Video: First Nations Education Ed.D. Learning Across Generations

Empowering cultural resurgence, the First Nations Education Doctoral Program at UW-Green Bay is the only education doctoral program of its kind in the United States. Join a learning community of changemakers to transform your work today.

FNEdD Program Video Transcription: As a student in the First Nations Education doctoral program at UW-Green Bay, we get to move through our studies as a cohort. It focuses on academics but it also includes culture. And one of the greatest things that I believe about the program is that they talked to the tribal community members and said, what do you want to see in a program? They took that information and they built this program.

The First Nations doctoral program from through my lens and looking at is an opportunity to collaborate with other thinkers and other feelers of First Nations communities whether they’re from Wisconsin or from the great lakes area or across this country.

First Nations Education doctoral faculty is the best I have encountered in all of my professional academic career. They are supportive. They are understanding. They are knowledgeable, and they are ready to share what they know, as well as learn from each and every one of us in our cohort. Which is so different than any other program I have been a part of or even seen. This opportunity to be a part of the doctoral program has been a very rewarding program for myself personally. And I don’t perceive this as hard work but rather this is the everyday work that we need to do for our own communities. Family, clan, nation, are all bundled together in that motivation to make a difference.

I have been very transformed by the doctorate program. I got a new job since starting this program which really has been because of this program that gave me the foundations that I needed to succeed in my new job. I have been able to make connections between museum work and the work that we’re doing in the classroom. We’ve been able to really see how to work with, for, and by indigenous people. To make museums accessible and welcoming for all.

You don’t need to be an educator to go through this program you can come from any field of work. It’s about learning about the systemic pieces of education that are responsive to First Nations communities. And with an education doctorate, it gives me an opportunity to open doors that I might not have been able to open for the community. The work that we do today, the words that we share, the policies that we create, the opportunity to make that good path for our future, comes from the energy of our work.