Progress 09/01/14 to 12/31/16
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences for each of the Cultural Center's events and workshops were always the extended Lawrence community. In partnership with the Lied Center for Continuing Education and local 497 school district teachers, the Cultural Center developed a working group to assist teachers in educational and cultural resources. Haskell history professor Dr. Theresa Milk provided a free cultural overview of Haskell history teaching workshop to Lawrence 497 school district teachers. The Cultural Center continued to build this partnership with local teachers and began offering tours of Haskell Cultural Center as a local cultural resource. These outreach efforts proved to be effective with numerous teachers who followed up to arrange for class visits to the Center. Additional efforts are made to deliver specified educational and cultural programming to each target audience. The Cultural Center director meets with or speaks by telephone with local teachers prior to the schools visit to assess what they have learned and what the educational programming the Cultural Center needs to address in additional to the lesson on Haskell history. For the duration of the Special Emphasis grant period, the Cultural Center has established normal operating hours Monday-Friday, and twenty schools from Third through twelfth grades have received a substantial benefit from programming offered at the Haskell Cultural Center. Numerous local schools in Lawrence, Tonganoxie, Topeka and Kansas City have experienced the unique educational programming that Haskell Cultural Center has developed. Cultural Center staff worked with Haskell Indian Nations University orientation program coordinators establish incoming freshman students at Haskell as a target audience. This objective ultimately was to include the Cultural Center's educational and cultural programming in future orientation activities. An additional attempt was made to target Haskell students, to create awareness about Haskell history consequently the Cultural Center initiated contact with Haskell Vision Quest teachers and organized a required class visitation schedule. Three of the four semesters of the grant period, Haskell Vision quest teachers have required one to two class visits to be conducted at the Cultural Center each semester. Programming used during these class visits uses innovative new curriculum developed by the Cultural Center. The University of Kansas, both undergraduate and graduate programs, have consistently recognized the Haskell Cultural Center as a valuable educational resource and schedule frequent class visits. The Social Work program, World Religions and Anthropology, Museum Management, and the Federal Indian Law classes have gained a substantial and practical benefit by attending the Cultural Center tours and educational discussions. The Special Emphasis grant provided support that helped to build, promote and strengthen the collaborative relationship between Haskell and The University of Kansas School of Social Work, Law School and Spencer Art Museum. Additional target audiences include academic researchers, Haskell Alumni, and the local four Tribes of Kansas, who are geographically within two hours driving distance of Haskell. Using modern technology and computer programming, the Cultural Center has developed a Facebook page to promote all grant activities and maintain daily contact with target audiences. Numerous physical sites on the campus pertaining to the history of Haskell are available to the public year round. To enhance the education offered to audiences, the Cultural Center developed a printable Haskell walking tour brochure. This brochure can be found on the Haskell.edu /Cultural Centers home page as a printable pdf and contains both historical information and current pictures to identify each site. Each of these physical sites, located on the Haskell campus, also contain identifiable billboards containing additional pictures educational literature and historical information. The unique Tribal campus art, historical campus buildings that span one hundred plus years, and the Tribal medicine wheel provide each target audience a unique experience both reading the Cultural Center exhibits and physically seeing this history come to life on the walking tour. Changes/Problems:There was one major change to report for the Special Emphasis grant period. An objective of the grant listed the Cultural Center and Museum as managing the Healing Garden, where specific tribal herbs are maintained. This objective was not met because the deliverable was not feasible. The Haskell Healing Garden, due to lack of prior routine maintenance, does not exist outside the Cultural Center. At one time prior to the Special Emphasis grant cycle, the Cultural Center was fully staffed and a medicinal and tribal herbal healing garden existed as alive and vibrant. This was not the case during the grant cycle; therefore no garden maintenance objectives were attempted. A problem that hindered the Special Emphasis grant deliverables from staying consistent with the activity timeline is the hiring procedure. Haskell, being a federal agency, must abide by the Department of the Interior's hiring policy and procedures. This requirement states, every worker whether paid of volunteer must have a suitable federal background check. This applies to all employees of the Haskell Cultural Center. This background