Moon, Lyons network with tribal colleges and universities at conference

At the summit, UC colleagues gathered for a photo. From left, Phenocia Bauerle, of UC Berkeley, Michelle Villegas-Frazier of UC Davis, Rosalie Fanshel of UC Berkeley, Elizabeth Moon and Andy Lyons of UC ANR, and Kase Wheatley of UC Davis.

Andy Lyons, program coordinator for the Informatics and GIS Statewide Program (IGIS) and Elizabeth Moon, director of Workplace Inclusion & Belonging, attended the Land-Grant Partners Summit in Denver on Oct. 12-13.

The Land-Grant Partners is an alliance of 1862 land grant universities working to develop collaborations with 1994 Land Grant Institutions, i.e., tribal colleges and universities. The Land-Grant Partners project began in response to the article “Land-grab Universities: Expropriated Indigenous land is the foundation of the land-grant university system,” published in High Country News on March 30, 2020. The article revealed that Native lands were taken to fund the original land-grant institutions.

While they were in Denver, Moon and Lyons were able to attend the first day of the 2023 FALCON Conference (First Americans Land-Grant Consortium), which was held immediately after the Land-Grant Partners Summit.

“We were not formally representing ANR at either of these events,” said Lyons, “but went to listen and learn what other states are doing, in the hopes of joining forces and ultimately connecting the many people in ANR trying to deepen our relationships with tribes with colleagues in other states.”

They wrote a short blog post about the two conferences. It's posted on the IGIS blog and Together@Work blog. The story includes an interactive map of land grant colleges and universities. 

The two-year tribal college Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl University, or D–Q University, is not currently operating in Yolo County. However California Tribal College is administering their program through Woodland Community College.

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