Welcome to the Center for Race, Ethnic, and Indigenous Studies at Marquette (REIS)!
The Center for REIS at Marquette University is the first of its kind on our campus and is unique because it works on three discrete but overlapping initiatives:
1. Curricular: Our objectives are to bring together course offerings in the areas of REIS across the university under one umbrella. This includes courses that are centered on Africana Studies, Arab and Muslim Studies, Latinx Studies, Native American and Indigenous Studies, and the broader theoretical work being done on campus on critical race, ethnic, and indigenous studies across disciplines and colleges.
2. Communities: We aim to strengthen the formation of a supportive and inclusive community on Marquette's campus, particularly for under-represented groups of faculty, staff, and students. We want to facilitate community partnership with the greater Milwaukee community and to create opportunity for both informal and formal socialization to strengthen the intellectual, professional, and interpersonal bonds on our campus. We want to create a thriving and welcoming community for all those who visit our campus.
3. Collaborative Research: We are committed to supporting collaborative research endeavors across colleges in the name of promoting cutting-edge research at the intersection of race, ethnic, and indigenous studies that transcends disciplinary boundaries and brings undergraduate and graduate students, community members, and faculty and staff together for meaningful dialogue and exchange as well as mutual support.
Visit our About REIS webpage to find out more. And please stop by and visit us in the 707 Hub, Fourth Floor!
Land and Water Acknowledgment
Marquette University acknowledges that our campus and Milwaukee are the homelands and waters of the Menominee, Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, Fox, Mascouten, Sauk and Ojibwe nations, who have known this land and water as a relative for millennia and who remain our hosts on the land today. We also acknowledge that Milwaukee is located along the southwest shores of Michigami (meaning “big water” in Anishinaabemowin), where the Milwaukee River, Menomonee River, and Kinnickinnic River meet. We remember that Milwaukee is covered by the 1833 Treaty of Chicago signed by the United States and Potawatomi and acknowledge it cleaved and dispersed this tribal nation through removal.
We also acknowledge the presence of tribal members from Wisconsin sovereign nations in Milwaukee, including the Oneida Nation, Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohicans, Brothertown Nation and Ojibwe Nations – namely, the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Sokaogan Chippewa Community and St. Croix Chippewa Indians. We further understand and honor that the greater Milwaukee area is home to a large, resurging urban Indian community that includes diasporic Indigenous peoples from around North America, as well as from the Global South, the Pacific, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Marquette University further acknowledges and pays respect to the elders and ancestors past, present and emerging whose histories, knowledge and cultural traditions have shaped the land and water of the greater Milwaukee area and can enrich practices around its stewardship. We affirm our commitment to practice ongoing good relations with the land and water and with sovereign Indigenous Nations that caretake them. In acknowledging the long-held relationships fostered by these lands and waters, we seek to strengthen and recommit ourselves to ongoing and future kinship responsibilities with each other and the Earth. In the spirit of reconciliation, we can authentically attend to and create the conditions of hospitality for current Indigenous students and community members and all yet to walk with us.
Click here for more information about this statement.