Successful students need strong institutions that engage and uplift the surrounding community. I focus on empowering my students by being active on campus and collaborating with members of the surrounding community.

On campus, I chair the Indigenous Recognition and Reconciliation working group. As an informal committee on campus, the IRR group is working with the CSC president and across campus departments to formally adopt a land acknowledgement statement and expand programming on campus that connects the campus and local community, including local Indigenous Peoples.

Connected with my role with the IRR, I am also involved with the Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, a group that honors the memory of local author Mari Sandoz by advancing the history and contemporary connections between Indigenous and settler communities. A current project on which the Sandoz Society collaborates is the Northern Cheyenne Healing Trail. This project, developed and led by Indigenous leaders from the Northern Cheyenne promotes historical memory with advocacy and conservation in the region. Watch the following 5-minute video by the Rails to Trails Conservancy to learn more about the background and purpose of the Northern Cheyenne Healing Trail.