UNC students will visit Will Rogers museums

Twelve students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will experience a different kind of “study abroad” experience this summer as they live and learn in the Cherokee Nation.

The new American Studies course, developed by UNC faculty Theda Perdue and Tol Foster in the College of Arts and Sciences, represents a unique partnership between Carolina and Northeastern State University in Tahlequah.

Northeastern has the highest enrollment of American Indian undergraduates in the world — and some of those students will join their UNC peers and share their understandings of the contemporary Cherokee nation.

UNC students will live in Tahlequah from May 24-June 14. The course will combine formal classroom time with field trips, and students will be required to blog about their experiences.

Students will take 15 hours of introductory Cherokee language; study contemporary Cherokee film, animation, art and literature; and take the law and history course designed for employees of the Cherokee Nation by council member Julia Coates. Coates is assistant professor of American Studies at the University of California, Davis.

Students will also participate in cultural activities such as Cherokee marbles, stickball and the stomp dance. They will go to Cherokee Nation tribal headquarters and meet with Principal Chief Chad Smith.

They will also visit Sequoyah High School, Fort Gibson (where the Trail of Tears ended for many Cherokees), the house of Sequoyah and the Cherokee Female Seminary, among other sites.

The group will visit Will Rogers Memorial Museum and Birthplace Ranch on June 11, Phyllis Fife, a citizen of the Mvskoke Creek Nation and director of the Center for Tribal Studies at Northeastern State University, will coordinate language instruction for the UNC students, along with other cultural experiences.

‘This unique program will allow students to be fully immersed in contemporary cultural life of one of the most dynamic and successful tribal nations in the world,” said Perdue, who is the Atlanta Distinguished  Professor of History at UNC.

Perdue has been writing and teaching Cherokee history for 35 years. As former resident faculty member of a UNC study abroad program in London, she wanted to develop a similar experience for students in an American Indian community.

Foster, a citizen of the Mvskoke Creek Nation and assistant professor of American Studies, will be the residential UNC faculty member in Oklahoma. He is a specialist in American Indian literature as well as Oklahoma tribal regional studies, and he grew up in eastern Oklahoma.

He will teach the course component on literature and film.

“We are excited about the chance for this summer class to follow the Cherokee exodus 1,000 miles west to the national Cherokee capitol,” Foster said. “Students will have unparalleled access to the people who make up a contemporary sovereign tribal nation — Indian health experts, tribal policemen, Cherokee animators, environmental officers, scholars and cultural leaders.”

“Tribal Studies: The Cherokee Nation” is subsidized by the Burch Seminar Program at UNC.