hiring requirement incurs a substantial cost of a few hundred dollars for each application that is submitted. This hiring cost was not factored into the grant. The average background clearance time period for each of the 4 student workers hired under the grant was 4-5 months. The steps to the Haskell hiring process each workers is required to complete is; submit a resume to the Student work study program, meet the requirements ( based on financial need and grades) and accepted into the federal work study program. Once accepted by work study, the student must complete the federal background hiring paperwork. Once this step is confirmed the student schedules an appointment with HR to be fingerprinted. Once finger prints were taken, they were sent off to Albuquerque Bureau of Indian Affairs- Indian Education office. Haskell HR then waits for further instruction from Albuquerque BIA offices to clear or deny the workers. Three of the four student workers had completed half the semester, by the time their backgrounds cleared. Two of the four workers successfully completed requirements for graduation soon after. One of the four student workers remained employed for three quarters of the grant cycle. This worker gained valuable experience, skills and knowledge of curation and museum management. This hiring process seems outdated and developed when Haskell serviced students under the age of 18. Now that it's a college. Updating or omitting the outdated requirement would potentially expedite the hiring and volunteer services needed at the Cultural Center and Museum. An inability to hire expeditiously wastes valuable grant time allocated to meeting the grant deliverables. The hiring waiting time take months, meanwhile the grant period continues to progress. Staff is hired months after anticipated, which affects the coordination of grant objectives in a timely manner. Therefore, the grant activity time line was skewed from the first day the Coordinator was hired, through the duration of the grant period. To address this time lapse, a three month extension was requested by the Haskell Cultural Center and granted by the USDA to allow additional time to complete the stated grant objectives. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Opportunities for professional development transpired for both the student worker and the Cultural Center Coordinator. The student worker, Travis, has gained extensive research, curation and marketing skills by completing tasks and projects at an exemplary level. He has gained substantial management skills by coordinating and hosting all community workshops and creating educational literature placed in campus buildings. Travis continued to develop professionally as he refined his communication skills by providing educational tours for schools and visiting dignitaries while successfully curating exhibits that support the educational programming offered. Travis worked diligently in all areas and furthered his professional development opportunities by engaging in professional relationships with local community and tourism leaders. The Cultural Center Coordinator continued to outreach and leverage partnerships with local museums and federal agencies. After speaking as the keynote at the Federal District Courthouse in Kansas City in July, the Coordinator was presented the opportunity to host the Kansas City Area Archivists Association Conference. This event occurred in November 2016 and provided an education and archival overview of local museum archives. The Cultural Center Coordinator provided the keynote and final presentation for the conference using Haskell history as a platform for the crucial need for preservation of archives to both federal agencies and Tribal Nations. Hosting various Tribal artists from both the United States and Canada allowed the coordinator to gain valuable insight and knowledge into Tribal techniques and gathering methods used by Tribal Nations. These intimate discussions established professional relationships centered on developing education and preserving culture. The Cultural Center Coordinator created partnerships and engaged in inter-museum loans with the Watkins Museum of Natural History, the Spencer Art Museum and The Lawrence Arts, Center. These partnerships continually build capacity of the Cultural Center. Lawrence Rotary Club, the City Commissioners and Cultural Arts Commissioner, and the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce leadership has each visited the Cultural Center to learn the unique facets of Haskell history. Afterwards discussions occurred with the Coordinator for the sole purpose of finding ways to further engage and build community relations aimed at creating awareness of Haskell history. As each of these components became allied with the Cultural Center, the Coordinator was able to provide further outreach and follow up to strengthen the relationship and opportunities for future projects. The Cultural Center also co-sponsored and co-coordinated the First Annual Indigenous Dance and Cultural Festival in April 2016. The Cultural Center provided Tribal presenters for all the Cultural workshops of the festival. The Cultural Center Coordinator provided the keynote presentation twice on the schedule of festival events. This presentation produced hundreds of attendees and was the most well attended workshop of the festival. Family and educational programming from the Northwest Coast was developed by a Cultural