Program Overview

The Bachelor of Arts in American Indian Studies (AIS) is designed to challenge students to think critically about the differences and similarities between American Indians' lives of the past and present and their own. The emphasis in the curriculum placed on duality links the concerns of tribal communities with academic rigor, enabling our faculty to harness their expertise and passion for teaching in ways that lead to greater student cultural competence and prepares them to meet high expectations.

The curriculum is focused on four areas of emphasis:

• California Indian Studies;
• American Indian Creative Arts and Humanities;
• Law, Politics, and Society; and
• Science, Health, and Environmental Studies.

The knowledge base within these areas prepare students to work academically – and in advocacy – with both tribal and urban Native communities within California and the United States. The courses comprising the B.A. challenge students to actively question the most ingrained myths about American Indians, the roles they have played in the United States and internationally over time, and the goals of historical and contemporary cultural maintenance and revitalization movements. The program also includes an international comparative perspective and coalitional politics with Native peoples of U.S. occupied territories and more broadly within the Americas and the Pacific. AIS courses are taught by faculty wedded to the belief that community relationships and pedagogical rigor are the cornerstones upon which student success within the curriculum rests. AIS faculty represent a small cadre of scholars who have distinguished themselves both nationally and internationally by pushing accepted boundaries within and outside of the field in the areas of cultural ecology, ethnography, ethnolinguistics, history of consciousness, mixed-race studies, and music. The interdisciplinary pedagogical excellence of the AIS faculty enables preparation of the next generation of inquisitive American Indian Studies scholars that have a responsibility to Native peoples of California and the United States. AIS majors experience a balanced classroom education with an active community participatory learning component and are required to regularly seek advising from an AIS faculty member.
Program Learning Outcomes:

• Completing the Bachelor of Arts in American Indian Studies (AIS) empowers students to do the following:
• Understand the complex histories, politics, and social issues confronting Native peoples in the context of U.S. colonization, imperialism, and globalization. This understanding will include awareness of the diverse political and creative strategies used by Native peoples to confront the historical legacies of dispossession, genocide, and social inequity and discrimination, including legal action for land restoration, cultural conservation/revitalization efforts, and multiple media of creative expression.
• Compare and contrast the uniqueness of Native epistemologies and their articulation in multiple practices — from land and water care, foodways, cultural resource management, literature, music, and the arts.
• Appreciate experiential knowledge through community service learning, as a way of connecting classroom education to career preparation and advisement.
• Develop the necessary analytical, oral communication, information literacy, and writing skills to prepare them for careers or graduate school in areas related to American Indian Studies.