Land acknowledgment for Illinois State University

Illinois State University's current land acknowledgement statement is a work in progress. A subcommittee of the President's  Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee is currently working on an Indigenous reconciliation process, which will include a revised land acknowledgement. This ongoing dialogue will be centered in the voices of Indigenous people and the tribes who continue to be impacted. 

Illinois State University was built on the land of multiple native nations. These lands were the traditional birthright of Indigenous people who were forcibly removed and have faced centuries of struggle for survival and identity in the wake of dispossession and displacement. We would like to acknowledge that our campus sits on the lands that were once home to the Illini, Peoria and the Myaamia, and later due to colonial encroachment and displacement to the Fox, Potawatomi, Sauk, Shawnee, Winnebago, Ioway, Mascouten, Piankashaw, Wea, and Kickapoo Nations. We also express honor to those Indigenous people who we may have excluded in this acknowledgement due to erasure and historical inaccuracy.

Thanks to the members of the ISU Native American Studies program, the Department of History, the Department of Sociology, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: and the Multicultural Center for sharing their land acknowledgment statements, which were used to develop this statement.