IAH receives grant to support MSU’s “particular responsibility” as a land-grant institution
Michigan State’s status as a land-grant university is mentioned on signage across campus. In addition to the historical marker shown here, there are prominent signs declaring this to be the “Pioneer Land Grant College” at several entrances to campus.
IAH classes are an essential way this institution fulfills the land-grant mission to “promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life,” as stated in the Morrill Act.
The Office of the Provost recognizes this as well, as the charge for the university’s General Education Council specifically calls for “a vision for what a bachelor’s degree from [a] twenty-first century land grant university should provide every one of its graduates.”
The Mission and Values section of the university’s strategic plan celebrates the “great good [that] has arisen from the resulting democratization of higher education, advancement of knowledge, and extension and outreach activities.” But as the strategic plan continues, this “is not the full story”:
Today, we recognize the complex relationship between land-grant universities and the seizure and dispossession of land from Native Americans, as well as how government support for agriculture led to rapid westward expansion during this period. Michigan State’s main campus occupies land ceded by Indigenous people in the 1819 Treaty of Saginaw. These lands are the ancestral, traditional and contemporary lands of the Anishinaabeg – Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi peoples. Land granted to benefit Michigan State University in association with the Morrill Act was situated in both the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan, ceded in the 1819 Saginaw treaty and the 1836 Treaty of Washington. But because Michigan State operates in every county in Michigan, with programs, facilities and land across the state, we occupy or use land ceded in every treaty negotiated in Michigan between the late 1700s and early 1840s. Treaties like these were often negotiated under coercive or violent circumstances…Reflecting upon Michigan State’s past and the relevance of its land-grant mission today allows us to make intentional choices about how we express our identity in the future. As the founding land-grant university, we have a particular responsibility not only to raise awareness about the history of Michigan State and land-grant universities, but also to elevate the visibility of Indigenous people and cultures and take steps to forge authentic connection and collaboration with present-day Native American and Indigenous communities affected by federal land-grant policies.
MSU Strategic plan, “Mission and values”
On May 1, 2025, the Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities submitted a proposal for the Creating Inclusive Excellence Grant (CIEG), a program which is also described as being central to our institutional identity: “For more than 50 years, Michigan State University has sought to provide central support for the advancement and success of all Spartans in alignment with the institution’s public land-grant mission, values, and strategic priorities.”
Our project, “Indigenizing IAH: Supporting MSU’s Land-Grant Responsibilities through General Education in the Arts and Humanities, received funding confirmation at the start of the Fall 2025 semester. The goal stated in our CIEG proposal is:
To establish a professional development series and faculty fellowship series to empower our faculty to develop familiarity in and methodology for integrating themes, topics, and tools from this field into existing IAH classes in relevant and impactful ways. With the CIEG funding requested here, the Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities will partner with our colleagues in AIIS [American Indian and Indigenous Studies] to create a lecture and workshop series on Indigenous pedagogy, history, and culture, which will be open to all faculty and graduate assistants throughout the College of Arts and Letters. This will be paired with the creation of a faculty fellowship, providing curriculum development funding for a cohort of five faculty who will attend all events in the series while also completing additional learning and development tasks to add or expand a significant Indigenous element to IAH courses.
Due to funding limitations, some aspects of this speaker series and faculty fellowship have been revised, but the central goal, and its crucial impact on our institution’s “particular responsibility” as a land-grant university, remains unchanged.
Planning for Spring 2026 (and beyond)
We are currently working closely with our partners in American Indian and Indigenous Studies to assemble a panel of speakers who will present on their research and teaching at a series that will meet throughout the Spring 2026 semester. We expect to announce panelists and dates shortly (stay tuned to the IAH Insights newsletter for more details).
As faculty prepare for their IAH teaching in the 2026/27 academic year, consider opportunities to participate in part or all of this series as a way to advance the ways your class helps MSU carry this particular responsibility. We are particularly looking for folks who might be willing to either:
- Add 15% (the rough equivalent of two weeks in a 15-week semester) or more Indigenous content to an existing IAH class that has none or very little.
- Expand an existing IAH class with some Indigenous content to allow it to potentially qualify for credit in the Minor in American Indian and Indigenous Studies, which requires one-third or more Indigenous-related content.
Funding will be available for participants who attend some or all of the events in the speaker series, with the goal being that this will be a robust and collegial gathering that honors the expertise of scholars working in these fields and the experience of the communities impacted by our institutional history so that together, in the words of the university strategic plan, we may “elevate the visibility of Indigenous people and cultures and take steps to forge authentic connection and collaboration with present-day Native American and Indigenous communities affected by federal land-grant policies.”