Center student worker and offered as an ongoing workshop Saturday afternoon. Shoshone Tribal flat stich, a plateau style technique was taught and attended by the maximum capacity of forty participants. Potawatomi Tribal members discussed the process of Tribal song making. They used social media to introduce and explain both modern contemporary Tribal singing and the original style. Presenters used the internet to showcase ten variations of singing styles in including social, gathering, fishing, food thanks and return songs, clan songs, bean dance, powwow, round dance and the Crow style duck and dive. Each song was displayed on YouTube to further demonstrate use and dance associated with the Tribal culture. Each of these workshops were filled to max capacity and received good feedback from the participating audience. Co-coordinating this event provided the Cultural Center coordinator introduction to colleagues and associates from the City of Lawrence, University of Kansas, and local businesses. Coordinating a large event for the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum is a short-term goal that has been established. This opportunity provided the Coordinator with many local contacts and skills to provide a similar multicultural education of Haskell history at a similar community event. The Cultural Center Coordinator served on the steering committee of the Lawrence Free State Festival, which is held annually the last weekend of June. This is a well-established community festival which highlights the beautiful arts and culture that Lawrence, KS represents. The point was made and discussed as the long standing, vibrant culture of Haskell was not represented. The committee agreed and the Cultural Center and Museum co- sponsored at the festival the Saturday afternoon events. Various learning stations about Tribal foods, comparing Tribal housing structures, Tribal stories, comparison of Tribal designs, live cultural demonstration by a Navajo, Ute, Lakota, Cherokee and Yakima artists provided the cultural programming for the event. Co-Coordinating the event, provided the Cultural Center Coordinator strengthened teamwork and team building skills, a great multicultural education on Tribal foods and reinforced public speaking skills. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results from this project will be disseminated to communities of interest both internally at Haskell and externally to the community. Continued use of the five paged colored brochures both at the Cultural center and at local businesses and museums throughout the community raises awareness of the Cultural Center and Haskell history. The brochure inspiring local visitors to physically experience what Haskell Cultural Center and Museum has to offer. The Cultural Center staff will continue to attend community events and functions to promote the Cultural Center. Continuing to inspire the virtual audience with the stories of Haskell Indian Nations Universities unique one hundred thirty-two-year evolution requires continued support from Haskell Alumni. The Cultural Center relies upon social media to keep alumni, future visitors, educators and community historians engaged with local programming being offered. Using free social media, the Center's Facebook page is utilized to share Haskell history while creating awareness. Haskell Indian Nations University(HINU) has a haskell.edu home page on line. HINU webpage has a front page space preserved for information about the Cultural Center. Activating this link sends the viewer directly to the Cultural Centers Facebook page. It is through the use of social media the Haskell Cultural Center is able to stay engaged almost on a daily basis with the viral community. The ability to stay engaged with the audience is what makes small cultural centers with amazing histories such as Haskell's so unique and valuable to the local history. Lastly, with the newly formed haskellarchive.org website provide unlimited access to hundreds of archival images and collection items from the Haskell collection. This site will be provided as a resource to local school teachers, alumni, college educators, and Tribal Nations alike. This extensive collection will provide some inspirational insight and cultural education into the unique multi-cultural Tribal history that has been formed at Haskell throughout its history. From Haskell Institute at the turn of the century to Haskell Indian Nations University today, the history not only weaves the fabric of hundreds of Tribal histories but equally important remains weaved into the fabric of local Douglas County history as well. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Haskell Cultural Center and Museum's main goal was to build the capacity of the Center. A Coordinator was hired, and four student interns were employed. An assessment was completed and a plan to create new exhibits was established. The Coordinator began researching and student workers were utilized fully once they were hired. Each student worker chose a period in Haskell's evolution and used the Haskell archives to research, fact check and prepare exhibits. One student worker stayed employed from July 2015- August 2016. He was provided the opportunity to curate an exhibit on the first Tribal Superintendent at Haskell. This exhibit was well researched and impactful. The student worker proceeded to create another project, History of Haskell buildings. Haskell has thirteen buildings on the campus currently on the National Register of Historic places, and six additional buildings that have recently qualified for this status. The student worker conducted extensive research on each building, namesake and thier tribal affliiation. 