my work draws attention to. >> You can watch our extended
interview with Professor Barnes on our website, UW-Madison sits
on ancestral Ho-Chunk land in recognition of that, and to give
back the Wisconsin Tribal Education Promise offers full
tuition, including housing costs and fees, to native
undergraduate students in Wisconsin. The promise also
extends tuition waivers to native law and medical students
"Here& Now". Reporter Erika Ayisi looks at the program and
the history behind it. This report is in collaboration with
our partners at ICT. Formerly Indian Country. Today.
>> It means a lot to me and my people, my community, the native
community. We are still here. We're still fighting for our
rights to be here. >> Riley Aguirre is a freshman
at the University of Wisconsin's Madison campus.
>> Education was used as assimilation to get rid of our
culture, our language, our traditions. But now it's used as
a way of teaching. >> She's an enrolled member of
the Oneida Nation, and attending the university at no cost to her
or her family. Using the Wisconsin Tribal Education
Promise Program, how would your family have paid for college
otherwise? >> Other scholarships?
Definitely applying for scholarships outside of the
school to help me as well. And probably funding through the
tribe as well. >> The Wisconsin Tribal
Education Promise program provides financial support for
students who are enrolled in one of the state's 11 federally
recognized tribes. Karla Vigue, Tribal Relations director of
UW-Madison, says the university wants to make the Madison campus
more accessible to native students.
>> We worked with tribal leaders from across the state to create
the program, and now we're seeing the fruits of those
labors. You know, we're seeing our first class. We've got
nearly 80 students in this first class. And we're hoping it will
grow from here. >> Tuition, housing, books and
all other school related fees totaling about $30,000 are
covered for undergraduate native students through the Promise
program. program, and, you know, we're
pretty proud that people want to support this program.
>> The program is funded through private donations. Vigue says
the legal precedent surrounding federally recognized tribes is a
specific eligibility requirement for the students applying to the
program. >> Federally recognized tribes
are sovereign nations who determine citizenship. And so
that's a political classification. It's not a race
or ethnicity. >> Schools in nearly all 50
states offer some type of financial assistance for native
students. The program's unique. It includes medical students and
law students. Tell me more about that.
>> We are hearing from people across the country, even in
particular about that law aspect. There's a lot of
excitement around the law schoo. >> Biden Josef Cornelius is
Oneida. His father is a UW-Madison Law School graduate
who was worried about school loans for his son.
>> Initially, we were thinking that some of it would probably
have to come out of my pockets or his pockets, and the fact
that it was like, no worries, you know? Now we're just now I
just have to worry about school, get good grades, and then it's
all smooth sailing. >> Undergraduate recipients of
the tribal promise are reserved one wing of dorms inside the
Smith Residence Hall. There's also an indigenous student
center close by that hosts tribal student groups like Wunk
Sheek, Wied. >> I'd say the Wunk Sheek House
Indigenous Program have done a really good job at promoting the
diversity here. >> Vigue says the university
wants to do what's right for Wisconsin's native people.
Considering the university is on native land belonging to the
Ho-Chunk, also known as the people of the Big Voice.
>> This is Ho-Chunk ancestral land, and I think there's now
some sense of pride in that and wanting to share and celebrate
that history. But there's also, you know, with this promise, a
chance to give back to. Madison campus extends over 900
acres of land, including a four mile stretch of shoreline along
Lake Mendota. But this land is the ancestral home to the
Ho-Chunk nation. The native people who were living here for
over 10,000 years. Through a series of treaties, the Ho-Chunk
were forced to cede or give up this land to the state of
Wisconsin and the federal government.
>> The 1837 treaty wasn't a revered treaty at all. These are
forced agreements to cede our land, such as that particular
treaty, move west of the Mississippi, and, you know, and
relinquish our ownership of our historic homes.
>> Jon Greendeer, president of Ho-Chunk nation, says the final
treaty with the government was signed under duress.
>> We had eight months to vacate, but then we didn't. And
in the coldest parts of the winter, they shipped us in rail
cars across to the neutral ground. And, you know, we
suffered a lot for that. >> Ho-Chunk were given one and a
half million dollars for their land, but the government put
most of it into interest bearing trusts, leaving Ho-Chunk next to
nothing. >> I don't think any
representatives of authority could walk away from one of
those agreements and say they were the beneficiary of
something. >> Most of the Wisconsin native
tribes were forcibly moved to reservations, but Ho-Chunk
people are spread across the state with over 7000 currently
enrolled members. Greendeer says the treaties of the past are
significant to their sovereignty of the present.
>> The treaties gave way to a lot and substantiated our
abilities to negotiate not only with local governments, but also
later on with these other little governments that were starting
up with the education campuses, with the UW. Ho-Chunk had
already surrendered. This part of their land in an 1832 treaty,
paving the way for UW-Madison to be built in 1848. Abraham
Lincoln signed the Morrill Act in 1862, selling 1.3 million
acres of tribal land in Wisconsin and using the proceeds
to create so-called land grant universities. And so today, the
tuition promise extends to native students across the
state. A promise Greendeer calls late, but fitting.
>> I think the Wisconsin promise is a very old promise that is
finally getting kept, at least at the UW level, at least at the
college level. >> 108 years after the last
treaty was signed, Robert Powless, an Oneida man, became
the first native to graduate from UW-Madison. Ada Dyer, a
Menominee native, was the first woman for Aguirre, a free
university education on native soil is personal.
>> Our education is not only for me, but for our community and
for the resiliency of my ancestors. We fought so long
through so many generations of trauma and abuse and neglect,
and being here is like resiliency.
>> They were forcibly removed, and this university has spent
some time coming to accept and share that story. And part of
the reason this promise exists is because, you know, there is
some recognition that that all happened, but there's also, you
know, there's also the need and want to do what's right and good
for native people to. >> A heritage marker was erected
on UW Madison's campus to recognize the ancestral home of
Ho-Chunk. It's near Bascom Hill, which sits on top an effigy or
burial mound built by native people over a thousand years
ago. A series of 12 Ho-Chunk Circle clan sculptures are
outside the Bakke recreation and Wellbeing Center.
>> The promise is intended to be forever, right? I mean, Native
American students have been around, you know, since the
beginning of what is now the United States. But it's been
around since the inception of what is now this country. And I
think the goal is to make sure that they're taken care of
forever. >> Both students are looking to
use their education to better their communities.
>> I kind of want to go into wealth management or some maybe
sustainability. >> I do want to go into some
field where I can be an advocate for possibly my tribe or other
people, but definitely native people as a whole. And getting
our voices out there to be hear. >> Reporting from Madison
Ho-Chunk lands. I'm Erica Ayisi Ho-Chunk lands. I'm Erica Ayisi