Zoe Berg

Beginning in the fall, Yale undergraduates will be able to pursue a formal certificate in Native American and Indigenous Studies, also known as NAIS, three professors confirmed.

Announced Thursday evening through a post on the Native American Cultural Center’s Instagram, the new certificate joins Education Studies, Medieval Studies and Translation Studies as interdisciplinary certificates offered by Yale College.

“This moment marks an important milestone for institutionalizing Native Studies at Yale,” wrote Tarren Andrews, a professor of ethnicity, race and migration affiliated with the NACC.

Andrews collaborated with professors Claire Bowern, Ned Blackhawk, Hi’ilei Hobart, Lloyd Sy and Tisa Wenger to develop the certificate, which Bowern and Blackhawk will coordinate.

According to Blackhawk, the momentum for the certificate built steadily with recent faculty hires and a growing energy among the student body to expand upon curricular offerings.

“Students can now receive certificates in areas of study in which they have often held long-standing interests, and our courses will be more effectively coordinated and implemented,” Blackhawk wrote to the News. “We’ll now be offering potentially up to a dozen courses per semester, including a recurring Cherokee language course that fulfills the Yale College language requirements.”

According to Andrews, the certificate will be open to students beginning with the class of 2027. To complete the certificate, students will need to take six credits: five in Indigenous Studies across at least three of five subject areas — language and cultures; literature and arts; politics and the environment; history, law and sovereignty; and science and education — and one capstone course.

Students must also attend at least two NAIS-related events and will have the option to complete a project that engages Indigenous communities.

For students like Joshua Ching ’26, the certificate is a long-awaited development. Ching, who identifies as Kanaka Maoli, or Native Hawaiian, is the founder of the Indigenous Peoples of Oceania at Yale and currently works as the head of house staff at the NACC.

“While Native American & Indigenous Studies has been historically housed within the ER&M and American Studies programs, the creation of a certificate provides a distinct space for Native faculty and students to shape how the field is practiced at the university beyond the container of an existing major program,” Ching wrote to the News. 

He added that he hopes the course offerings in the field “expand the study of Indigenous politics toward a global outlook,” since he is interested in Indigenous groups in the Pacific.

The approval of the certificate represents the culmination of student advocacy for formal academic recognition. Most recently, Nyché Andrew ’25, a then-Branford College senator on Yale College Council, wrote a proposal for the certificate in the fall of 2022. Andrew explained that while Yale administrators affirmed the new certificate’s value, faculty would be needed to implement and sustain it.

In order to establish the certificate, Yale faculty members had to submit a formal proposal to the Yale College Committee on Majors, which reviewed the materials, offered feedback and then forwarded the proposal for a vote by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The vote took place last Thursday, and the proposal passed unanimously, according to Andrews.

Though Andrew is graduating before the certificate becomes available, she said she is proud to have helped pave the way for future scholars.

“For me, being able to know the future scholars of Native American and Indigenous Studies was as worthwhile as if I had earned it myself,” Andrew wrote to the News. “This step will raise a greater consciousness of the study and validate the unique and valuable gift of knowledge Indigenous peoples have to offer the academic world.”

Faculty and administrators echoed that sentiment, emphasizing the certificate’s potential to foster deeper engagement with Indigenous knowledge and communities. 

Diana Onco-Ingyadet, the former assistant director of the Native American Cultural Center, celebrated the program’s institutional recognition.

“To quote the famous film ‘Smoke Signals,’ ‘It’s a good day to be Indigenous,’” she said.

Students involved in Native American and Indigenous activism expressed both joy and hope for the future.

“Before, students found different paths to be involved in Native American and Indigenous Studies through history, ER&M, anthropology,” Mara Gutierrez ’26, a member of Yale’s Indigenous student community, said. “So it will be greatly appreciated for students to officially graduate with their involvement in Native American and Indigenous Studies being noted.”

The certificate follows other recent developments for Yale’s Indigenous community. Andrews said that since arriving at Yale in 2022, she has seen an increase in programming at the NACC and a new focus on Indigenous holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

The Native American Cultural Center celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2023.