The Land Acknowledgement and Action (LAA) Committee aims to build respectful and accountable relationships with Native communities. The 2022 LAA Committee members co-authored the current NEIU Land Acknowledgement and started NEIU's first Native and Indigenous Student Scholarship.

If you are interested in joining the LAA Committee, please email Shireen Roshanravan at s-roshanravan@neiu.edu.

2022 Committee Members

  1. Fawn Pochel, Pedroso Center Coordinator
  2. Joseph Hibdon, Associate Professor of Mathematics
  3. Laurie Fuller, Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies
  4. Shireen Roshanravan, Executive Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
  5. Toni Scott, Administrative Assistant, Social Work Department
  6. Felicia Keelen, Black Student Success Committee
  7. Valentina Gamboa-Turner, Pedroso Center Associate Director
  8. Angelica Rivera, Director of Proyecto Pa’lante
  9. Sandy Vue, Interim Director of Institutional Research

NEIU Land Acknowledgement

Northeastern Illinois University acknowledges the history of the land that it occupies, recognizing that Native Peoples, specifically the People of the Council of Three Fires: The Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa and more than a dozen other tribal nations hold ancestral relations to this territory. As a beneficiary of Native genocide and chattel slavery, Northeastern Illinois University has a responsibility to address systemic issues that are normalized within our institution. We recognize that we cannot separate the history of our university and our communities from the history of territorial conquest and slavery that laid the foundation of settler colonialism. 

The Native populations in Chicago are among the largest in the nation. NEIU is committed to recruitment and retention of Native students and values the contribution of their communities to the fabric of our city, state, and this very institution. By acknowledging this history we shift perspectives in a way that connects dispossession, slavery, and ongoing colonialism to our university and our community. Acknowledgement of this ongoing legacy is not enough, we must continue to work toward racial justice, equity, liberation, and community, here at NEIU.

Our call to action is the creation and funding of the very first NEIU Native and Indigenous Student Scholarship. We appreciate your financial support of this important initiative.

NEIU Native and Indigenous Student Scholarship

The Land Acknowledgement and Action Committee recognizes that Land Acknowledgements are meaningful when they include a call to action. To this end, the Fall 2022 LAA committee created the first Native American and Indigenous Student scholarship fund. NEIU is dedicated to the creation of sustainable support for our Native American/Indigenous undergraduate and graduate students. NEIU plans to keep these funds operating indefinitely, contingent upon the generous continuous funding from our sponsors.

To donate to the NEIU Native and Indigenous Student Scholarship:

  1. Visit neiu.edu/give
  2. Click on "Designation"
  3. Select "Other"
  4. Enter "Native and Indigenous Scholarship" in the text box that appears

Please join us in offering support to Native American and Indigenous students at NEIU.