Throughout the entire month of November, Millikin University will be celebrating Native American Heritage Month. It’s dedicated to spreading awareness of Native American culture to students across campus.

“I see it as our big goal to educate and celebrate all of the different cultures and backgrounds that people identify with,” Molly Berry, the director of the Office of Student Inclusion and Engagement, said. “We choose a bunch of different months to celebrate when it comes to culture, and one of them is Native American Heritage Month.

“So Native American Heritage Month is all throughout November, and we’ve selected three different programs to do to celebrate the culture and to help inform students on what this means.”

One program devised for the month includes a video passive campaign, which will last throughout the entire month of November. This program is designed to get both the students and faculty of Millikin to make three to five minute videos, post them to the Office of Student Inclusion and Engagement’s Facebook page, and discuss what culture personally means to them and why it’s important.

Another active program that has already occurred took place in lower RTUC on Wednesday, November 12. Millikin student Waylon Stevens, a sophomore who is the only full-blooded Native American student on Millikin’s campus, discussed his life as being a full-blooded Native American in current society. He focused on growing up in Navajo Nation, a modern Native American territory. During the program, Stevens also provided the audience with authentic Native American food.

The last Native American Heritage Month event also occurred in lower RTUC on Tuesday, Nov. 18. Thunder Medicine, a Native American musical and storytelling group, visited Millikin to perform authentic songs and to tell authentic Native American stories to further enlighten students about Native American culture.

The celebration of Native American Heritage month is a mostly new engagement occurring across campus, as this is only the second year where the month long event has been celebrated here at Millikin. The program, however, is now becoming an active engagement on campus in order to raise awareness about Native American culture.

When asked what she hopes students get out of the celebration of Native American Heritage Month, Molly Berry said, “I hope they can start to see people. That’s always my goal, with almost any program, is to see the unique characteristics of each person. So we might not have a large Native American population on campus, but I see a lot of things like students dressing up as an ‘Indian’ for Halloween, which is offensive, and just people who misuse tribe names and people who misuse slang that we have used for so long, whether it’s in sport teams or whatever.

“So I think this will help people understand that they’re not just ‘them’ but also more of ‘us.’ If we can just start to showcase what is real and good then I think people will start to understand a little bit better.”

With this in mind, students should feel free to stop by and learn more about a rich and diverse history.