Southern Ute Tribal Council Member Stacey Oberly, PhD, will deliver the keynote lecture at this year’s Barry Michrina Memorial Lecture series on Thursday, April 27. Beginning in 2013, the Barry Michrina Memorial Committee has organized an annual speaker series related to the diverse anthropological, religious and cultural interests of the late professor and from 2014 onward an annual scholarship has been given in his honor to a student of Native American ancestry. Oberly will be the ninth speaker to visit Colorado Mesa University as part of the lecture series.
"Over his twenty-plus year career, Michrina taught courses on Native Americans, ethnographic methods, religion and culture, and world cultures. A primary focus of Michrina’s ethnographic work was the Ute people, especially the Southern Ute who welcomed him to their sun dances. His Ute name described him perfectly: Standing Tall as the Sky. Michrina honored the historical and cultural fact that this land, upon which the university today stands, is the ancestral homeland of Indigenous tribes and recognized their peoples as its original stewards," said Associate Professor of History Vincent Patarino, PhD, the current chair of the Barry Michrina Memorial Committee.
This year’s lecture is sponsored by the CMU Foundation, the CMU Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Native American Student Association (NASA). Sadie Kelley, a student at CMU and the current NASA coordinator explained, “the Native American Student Association provides students at CMU a new family, and a place to call home. NASA works to create inviting and open places for all students to ask questions and learn about different cultures while on campus.”
Before joining the Southern Ute Tribal Council in 2020, Oberly taught linguistics at the University of Arizona. She has worked as a Ute language, endangered languages and indigenous cultural activist for over three decades and considers linguistic and social justice a means to building proactive and protective cultural identity and spirituality for endangered language community members. Oberly’s lecture, Ute Language Revitalization: Lessons and Challenges, will explore the lessons we can learn and the unique challenges that are presented when an indigenous language is being lost. There are currently less than twenty fluent speakers on the Southern Ute reservation out of a total membership of 1,478 and the impacts of this language loss extend to the politics of culture, identity, sovereignty and systematic oppression in the Southern Ute community. Oberly will also speak about possible solutions to language loss and how communities can remain resilient in the face of such losses.
"Bringing Stacey Oberly, PhD, of the Southern Ute Nation to campus to bring awareness to the revitalization of the Ute language is an important aspect of the centuries-long resilience of Indigenous peoples to maintain their cultures, traditions and languages in the face of relocations, prejudice, and assimilationist and paternalistic governmental policies,” said Assistant Professor of History Timothy Winegard, PhD, who is also the NASA club advisor.
This event is free to attend and open to the public. Snacks and drinks will be provided at 6:30pm courtesy of NASA and the presentation will begin at 7pm in Houston Hall 139.
Contributions to the Michrina Memorial Fund can be made through the CMU Foundation.