Last Updated: June 2024

Members of our Cultural Oversight Board and Internal Oversight Committee

In accordance with WINHEC accreditation guidelines, the Native American Studies Department maintains an external Cultural Oversight Board (COB). The COB is responsible for ensuring that the Department achieves the goals in its Student Well-Being Model, particularly, weaving its Cultural Standards - Knowledge, Relationship, Land, and Sovereignty - throughout the Department's structure, policies and activities.

The primary functions of the COB are to ensure that the Department:

  1. Serves the educational needs of the students taking classes in the Department, in accordance with the goals of the Student Well-Being Model.
  2. Remains integrated with and responsive to the Native Nations and Tribal communities it serves.
  3. Reviews the content and delivery of its programs.
  4. Makes continual progress improving the content and delivery of its programs.

Our COB Members

Seovaatse / Burt Medicine Bull

Setovaatse, Burt Medicine Bull, is a member of the So'tt'e band of Northern Cheyenne people. He is a professor of Cheyenne Language and Culture at Chief Dull Knife College in Lame Deer, Montana. Setovaatse has held multiple significant teaching positions from 4th grade through college levels in Montana and South Dakota. His B.A. from Montana State University, Billings, is in elementary education with a Minor in Native American Studies. He received his M.A. in Leadership/Elementary Administration and graduated with honors, Magna Cum Laude from Oglala Lakota College. He is a practicing member of the Native American Church and participates in the sweat lodge. He is fluent speaker of his native Cheyenne language and is passionate about teaching his language and sharing his culture.

Florence Garcia

Dr. Florence Garcia is a member of the Assiniboine Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck reservation and is also Ojibwe. She holds a doctorate in Adult and Higher Education from MSU Bozeman. She served as the President of Fort Peck Community College and most recently as the Associate Dean of City College at MSU Billings. She is retired but teaches as needed. Florence had a daughter Elisabeth and has three grandchildren.

Janine Pease

Dr. Janine Pease, "Loves to Pray", an enrolled Crow tribal member, a child of the Newly Made Lodges Clan and a member of the Big Lodge Clan. She is an adjunct faculty member at Little Big Horn College in Crow Studies, Humanities and Social Sciences (2020 - present). She holds undergraduate degrees in sociology and anthropology (Central Washington University 1970) and advanced degrees in Higher Education (Montana State University - Bozeman 1989 & 1994). Dr. Pease was a full time LBHC Faculty member, the accreditation liaison officer and coordinator of Crow language revitalization programs (2013 - 2020). She was the Crow Nation Cabinet Head for Education (2010 - 2012). At Fort Peck Community College and Rocky Mountain College, she was vice-president of academics and Indian Affairs, respectively (2008 - 2010 and 2003 - 2008). She is the founding president of Little Big Horn College; during her tenure, the college achieved full accreditation and participated in the American Indian Higher Education Consortium and world's Indigenous colleges meetings (1982 - 2001). Dr. Pease was lead plaintiff in Windy Boy v. Big Horn County, a precedent-setting American Indian Voting Rights case (1983 - 1986). In Montana, Montana Governors appointed her to the Human Rights Commission, the Districting and Apportionment Commission and the Montana Board of Regents. Currently, she chairs the board of the Crow Language Consortium (incorporated in 2014), a non-profit for Crow language materials development and language teaching/learning programs. She is a member of the Nighthawk Dance Society and the Valley of the Chiefs District. She resides in Billings; is mother of three, kaale of six and kaalexxaa'lia of two.

Bright Trail Woman / Jordann Lankford

Jordann Lankford-Forster is from Great Falls, Montana and is A’aniiih and Anishinaabe. Her A’aniiih name is Bright Trail Woman. Currently, Jordann serves as an educator and an Indigenous Education For All instructional coach for Great Falls Public Schools. She is a co- facilitator for Bright Trail Education which is an educational consulting company that presents both in the state of Montana, and nationally. Jordann has been recognized as a Montana Indian Teacher of the Year as well as the 2022 Montana History Teacher of the Year. She also serves as the Chairwoman of the Montana Advisory Council on Indian Education.

Miisami Sapai yi Akii / Kimberly Paul

Miisami Sapai yi Akii (Kim Paul) is born from the Greenwood Burners clan of Two Medicine River, within the Amskapi Piikani Blackfeet Nation. For her people, she is the carrier of the last repatriated KsiskStahkii Mopistaan, the Holy Piikani Creation Beaver Bundle affirming a rich spiritual history within Piikani Homelands for the past 20,000 years (to include all the ways of protection and provision, stories and holy songs and ways of being). Additionally, she was transferred into the full rights of a woman who carries the traditional stand-up war bonnet of the Piikani, was captured into the Kanatsoomiitaiks Warrior Society (traditionally a men’s honor) and although a mother of 4 and grandmother of 13, has earned a dual BS in pre-medicine and research psychology, an MS in environmental chemistry and biomedical science and has completed all coursework and dissertation towards her PhD in biochemistry, biomedicine, and community and public health (PhDc). She is the first Piikani to achieve this in the STEM fields, has over 20 STEM communuty-needs-based action research projects completed or completing, and is also the first Piikani to create a holistic, community-needs-based non-profit (501c3) whose mission is meaningful job creation, training, climate change adaptation, suicide and substance misuse reduction, cultural identity reclamation, Indigenous-focused curriculum, economic development within the 11 Piikani sub-communities, and on the land programming focusing on reconnection to Piikani Lifeways, physical activity, ceremony and strengthening local food systems via traditional foods intake, traditional foods production and education.

Kristie Russette

She is a member of the Chippewa Cree tribe from Rocky Boy, Montana. She is a former staff member with American Indian/Alaska Native Student Success at MSU and recent graduate of the Native American Studies Program. Her graduate research focused on indigenizing university strategic planning to better serve and support Indigenous faculty and staff.

Sean Chandler

Dr. Sean Chandler is an artist and enrolled member of the Aaniinen (Gros Ventre Nation). He is also the President of Aaniiih Nakoda College (ANC) located on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana. In 2016, Dr. Chandler was appointed to the Montana Arts Council and in 2022, he was appointed to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. Additionally, in April of 2018, Sean received the Montana Indian Education Association’s Indian Educator of the Year Award. He acquired a Bachelor of Arts in Art in 1997, as well as a Master of Arts in Native American Studies in 2003 from Montana State University-Bozeman. He also attained a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership from The University of Montana in 2014, with his dissertation entitled, “The Identity of Indigenous Lifeways.” For the past 21 years Sean has been employed with ANC, serving mostly as an Instructor and Director of American Indian Studies, until 2017 when he began to fill the role of Academic Dean and later as President in 2020. In addition to his administration duties, he also instructed the Aaniiih (Gros Ventre) Language to grade school aged children within ANC’s White Clay Immersion School. His artwork has been collected by the Minneapolis Institute of Art of Minneapolis, MN and the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, MT. Most recently, Sean was selected as one of five artists for the 2023 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship of the Eiteljorg Museum of Indianapolis, IN.

Vernon Finley

Dr. Vernon Finley is a member of the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes and is the Director of the Kootenai Culture Committee. He was born and raised on the Flathead Indian Reservation and is a graduate of Polson High School. He also graduated from the University of Montana, Oklahoma City University, and The University of Georgia with Bachelor's, Masters, and Doctoral degrees in Education, respectively. 

 

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