Fort Lewis College was recently awarded a $1 million grant to fund the college’s reconciliation center, a campus resource that seeks to build on the school’s years of efforts to reconcile its past as an Indian boarding school and years of systemic violence against Native Americans.
According to a news release from FLC, the grant comes from the Wake Forest University Educating Character Initiative. The grant marries the college’s reconciliation efforts with the idea of character education, which seeks to celebrate diversity and teach students and faculty how to work cross-culturally, both inside and out of college, associate professor of political science Paul DeBell said.
“We view this as very widely construed work,” he said. “This is an opportunity to bridge differences and to pragmatically solve problems where there are really tricky issues and different perspectives.”
DeBell, who cosponsored the reconciliation center initiative, said one of the most important parts of the center will be the ability to weave character education into the fabric of the campus, particularly in decision-making and curriculum. He said the center’s main goals are to boost diversity on campus, self-esteem in students and dialogue from multicultural perspectives into discussions around campus.
DeBell said the reconciliation center will not be a physical building, but will be a new department in FLC’s Native American Center. The money will be used to hire staff members and conduct the center’s mission.
“It joins a growing ecosystem of reconciliation initiatives at FLC, including Tribal Nation Building, Indigenous language reclamation and culturally responsive health and wellness efforts,” the release said.
DeBell said the center will also put more emphasis on Indigenous perspectives regarding STEM, ethics and restorative justice measures. That in turn will further the college’s efforts to reconcile the institution’s damaging past as an Indian boarding school, in which those perspectives and identities were violently stripped from students who were often forced to go to the school.
DeBell said this is a chance to bring students together, who will then take that into the broader world outside college.
“This is an opportunity for all of our students,” DeBell said. “I think part of having good character is being honest with ourselves and being open minded to learning from different perspectives. That’s how we hope to model the center – not isolating any one group, but rather saying all of us have the opportunity to improve our character.”
He said in recent years, the college has been putting more emphasis on rewriting its history to be more inclusive of the perspective of Native peoples. In 2021, the college removed a series of plaques on the campus clock tower that presented an inaccurate account of the Indian boarding school. Since then, he said, the school has been working to further those efforts, with the reconciliation center being its latest step.
“All of us are part of this history, and by being honest and also compassionate with each other during this process, we can build more understanding and connection in our present for a better and more unified future,” he said.
The release said the center will formally launch in the fall, with staffing and planning work already underway.
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
