In honor of November as Native American History Month, this week’s campus celebrity is Carter Stevens, co-head of Four Winds, a campus club dedicated to outreach about Native American issues.
Major: History and Government Double Major, German Minor
Year: 2013
Where and when did your interest in Native American issues come about?
I’ve been involved in the club [Four Winds] since the trip I took during spring break to the five reservations in Maine. It’s through an organization called the Wabanaki Bates-Bowdoin-Colby Collaborative that sponsors outreach to the tribes. (Wabanaki Confederacy is an alliance of the five tribes in the Maine/Nova Scotia/New Brunswick area). On the trip, students travel to the reservations and teach children some lessons relating to a liberal arts curriculum, such as internationalism or music. The goal is to advocate higher education as an opportunity that all students should seriously consider, not just Colby, but any university or college.
What does Four Winds do and what do you hope for the club?
Our primary goal is for open dialogue like what most Pugh Center clubs try to do— we have weekly discussions or film screenings every week. The films are always by Native American artists or about Native American issues. We’re also bringing in speakers from the tribes to come speak. Since the club has been in a lull since my freshman year, another goal is simply to get out the word that there is a Native American alliance here on campus, and we’d like to try and include students interested in the issues as well as Native American students here on campus.
Our weekly meetings are open to anyone, and we discuss anything about any indigenous peoples worldwide but focus on Native Americans and particularly on Wabanaki tribes (Colby is on formerly Wabanaki land). I think it’s important to have these discussions about the history, symbols and ideas of Native American culture. The culture affects our life in this country, more than we realize, from sports team names to location names (ie Massachusetts means ‘Land of the Blue Hills’).
Tell me more about the trip—how did that really inspire you to get involved in Four Winds and how did that change your ideas about Native American culture?
Simply being able to visit the reservations was really eye opening. No preconceptions that people have of casinos, wigwams, or teepees match what the reservations actually are. They’re often isolated, in beautiful areas but most people live in small houses or trailers. Reservations face a lot of difficulties because of their remote locations.
For example, one reservation in Point Pleasant had an unemployment rate of seventy percent. I was shocked that this could even exist, and it showed me that there are issues that are still very relevant and local. There aren’t many actual jobs on reservations, but people should be able to live on their historic land and not have to commute long distances in order to survive. A common association is casinos, which don’t solve the problem here in Maine. There are problems of poverty and failure to go onto college—most reservations have elementary and middle schools onsite, so there’s a real sense of community and desire to succeed, but it’s hard for the students to transition into a local high school as the minority. Many of the kids we talked to on the spring break were really excited about going to college, and we hope that our work will encourage them to continue their education.
This spring’s trip is officially an Alternative Spring Break, and it attracts not only students interested in Native American issues but also students interested in education, history, or who don’t know anything about it. I’m leading the trip this spring because I want to make sure it continues because it’s been a really important program to me.
Why do you care so much about these issues?
After the trip, the more I researched, the more I realized how true it is that Native Americans are the most marginalized group in society. I think we’re too scared or unwilling to confront the past of all the terrible things that have happened to Native Americans. Not even politicians address these issues since Native Americans on their reservations aren’t as visible as other communities and this needs to change.
So what else do you do apart from Four Winds?
I’m also the co-president of Model UN, dorm president of Foss, and a Senior Admissions Intern (I interview prospective students).
What’s it like getting to interview prospective students?
Our interview is the interview that goes in their file; I think it’s a completely different experience than interviewing with an admissions officer because as current students we can offer the best picture of the school. Students are less nervous and it’s a lot more fun for all of us. We live on campus, know the student body, are enrolled in classes so prospective students get the most out of their interviews with us.
For Model UN, how do those issues tie into what you do with Four Winds?
Well I’ve been doing it since freshman year in high school. I’ve always been interested in international affairs and how the UN works. It’s really fun to go and represent a country in a roomful of other people and to really learn what the conflicts are about in the world. Both clubs encourage a more inclusive, peaceful world view and discuss important issues that may not be talked about all the time so it’s good to bring them up, even if it’s not in the current news, we can still model solutions and ideas for their resolutions