Land Acknowledgement
Northern Arizona University sits at the base of the San Francisco Peaks, on homelands sacred to Native Americans throughout the region. We honor their past, present, and future generations, who have lived here for millennia and will forever call this place home.
Indigenous Knowledges Digital Learning Library (IKDLL)
Welcome
The Indigenous Knowledges Digital Learning Library (IKDLL) is an online portal that serves as an ever-growing educational resource providing respectful and culturally appropriate access to Indigenous knowledges, cultures, histories, perspectives, and innovations for the purpose of learning, understanding, and teaching. The IKDLL centers and elevates the voices and perspectives of Indigenous Peoples. Designed as an Indigenous open educational resource (IOER), the IKDLL provides local, regional, national, and global access to the content contained within the repository.
The IKDLL directly supports NAU’s Seven Generations Signature Initiative’s goal of Indigenizing curriculum and elevating Indigenous Scholarship by creating and curating a digital space for Indigenous educational materials.
Seven Generations Signature Initiative
In 2022, Northern Arizona University’s President, Dr. Jose Luis Cruz Rivera, was awarded a transformational $5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, matched by an additional $5 million investment from the Northern Arizona University Foundation (NAUF), to develop and implement the Seven Generations Signature Initiative (7GSI) over the next three years.
The 7GSI proposal was inspired by NAU’s commitment to Indigenous Peoples, which is articulated in NAU’s strategic plan. Specifically NAU will continue its intentional support for Indigenous students, faculty and staff; develop university-wide culturally responsive educational opportunities and programming and build mutually beneficial partnerships with Indigenous communities that will position NAU as the nation’s leading university serving Indigenous Peoples.
7GSI is composed of three portfolios of initiatives that will build on existing areas of excellence and elevate NAU’s impact as one of the nation’s leading universities serving Indigenous Peoples. The initiatives in 7GSI include the following:
- Elevating Indigenous Scholarship
- Strengthening Partnerships
- Propelling Indigenous Student Success
Within the Elevating Indigenous Scholarship portfolio, Cline Library was responsible for developing an IOER repository. Cline Library staff, Seven Generations Indigenous Knowledge Center (7Gen Center) staff, NAU faculty members, and Indigenous community members collaboratively developed the frameworks, technical infrastructure, and curated the initial materials for the IOER repository. Cline Library identified EPrints as the most appropriate content management system to serve as a portal for the repository. The portal is named the Indigenous Knowledges Digital Learning Library (IKDLL) and serves as a growing resource and tool aimed at decolonizing and Indigenizing NAU’s curriculum and education as a whole.
Indigenous resources at NAU
- Seven Generations Indigenous Knowledge Center (7Gen Center)
- Office of Native American and Indigenous Advancement (ONAIA)
- Office of Indigenous Student Success (OISS)
- Center for Native American and Indigenous Futures (CNAIF)
- Institute for Native-serving Educators (INE)
- NAU Talent Search (TRiO)
- Indigenous Student Clubs
Photos used on the IKDLL website and subsequent pages can be found in the Cline Library Special Collections and Archives Digital Archives.