NYU Announces Establishment of Center for Indigenous Studies to Promote Cultural Awareness and Research
Interim Provost Georgina Dopico today announced that NYU will establish a Center for Indigenous Studies and has recruited Eve Tuck—a prominent Indigenous Studies scholar at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the founding director of the Tkaronto CIRCLE lab—to serve as its founding director. Beginning January 1, 2024, she will hold a joint appointment at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, and will be a James Weldon Johnson Professor.
New York City has a greater number of Native Americans and Alaska Natives than any other US city.
Professor Tuck will consult with NYU faculty members engaged in the area of Native American and Indigenous Studies including those who form part of the Native Studies Forum (NSF), and with the Native American and Indigenous Student Group (NAISG) at NYU, in conceptualizing and building the new provostial center. Dedicated to collaborative Indigenous research and Indigenous Studies, the new center will seek to maximize the impact of the research of Indigenous Studies scholars across NYU’s schools and enhance collaboration, to create an Indigenous Studies major for students at NYU (currently, there is a minor), to help integrate Indigenous ways of knowing into the curriculum, andto make NYU a prominent center in the field of Indigenous Studies. More broadly, the new center will seek to support Native American and Indigenous Studies faculty, students, and staff, who will work with Professor Tuck to set the Center’s mission and priorities. As part of NYU’s new faculty cluster hiring initiative, the institution has recruited three new faculty in Indigenous Studies over the past two years, and plans to recruit additional faculty this year and in upcoming years.
Interim Provost Dopico said, “It’s an honor to expand the University’s commitment to collaborative Indigenous studies and to welcome Professor Tuck to NYU and to New York City, which is home to more Indigenous North Americans than any other US city. I look forward to working with her and with students, faculty, and staff, as we seek new ways to engage with and learn from Indigenous communities close to NYU and from those across the world. Professor Tuck’s collaborative approach will strengthen NYU and bring together scholars from multiple disciplines and geographies to advance innovative and important research.”
Professor Tuck said, “I look forward to learning as much as I can about efforts to grow Indigenous Studies and ethical research with Indigenous communities already underway at NYU, and bringing what I have learned (sometimes the hard way) from working at University of Toronto during a similar time of openness and investment. New York City is where I learned to be a scholar, and is the city at the heart of my theorizing and research practice. I am grateful to return to Lenapehoking to bring what I know about programs, research, and collaborations that make a real difference in the lives of Indigenous communities.”
NYU, which launched the Native Studies Forum in 2006, has numerous scholars of Indigenous studies across its schools and departments. The launch of this initiative will facilitate collaboration on research, exhibitions, public events and lectures, and other scholarly activities and projects.
At University of Toronto, Tuck was Professor of Critical Race and Indigenous Studies and Canada Research Chair of Indigenous Methodologies with Youth and Communities. She is the founding Director of the Tkaronto CIRCLE Lab, and was a William T Grant Foundation Scholar (2015-2020).
Tuck is Unangax̂ and is an enrolled member of the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, Alaska. She grew up outside of her community, living in Pennsylvania as a child, and New York City as a young adult. She earned a PhD in Urban Education from The Graduate Center, The City University of New York.