May 29-30, 2003

ITEM 119-2003-R0503    Authorization to Confer the Title of Professor Emeritus of Native American Studies upon Henrietta Mann; Montana State University-Bozeman

THAT: Upon the occasion of the retirement of Henrietta Mann from Montana State University, the Board of Regents wishes to express its appreciation for her service to the University, the Montana University System, and the people of the State of Montana.

EXPLANATION: Henrietta Mann (formerly Whiteman) earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in American Studies from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque in 1982. She is a full-blood Cheyenne enrolled with the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and has served on their Business Committee.

Dr. Mann is the first individual to fill the Endowed Chair in Native American Studies at Montana State University, Bozeman. Prior to that she was a full professor of Native American Studies at the University of Montana, Missoula. Some of the other institutions included in her thirty years of administration and/or teaching at the higher education level are the University of California at Berkeley, the Graduate School of Education of Harvard University, the University of Sciences and Arts at Chickasha, Oklahoma, and Haskell Indian Nations University, Lawrence, Kansas.

In 1986 she was a Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs/Director of the Office of Indian Education Programs, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior. In 1991-92 she served as the National Coordinator of the American Indian Religious Freedom Coalition in the Association on American Indian Affairs.

In 1983 Dr. Mann was selected as the Cheyenne Indian of the Year and in 1987 she was honored as the National American Indian Woman of the Year. Rolling Stone magazine in March 1991 named her one of the ten leading professors in the nation. The National Women's History Project in its series of six posters has featured her as one of five 20th Century Women Educators. In 1997 she was inducted into the Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame, Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Weatherford, Oklahoma. She also is listed in Who's Who of American Women, World Who's Who of Women, and World Who's Who of Women in Education.

She also has been an interviewee, consultant, and technical advisor for television and movie productions, including the American Experience's In the White Man's Image; Discovery Channel's How the West Was Lost; Home Box Office's Paha Sapa: The Struggle for the Black Hills; and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) documentary The West by Ken Bums and Stephen Ives. She was the Cheyenne consultant for the movie, Last of the Dogmen, as well as the Cheyenne language coach for actress Barbara Hershey.

Dr. Mann is a member of the Board of Directors for Native Action, headquartered on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Larne Deer, Montana. She also serves on the Council of Elders for the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) of Albuquerque, New Mexico. In January of 1997, she commenced an initial three-year appointment on the Board of Trustees for the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution and she has been appointed for a second three-year term. She also serves on the Advisory Council for Women of Vision & Action, on the Board of Directors of the Native Lands Institute, and on other boards and foundations.

In 1998 the University Press of Colorado published her book Cheyenne-Arapaho Education, 1871-1982. Dr. Mann was a Program Consultant in the area of Native American History/Western Indians for Macmillan/McGraw-Hill's 1997 social studies textbooks for grades 3, 4, 5 and 6. She presented a workshop, served as a panelist, and delivered a keynote address at the closing General Assembly of the 1999 World Indigenous Peoples' Conference on Education in Hilo, Hawaii.

For these and other contributions, the Board of Regents of Higher Education is pleased to confer upon Henrietta Mann the rank of Professor Emeritus of Native American Studies at Montana State University and wishes her well for many years in the future.