Mann to deliver keynote address at American Indian symposium

(Tahlequah, OK)--Dr. Henrietta Mann, president of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College at Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, will be keynote speaker at the 38th annual Symposium of the American Indian, organized by NSUs Center for Tribal Studies. Mann will speak at 10 a.m. in the University Center Rozell Ballroom B.

Preliminary symposium activities begin April 12 with the full schedule running April 14-17. This years theme is Oklahoma Fancy Dance.

The first president of the tribal college, Mann is a 1956 graduate of SWSU and a member of Southwestern's Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame. She earned her master's degree at Oklahoma State, where she was named a Distinguished Alumnus in 2008, and also holds a Ph.D. in American Indian Studies from the University of New Mexico. She is the endowed chair in Native American Studies at Montana State University, where she was a professor for 28 years, and received the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Indian Education Association. She has also written a history of Cheyenne-Arapaho education.

Mann was named the Cheyenne Indian of the Year in 1983 and the National American Indian Woman of the Year in 1987. In 1991, Rolling Stone magazine named her among the 10 leading professors in the U.S. She has also served as instructor and/or administrator at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the University of Montana, the University of Sciences and Arts of Oklahoma, Haskell Indian Nations University and California-Berkeley.

USAF Cmdr. (ret.) John Herrington, a veteran NASA astronaut and charter member of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, and Vanessa Jennings, Kiowa artist and traditionalist are also scheduled to speak at the symposium. Jennings is the granddaughter of the late Stephen Mopope, one of the Kiowa Five painters whose mural decorates Seminary Hall.

For more information about the symposium, which includes traditional arts booths, book displays, film screenings, a science luncheon, workshops and the annual NSU Alumni Powwow.