18 x 24 foam core exhibit panels were prepared for each building. To ensure continued preservation, plexiglass covers will be installed on each panel. During the granting cycle six new exhibits were researched and developed. Three of those exhibits are permanent, and three were temporarily on display for four to six weeks. Four of those exhibits remain on display and interactive team building educational programming was created. Classes who particiapted provided positiove feedback. The Cultural Center re-established itself in the community after years of being absent from the local history scene and the welcome borchure helped to identify Haskell history as a educational and cultural resource to all local visitors. Each calendar year the Cultural Center Director received numerous requests to speak on cultural appropiations and Haskell history. Only twelve requests off site were fulfilled. In doing so the capacity for the Cultural Center continued to grow. During the Special Emphasis grant cycle periods from June 2015- December 2016, the Haskell Cultural Center has worked diligently to develop and provide multple forms of outreach and education to the local community. Dilligently working to build capacity the expanded audience outreach provided cultural programming and education to 3,450 visitors. Two hundred and forty one community members attended the Cultural Center's special events and workshops. One hundred sixty six of these participants were international visitors. These numbers and annual reporting to the Kansas Department of Transportation qualifies the Haskell Cultural Center to maintain a large vistors sign posted on Interstate-70 from Topeka to Kansas City. This helps to create consistent awarness of the Cultural Center. The Special Emphasis grant provided the support that allowed Haskell to extend its outreach to Tribal communities, Lawrence and the surrounding Kansas City metro community. As mentioned previously in the events and outcome section, the Haskell hosted twelve Tribal artists who provided community workshops, meeting the stated project objective. These artists dicussed an array of issues, examined dozens of tribally specific techniques used for cultural restoration, shared Tribal traditions and discussed ways of developing better preservation methods of cultural knowledge. The communities who attended the events, workshops and exhibits received a substantial multi cultural education. This unique display of hundreds of Tribal knowledge bases make Haskell a cultural resource unique to not only the local community but to the four Tribal Nations of Kansas. The listed stakeholders; Haskell Extension program, Spencer Art Museum, and the Watkins History Museum each proved to be valuable partners in providing the Cultural atrists multiple opportunities and venues to present community workshops. Funding from the Special Emphasis grant allowed Haskell Cultural Center to further promote and strengthen our relations with these partners. The final grant objective was established to develop a on line virtual database. This database allows public access to the Haskell Collection for research and serves as a educational resource. The project started in Janruary of 2016. Student workers and the Cultural Center Coordinator worked together to gather and identify pictures and information. A random sample of five hundred items from the Haskell Collection was choosen. To identify and gather this information took nine months. The information was then formatted, and the Coordinator worked with Haskell IT department and Haskell grant complience to form and approve a scope of work contract. This work contract was developed as the databse project. This project was awarded to Cooper and Associates. Cooper and the Haskell Coordinator developed a project plan. The first stage included initial planning and analysis, information architecture, user experience planning and search engine optimization research. These components were used to identify items, services offered on the database search engine and to create a measurable timeline. Additional project planning, information architecture, user experience planning, and search engine optimization research were required. The second stage, established a primary database and featured website development. Site design, HTML and javascript programming, installation of content management system, intalling and configuration of CMS moduels and plugins, content development, and content migration were established. The third stage required mobile device optimization. During testing and pre-launch, the code optimization was confirmed to allow for final cross browser testing and launch. Each picture was optimized to help achieve fast load times and print friendly displays. The cross browser testing was launched next to test and correct any functionality issues across modern broswers. Once complete, site search and user testing occurred. This was found to be successful, therefore students, researchers and alumni will now beable to access the collections by visiting the Haskell Archives site or a link posted on the Haskell Cultural Center page. This accessability will be available twenty four hours a day. The