Ronald Reagan, a meeting which was the catalyst for the Just Compensation Bill, introduced based on the findings of the Joint Tribal Advisory Committee, which provided the tribes partial compensation for the flooding of reservation due to the construction of the Garrison Dam under the Pick-Sloan Legislation.
Frances Theresa Densmore was an American anthropologist and ethnographer born in Red Wing, Minnesota. Densmore studied Native American music and culture, and in modern terms, she may be described as an ethnomusicologist.
The University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences is located in Grand Forks, North Dakota at the University of North Dakota (UND) and is the only school of medicine in the state of North Dakota.
Gilbert Livingston Wilson was an American ethnographer and a Presbyterian minister. He and his brother recorded the lives of three Hidatsa family members; Buffalo Bird Woman, her brother Henry Wolf Chief, and her son Edward Goodbird. Wilson's extensive and detailed writings remain an important source of information for historians and anthropologists, as well as the Hidatsa people.
Sacagawea was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who, in her teens, helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition in achieving their chartered mission objectives by exploring the Louisiana Territory. Sacagawea traveled with the expedition thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean, helping to establish cultural contacts with Native American people and contributing to the expedition's knowledge of natural history in different regions.
Martha Warren Beckwith was an American folklorist and ethnographer who was the first chair in folklore at any university or college in the U.S.
Alyce Spotted Bear was a Native American educator and politician and an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.
The Northern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is an independent college athletic conference. The NIAC is made up of ten schools in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Manitoba. The NIAC sponsors men's and women's basketball for member institutions.
Barbara K. Charbonneau-Dahlen PhD, RN, was an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. She was a tenured professor of nursing who advocated for indigenous recruitment into the nursing field and fought for those who have experienced sexual abuse. She earned both a Bachelor's and master's degree from University of North Dakota (UND). She completed the Family Nurse Practitioner certification program at UND and earned a doctorate from Florida Atlantic University Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing. She was a professor at Minnesota State University Mankato in the School of Nursing until her passing.
The Sahnish Scouts is a non-profit organization group that responds to the disappearances of indigenous peoples in North Dakota. The group was founded in 2013 by Lissa Yellowbird-Chase, originally in the Bakken oilfields of North Dakota. The Sahnish Scouts publicize missing persons profiles and updates through social media, such as the Sahnish Scouts Facebook and Twitter page, as well as using posters. The Sahnish Scouts have equipment of boats, sonar, ground-penetrating radar, and dogs to use during searches. The organization has helped search and investigate across the Midwest and Northern Plains, Lissa Yellowbird herself having worked on missing cases within North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Montana, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and even California.