Stanford Native American Cultural Center

Native Graduate Student Study and Mentoring Nights

Activities and Programming

Stanford Native Immersion Program

Each year in late summer, our community hosts the Stanford Native Immersion Program for new freshmen and transfer students. SNIP is designed to help our new undergraduates make new friends and ease the cultural transition to life at Stanford. SNIP is typically scheduled during the middle of August.

Pre-Orientation Retreat

Designed for incoming Native American undergraduate students, this two-day trip to the beach helps to demystify the Stanford experience. Returning students, faculty, staff and alumni welcome the newest students and serve as resources to explain the admission, advising, financial aid and other processes. The retreat is held preceding New Student Orientation (September).

Native American Orientation

Coordinated by the Native American Orientation Committee (NAOC), our orientation program includes a variety of workshops and social gatherings to introduce the new undergraduates to the Native American community and Stanford. Included in the NAOC activities are an Open House at the Native American Cultural Center, an evening gathering with on-campus Native Student organizations and a community-wide barbecue for new and returning students, faculty, staff, alumni, family and friends.

Partners for Academic Excellence

Freshmen are invited to be PAE Fellows and participate in small study groups led by graduate and undergraduate student mentors. Partners for Academic Excellence helps students develop strong class cohesion, challenges students to pursue relationships with faculty, and motivates students through an intimate and affirming academic experience.

NACC Speaker Series

The Native American Cultural Center hosts a variety of speakers each quarter. Topics may range from freshman to graduate student to staff to alumni issues--but everyone is welcome!

Monthly Potluck Dinner Gatherings

Students, faculty, staff, family and friends gather at the Native American Cultural Center or Muwekma-Tah-Ruk nearly every month to share a meal, good times, and conversation. Occasionally with a special theme--like "SPAM-O-Rama" or "Food of Color"--potluck dinners bring us together, often with guests from the larger Bay Area Native community.

Alumni Homecoming Reunion

Every fall, the Stanford Alumni Association hosts an amazing weekend of activities for former students returning to "The Farm" for their class reunions. Featured during Homecoming every year are gatherings of special communities or academic areas and inductions into the Alumni Hall of Fame. In October 2005, the Native American Community celebrated the 35th Anniversary of the Stanford American Indian Organization.

Native American Awareness Programming

Each quarter, in November, February and May, Native American programming is spotlighted on the Stanford campus. Fall quarter programming includes Indigenous People's Day, a trip to the annual American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco and a Thanksgiving Day Dinner. Winter quarter focuses on mentoring within the Native American Community and features visiting artists and scholars, the Stanford AISES sponsored college motivation day as well as the annual Student Mentor Dinner. Native American Awareness in Spring quarter culminates with the Stanford Powwow.

John Milton Oskison Writing Competition

This annual competition is named for the first Native American graduate of Stanford University, former president of the Stanford Literary Society, editor at Collier's magazine and member of the Society of American Indians who wrote on American Indian issues. Four student papers (two undergraduate and two graduate) are spotlighted each year. The research topics vary across academic disciplines but contain a substantial emphasis on issues or subjects impacting the Native American Community.

Student Mentor Dinner

The Stanford American Indian Organization and the American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Program host a buffet dinner featuring Native foods so that students and their guest faculty, staff, alumni and student mentors can get to know each other away from the classroom. The John Milton Oskison Writing Competition and Anne Ninham Medicine Mentorship Award recipients are announced at this event.

Graduate Diversity Admit Weekend

The Schools of Earth Science, Education, Engineering and Humanities and Sciences--in collaboration with the Native American Cultural Center and others--host admitted graduate students for a weekend of events designed to encourage them to study at Stanford.

Stanford Admit Weekend

Admitted undergraduate students will be invited to Stanford each April. Hosted by current students, the prospective freshmen are encouraged to accept Stanford's offers of admission.

Native American Research Forum

The annual Research Forum provided an opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students from Stanford and other local colleges and universities to present their research and discuss new currents in Native scholarship. Research topics varied widely and focused on issues of importance to tribes and American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian communities. Instead of an all day event, the forum was reshaped into a regular speaker series or a publication in 2003-04.

Native American Community Awards and Classes Dinner

The Native Community and several student organizations acknowledge their graduating members, organizational officers, and scholarship recipients at this annual awards banquet. Individual scholarship and community service are also celebrated.

Native American Graduation Dinner and Awards Presentation

An honoring of students receiving undergraduate or graduate degrees and their families, the graduation awards dinner is held each year on the night before Commencement. The Stanford Native American community shows its appreciation for our graduating students and their accomplishments by presenting each of them with a Pendleton blanket.

Community potluck with food from the Muwekma Ohlone tribe.