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Promising Futures

Recruiting Future Indigenous Leaders to Cornell University

At Cornell, Indigenous students of all backgrounds are supported with a constellation of unique resources. Cornell University is a vibrant collaborative community. You belong here.

Promising Futures is an outreach and recruitment program hosted annually by the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program (AIISP). Promising Futures provides an immersive on-campus experience for prospective North American Indigenous high school students who are considering applying to Cornell University.

We invite prospective students, high school teachers, counselors, and parents to campus to learn about Cornell and AIISP. As part of the Promising Futures experience, you will go on campus tours, listen to tailored presentations, and participate in workshops about everything from admissions to financial aid to fun things to know about Cornell. You will also find yourself networking with AIISP faculty and staff, and learn directly from current students' experiences.

Participating in Promising Futures

What Do Prospective Students Gain?

  • AIISP:              Support, Mentorship and Access to Indigenous-focused Research and Academics
  • Faculty:           Individualized Interactions/"Speed Meetings" with Faculty across Disciplines
  • Admissions:   Insight into Application Strategies
  • Financial Aid: Ins and Outs of Financial Aid Package and a Game of "Family Feud"
  • Diversity:        Introduction to the resources offered by the Office of Academic Diversity Initiatives
  • Students:        Stories of Transition and College Experience
  • Campus:         Unforgettable Tour and Dazzling Shopping Experience
  • Social:             Exposure to Campus Living and Recreation;
Photograph of a group of people huddled around a singular woman speaking to them outside of a gray colored building.
Please reach out to Wayva Waterman Lyons (Onoñda’gegá’/Onondaga), Assistant Director of Financial Aid and Admissions, or aiisp [at] cornell.edu to receive professional advice on the ins and outs of the application process.

What to expect during a Promising Futures weekend:

Photograph of a group of people walking together on a sidewalk next to a red stone building.
Explore Cornell's Campus

Join AIISP for a tour of a Cornell's main campus with unique guidance from current Cornell students and AIISP staff. See campus from Indigenous students' perspectives and imagine yourself learning on Cornell's beautiful campus, located in the traditional Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' (Cayuga Nation) homeland. As part of the campus tour, as seen on the image, Promising Futures participants get a tour of the Cornell Dairy and try ice cream made there.

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Network with AIIS Faculty

You will receive personalized mentorship from AIIS/Cornell faculty tailored to your field of interest. AIIS faculty come from various departments across all seven of Cornell's colleges. Find the faculty who share your academic interests and discover those you may not have known about all before applying to Cornell!

Students listen to a presentation
Workshop your College Application

You will receive professional advice on the ins and outs of the application process from Cornell admissions officers and AIISP staff, as well as financial aid officers. Get your application questions answered and see what a successful application looks like. This will give you the edge when applying to Cornell or any other college.

“When I visited Cornell, I was lucky enough to speak to faculty at the University, and ask them questions personally. There was a professor that really got to me. Dr. Katja Nowack was one of the reasons I was inspired to apply to Cornell. She described what she was researching in such detail and excitement, I was nothing short of captivated. She was seeing how metals reacted at extremely low temperatures. "Superconductors," she said, explaining what that meant. Dr. Nowack spoke of her research as if it was the most interesting thing in the world, and I believed that it was. I had never seen that much passion. It made me want that. I wanted to have that much passion about what I was learning about. To be surrounded with professors like Dr. Nowack, who would have a passion for not only what they were teaching, but for teaching me.”

~ Promising Futures - Student Participant

Students are seated around a table. A student with glasses and a dark shirt holds the microphone talking to the group.
Students listen to a presentation

Can't make it in person? No problem! Explore our "virtual" Promising Futures resources!

Learn more about Cornell & Indigenous community on campus
How to Apply

Please reach out to Wayva Waterman Lyons (Onoñda’gegá’/Onondaga), Assistant Director of Financial Aid and Admissions, or aiisp [at] cornell.edu to receive professional advice on the ins and outs of the application process.

Promising Futures - Supporting Indigenous Student Recruitment for over a decade

In the early 1970s, Cornell reported a population of approximately 300 Indigenous students. In reality, in 1971 there were only two Indigenous students on campus, both undergraduates: Janine Jamieson-Huff (Tonawanda Seneca) and Roger Dube (Mohawk and Abenaki). They formed the Native American Student Association (NASAC) in 1971, with the help of Katherine Livingston, a non-native Anthropology graduate student. 

Through concerted student, faculty, and community advocacy, a committee formed that produced the “Hunt Proposal” in the mid 1970s. A joint project between the College of Agriculture and the College of Human Ecology, the Proposal recommended that Cornell hire a graduate student to first recruit students and then develop policies and practices that would enable those students to be successful. As the American Indian Program developed encompassing student support services, and academic resources for the American Indian and Indigenous Studies the recruitment of Indigenous students to study at Cornell remained a mainstay of the program. 

AIISP Program Director Dr. Jolene Rickard (Tuscarora) (AIISP Director from 2011-2019) spearheaded the creation of the Promising Futures initiative. Launched in 2014, Promising Futures has proven to be very successful with 40 percent of student participants applying to Cornell and many younger participants become connected to the Indigenous Cornell community early in their high school experience. Initially focused on New York State region, interest in this event has reached all the way across the country with requests coming from California, Texas, and New Mexico. 

Promising Futures generally occurs in the spring semester each year. Contact aiisp [at] cornell.edu (aiisp[at]cornell[dot]edu) to participate and receive updates. 

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