Our FacultyOur faculty's educational and community backgrounds make them highly qualified and experienced professionals. A sense of sharing of the educational process among faculty and students is a hallmark of our program, making the classroom and experiential learning opportunities of our program intellectually challenging and very relevant to students.
Dr. Rick Wheelock (Oneida Nation in Wisconsin) is the coordinator of Native American and Indigenous Studies and an associate professor of Southwest Studies and Native American and Indigenous Studies. He holds an MA in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in American studies for the University of New Mexico. His dissertation was entitled Indian Self-Determination: Implications for Tribal Communications Policies (1995). He has taught a number of courses in Native American and Indigenous Studies, including Native Americans and the Modern World, Development of U.S. Indian Policy, Native American Oral Traditions, American Indian Philosophies, American Indians and the Mass Media, Writing in the Disciplines, and Native News Letter and News-Writing, which produces the student publication the Intertribal News every other Friday during Fall and Winter terms. Dr. Wheelock also helps with the student internships required in the SWS and NAIS majors. His research and publishing has been in Native American communications issues, development issues in Native higher education, American Indian policy, Native American philosophies, and Native environmental concerns. He has been an active member of the American Indian Studies section of the Western Social Sciences Association for many years, twice coordinating the NAIS section at annual conferences and serving for five years as a board member of the WSSA. He has also served as an associate editor of that organization’s scholarly publication, the Social Science Journal, and has also been a peer reviewer for articles for the American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Dr. Wheelock was the recipient of the FLC Cultural Diversity Award in 2001 and the FLC Achievement Award in 2007. Rick and his wife Liz live in Ignacio, Colorado where Liz teaches Fourth Grade in the public schools.
Dr. Majel Boxer (Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota) is an Assistant Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies. She holds a M.A and Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation was entitled, Indigenizing the Museum: History, Decolonization and Tribal Museums (2008). Dr. Boxer has taught a number of courses in Native American and Indigenous Studies including; Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies, American Indian History, the Development of U.S. Indian Policy, Native American Oral Traditions and Tribal Preservation. She has also taught such special topics as the Lives of Indigenous Women and Indigenous Identities in a Multicultural World. Her research and publishing have been in the areas of museum studies, tribal preservation, and theories of decolonization. Dr. Boxer has been an active member in the American Indian Studies Association as well as the recently organized Native American and Indigenous Studies Association.
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Richard Wheelock, PhD
Majel Boxer, PhD