Assistant Professor Tenure-Track Position in Indigenous Histories of the North American West

The History Department at Whitman College is excited to announce a new faculty position in the department to begin in Fall 2024. 

This new position will link well with the Virgil Robert and Mary L. Bierman Endowment for the Study of the History of the American West.  This generous gift allows the department to fund student summer internships and other projects related to the history of the North American West.  In addition, this gift also funds the Bierman Lecture Series on the History of the American West.  Overall, this endowment has expanded the college’s attention to issues of indigeneity more broadly.

Whitman College has a layered and painful past on the homelands of the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla peoples. There remains much work to do in bridging the present and past to a reparative future. However, the creation of this new faculty position comes at a time when the college has increased its connections with the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla peoples, especially through the auspices of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Confederation (CTUIR).

• In 2017 Whitman College signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the CTUIR
• In 2022 Whitman College and the CTUIR furthered their interconnections
• In the April 2022 local tribal members set up a Southern Plateau Long Tent in center of the Whitman College campus. This resulted in numerous educational opportunities for the Whitman community.
• Šináata Scholarships for Indigenous students
• Amber Ebarb -- Gin Du Tlaa (Whitman class of 2003) gave the 2023 Commencement address. Ebarb is an enrolled citizen of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.
• The first ever Native Alumni Meet & Greet Event was held on campus with Commencement speaker Amber Ebarb, Šináata Scholarship students and families, and Whitman Native Alumni
• Inaugural Annual Pášxapa Powwow at Whitman College, 18 November 2023
• Recently the Whitman faculty approved significant revisions to the Race and Ethnic Studies major, including renaming it Indigeneity, Race & Ethnic Studies (IRES).
• Whitman College recently created the new position of Special Assistant to the President for Native American Outreach
• The student-run Indigenous People’s Education and Culture Club (IPECC) is quite active, including playing a key role in developing the priorities for the new Special Assistant to the President position. It is also working closely with college administrators to create campus space and support for Native students.
• Whitman and NAGPRA
• Recent Museum Exhibits
  • Along the Columbia River Nčí-Wána: Maya Lin and the Confluence Project
  • A Proper Monument?
  • From Memorials to Mascots: The Whitmans in the 20^th Century
  • You Are Here

Regional historical resources include most notably:

• Tamástslikt Cultural Institute of the CTUIR.
  • In recent years both the National Historic Site at the Whitman Mission and Fort Walla Walla Museum have collaborated with Tamástslikt in their interpretive work.
• The Plateau Peoples' Web Portal hosted by Washington State University offers "a collaboratively curated and reciprocally managed archive of Plateau cultural materials."
• The Confluence Project. “Connecting people to the history, living cultures, and ecology of the Columbia River system through Indigenous voices.”