 Good afternoon. My name is Felica Austin Bryant. I'm the director of the Native American Educational and Cultural Center. I am a proud member of the Navajo Nation born and raised in New Mexico and I have been here in Indiana for over 20 years and through my work with the Native American Cultural Center. We provide student learning and educational opportunities for the campus community to increase their knowledge on Native American cultures. We're very proud to be home to over 65 tribal nations. This includes our faculty, staff, students and alums who come to who are engaged with the Native American Cultural Center. Our overall mission is to serve as a resource to the Indigenous community and we also provide educational opportunities for the entire campus community to learn, understand, appreciate and celebrate Indigenous cultures. And we do this through some of our signature programs, which includes cultural programming, which we do throughout the year, where we focus on sharing information about Indigenous people through invited guests, scholars, elders and speakers. And we also want to make sure that we're promoting a greater understanding for Native people. One of our signature programs is called the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership Program. And this is the funding we receive to support Native American students who are pursuing a master's or PhD in STEM disciplines. Additionally, we have our tribal immersion program, where we provide cross-cultural experiences for students to participate in learning opportunities where they can engage with tribal communities throughout the country. And we also work on collaborative programs with the entire campus as well as the entire state of Indiana. Yes, I would say we have two major ways that we impact the entire campus community. One is through our educational process and two is through supporting students. When we were established back in 2007, we had a group of motivated faculty, staff and students who formed what was called the Takamsa Project. And through their efforts, they were intentional in putting the word educational within our title. More so because when we are talking about Native issues within the state of Indiana, there's very little to no knowledge about Indigenous people. So as a result, that is one of the biggest challenges we have. And I do this through lecture presentations across campus, working with students on individual projects, cultural immersion projects, and really providing them with an accurate depiction of Native people. The second impact we make is through supporting students. And that is being echoed with the rest of what my colleagues have indicated, how we provide support, sense of belonging and making sure our students are that we graduate the students. And for our specifically for Native students, we are very intentional with encouraging them to return back to their tribal communities. And they are now the new faculties at tribal colleges. They're now working as biologists or they're working as environmentalists on their individual tribal nations. And so we take great pride in telling people that we have produced these new generation of Indigenous scholars that are now working in making impact in tribal communities. When I think about how impacts our Native community, I'm thinking back to our theme that we had, our theme was Indigenous Purdue. And with that, we want to make sure that we are providing information, educational opportunities, and basically a platform for people to learn more about Native people. We're very fortunate to have the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership Program where we receive funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. And through our efforts, we've had this program since 2007. And in that time period, we have a retention rate of over 94%. We have this is where we recruit, retain, and graduate Native students who are pursuing their master's or PhD. So I do take great pride in talking about the success of that program. And especially when we go out and visit alumni across the nation, I get to connect with them. I'm very fortunate to still have connections with many of the students. They are now, like I said, faculty members at anywhere from the University of Shamadan in Hawaii, all the way up to some of our tribal colleges across the country. And through their efforts, they are working hard to make sure that they are serving as the leaders within their tribal community. And we're also now seeing how they are now recruiting students for us. So we do get referrals from students, so they'll call and say, I've heard about this particular program from so and so. And I would say that our alumni have been our strongest advocates in helping us to recruit our Native students. But being a national program, we do partner with other colleges and universities across the country, University of Alaska, both through Anchorage and Fairbanks campus, University of Arizona, Montana State, Montana Tech, University of Montana, SUNY at the Environmental Science Forestry program, and then the University of North Carolina and Asheville. And through these efforts, we also are able to recruit students from the other Spone programs that are now here at Purdue pursuing their Master's or PhD. So I really do think that they're making a tremendous impact within our Indian country community. But more importantly, they're now representatives of Purdue University. In the same capacity that all other culture centers operate, you just have to walk through the front door. And we have students coming as early as elementary school coming to the center and getting engaged with the center and getting involved. I remember we had a student, we moved to our new location in 2016. Now we are centrally located at University and Fifth Street. And I remember a student walking by and this was towards the end of the semester. And he says, I've walked by here every day for the past semester, but I have not had a chance to come in. And so he came in and ever since then he's become one of our regulars. He stops by for coffee or a place to relax, a place to watch TV, to unwind. And that's what we want people to understand. People across campus, the center is open to the entire campus community. Stop by to refill your water bottles to get some coffee. We have individual study rooms on our second floor. We have a fully functional computer lab on the second floor. And we also have a variety of programming that takes place throughout the year. We celebrate Native American Heritage Month in November. And with this, it's part of our whole educational process of increasing the knowledge of Native people, making sure people understand and display a lot of stereotypes. We've had some dynamic speakers that have come to visit our Purdue campus. Billy Mills was one of the Olympic, the Olympic, the Olympic great, I guess I should say, because, you know, he's done so much within tribal communities, as well as across the country. We've had Natalie Diaz, who is a poet. We've had Tommy Orange, who is an author. And we're very fortunate to have Charisse Maillotte, who is a well-known author. And she's now faculty at Purdue. And we were able to recruit her as part of our to come to the postdoc fellowship program. And so now she's been, she's actively engaged with the center. We and we see her everywhere. She's all over social media. She's traveling throughout the country and representing Native people talking about her book. But again, it just shows how diverse diversity, how much diversity we have within our tribal communities. Many people come with the mindset there's only one tribe, or we all speak one language. But once they have a chance to come back and engage with us, they understand that there is diversity within tribal nations. For instance, there are over 574 federally recognized tribal nations across the country. And when we do bring in our students, our Native students, they range from students coming from traditional communities where they actively participate. I'm sorry, where they, we have students who are coming to the center that are ranging all different backgrounds. We have some that are very traditional where they speak their own language, they're raised in tribal communities, they're strongly connected with their traditional way of life. But on the other hand, we do have some students who have very little to no knowledge about the Native backgrounds or in the process of learning. And what's really interesting is seeing that common denominator, that common thread, we're all Native people, we all have the same respect for Mother Earth. And we all want to make sure that we are living by our philosophies that are implement that are that are ingrained with us within our tribal nations. So it is a learning opportunity for all people. And that's one of the biggest message I think we all want to get across everybody. You don't have to be Native or any other background to come, everybody can come and visit us. And we have, you know, they just have a chance to learn so much more about what we provide. And we also see how they can become actively involved once they've engaged with us.