The American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program (AIISP) provides a unique combination of American Indian and Indigenous Studies (AIIS) courses, student leadership opportunities and an undergraduate residential experience at Akwe:kon, the first Native student residence hall in North America.

Land Acknowledgment

Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ people, past and present, to these lands and waters.

This land acknowledgment has been reviewed and approved by the traditional Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ leadership.

Learn more about land acknowledgments.

In addition to the Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ land acknowledgment but separate from it, the AIISP faculty would like to emphasize: Cornell's founding was enabled in the course of a national genocide by the sale of almost one million acres of stolen Indian land under the Morrill Act of 1862. To date the university has neither officially acknowledged its complicity in this theft nor has it offered any form of restitution to the hundreds of Native communities impacted. For additional information, see the Cornell University and Indigenous Dispossession website here.

AIISP Events

Graphic of three butterflies and barbed wire outlines in a beige color over a dark background

Lecture

In Radical Relationality: Writing Against Climate and Gender Violence
Joanne Barker is Lenape (a citizen of the Delaware Tribe of Indians). She is professor of American Indian Studies in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University and a Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Indigenous Studies in...
  • American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program
Graphic of a photo showing two girls walking and smiling together with a gradient orange filter over the photo and orange text underneath that says fancy dance.

Lecture

As part of our celebration of Indigenous women during Women’s History Month, the American Indian and Indigenous studies Program is offering a special one-time screening of Fancy Dance prior to the film’s national distribution. Film screening of...
  • American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program
Portrait of a man wearing traditional Cayuga headress.

Lecture

The original date of this event was cancelled and has now been rescheduled for March 22, 2023. Sachem Sam George is one of ten Sachems (chiefs) for the Cayuga Nation, representing the Bear Clan. He was condoled in April 2005. Having grown up on...
  • American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program

AIISP News

Abigail Boatmun ’23, a student in the College of Human Ecology, receives the 2023 Campus-Community Leadership Award from Joel Malina.

News

Abigail Boatmun ’23, a student in the College of Human Ecology, received the 2023 Campus-Community Leadership Award, which recognizes a graduating senior for their service to local communities.
  • American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program
Students in AIISP garden outside Akwe:kon

News

A new garden at Akwe:kon, established by students from the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program and the Cornell Botanic Gardens, aims to honor Indigenous students and their connection to the land.

  • American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program
  • Cornell Botanic Gardens
  • Landscape Architecture

Explore the American Indian & Indigenous Studies Program