Background 

A joint effort of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Native American Support Program, Learning Sciences Research Institute and Northwestern University’s Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, the Indigenous Lecture & Writing Series (ILWS) seeks to increase the visibility and dissemination of a diversity of stories and knowledge that is embedded in the urban Indigenous community. By engaging participants with Indigenous storytellers and scholars and building access and tools to create a portfolio of writing samples, ILWS aims to provide visibility to Indigenous ways of knowing, learning, growing, and being by sharing a space of dialogue and writing.  

The university partners also hope that this series will promote Indigenous scholars’ current research and initiatives happening across the country as well as strengthen the pathway to future Indigenous scholarship. 

Towards this vision, the Indigenous Lecture & Writing Series (ILWS) has five (5) major goals:  

• Goal 1: Learn about recent research and initiatives centered on Indigenous Ways of Teaching and Knowing   
• Goal 2: Engage in facilitated writing sessions to build community capacity to write and share narratives   
• Goal 3: Promote and extend community-based stories centered on scholarly knowledge and initiatives   
• Goal 4: Create a shared publication for distribution   
• Goal 5: Promote access and submittal of scholarly response papers as a step toward applications to Master and Professional degree programs.  

Northwestern and UIC are active participants in local communities, and collaborate on various projects and events to provide access to students at their respective universities. Although we will be hosting the series, the Lecture and Writing series is open to all students, staff, faculty and community at large to participate in, as a means of increasing access for all.

The lecture and writing series format will be facilitated by various faculty skilled in submission and publication of articles, books, and papers in other formats. Participants will create a portfolio of short articles ranging from personal narratives to responses to research to documentation of community histories and contemporary stories. At the end of the series, a select group of participants will be invited to a week-long retreat to create a final article for publication.

Click here for the public lecture information and here to apply to participate in the writing cohort.

The Indigenous Lecture & Writing Series was made possible (in part) by a grant from the Spencer Foundation. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation.