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he American Indian Center for Excellence at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College (NEO) will host experts from the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center on Friday, March 16 at 3:00 p.m. for a Community Sharing Workshop. The workshop will take place in the Calcagno Family Ballroom and is free and open to the public. “As Oklahoma’s premier Native American Serving Non-Tribal Institution (NASNTI) college, NEO is fortunate to be able to provide opportunities for research and scholarship to our students and our community,” said Dr. Linda Sue Warner, Special Assistant to President Hale on Tribal Affairs. “By understanding our past, we are able to plan for our future. Nationally known Dickenson College scholars’ will share a wealth of resources; we are fortunate to have them with us this week.”

Now part of the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School was founded in 1879 as the first federally funded off-reservation Indian boarding school. Later becoming a model to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the school educated over 10,000 Native American students between 1880 and 1918. During its operation, the school earned a dark reputation as Captain Richard Henry Pratt operated on the ideology of “Kill the Indian: Save the Man.” After the closure of the school in 1918, documents relating to the institution have been broadly distributed.

The Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center is a project of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Penn. Founded with the mission to create a searchable online database of Carlisle Indian School resources, the Digital Resource Center hosts workshops around the country to allow communities to discover their connection to the Carlisle Indian School. Resource Center experts Susan Rose, Barbara Landis, and Jim Gerencser will begin by sharing the history of the Carlisle Indian School and then walk participants through the exploration process. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own devices, but NEO will have a small number of laptops available on hand. The workshop will run from 3:00 – 6:00 p.m. Spaces are limited, so reservations are requested. To RSVP or for more information, contact Rachel Lloyd at Rlloyd@neo.edu.