Cultural Center facebook page will be used to correspond or answer potntial questions related to items found in the database. As part of the contract the Cultural Center staff is trained on system use and site back end, and procedures for adding and updating information to keep the database current. This will allow the project to continue to grow and meet the changing needs of Haskell's collection. The final way the Cultural Center used the grant to build the capacity was to address security of the collections. It was determined the Center lacked adaquate security to care for the collection. The Cultural Center Coordinator successfully installed two new security cameras in the building. These cameras will ensure the collections are maintained and cared for appropriately. The cameras are new professional grade quality, monitored by a local security company. The current security camera system does allow for two additional cameras to be added on site at a later time. This system will permit future needs of the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum collection to be addressed as it develops.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/14 to 08/31/15
Outputs
Target Audience:The primary target audience for this project period in year one includes Haskell Indian Nations University students and staff. In the area of education, a special invite for participation has been conveyed to Tribal families with the public school system USD 497 in partnership with the Native American Student Services Department. This includes both low income and non-economically disadvantaged minority families with the service area. Within the immediate Lawrence community, target audiences include tribal students attending the University of Kansas graduate and undergraduate programs, partners at the University of Kansas Spencer Art Museum, and the staff of the Bert Nash mental health facility. The Lawrence Arts Center staff and staff at the University of Kansas performing Arts Center have both been invited with a special invitation to the workshops and teaching seminars that will be conducted as part of the Cultural Center's Cultural Restoration Seminar Series. The larger target service area includes audiences located with the service area of the Kansas City American Indian Center and the State of Kansas Department of Transportation. A special interest was conveyed by the staff of the Department of Children and Families and their staff have been invited to participate and gain practicum experiences. Primarily all of the target audiences come from socially, economically or educationally disadvantaged environments or work closely in a professional field which serves this population of the community. Changes/Problems:The grant indicated a total of four student reasercher interns were to be hired in year one of the project. This did not occur due to the federal guidelines set forth by the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The policy states any employee, including student workers, must fill out a federal background request form, be fingerprinted and complete and extensive federal background investigation in order to be eligable to work on the campus of Haskell Indian Nations University. In the process of adhering to this rigerous hiring standard the student hiring process was further delayed by federal hiring freezes and regulatory administrative changes. The grant further indicated a project coordinator would be hired to oversee the grant. The same federal hiring process as decribed above was applied to the hiring process of the coordinator. The coordinator was not successfully hired and backgrounded until 6 months after the grant period had started. The line items allocated to support the deliverables listed in the grant project are not sufficicent to meet the needs of the grant. The line items in the grant budget listed an amount for office supplies but no line items and zero dollars were aoriginally allocated for equiptment. Many items catagorized as equiptment are needed to meet the grant deliverables on the subject of creating a virtual museum. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Opportunities for training and development have been reserved to on line training programs from the Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Education programs. The first professional development training the coordinator attended and completed was in May 2015, entitled " Federal Information Systems Security Awareness + Privacy and Records Management (FISSA+) training". In April the coordinator attended a second training provided by the Watkins Museum of History entitled " The Things They Carried Home: A Preservation Workshop for Veterans and their Families". This traning gave an indepth perspective on how to care for the items brought home from military service. The coordinator learned insightful and helpful methods used to preserve uniforms, medals, letters, photographs, email correspondence, or other important items that soldiers carried home. This training highlighted those who served in the Korean, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. In June the coordinator completed a third professional development traning provided by the Department of the Interiors Office of Policy Analysis webcast Seminar Series entitled " Preserving Cultural Heritage in Natural and Manmade Disasters". The lecturer was Corine Wegener from the Smithsonian Institution who works as a Cultural Heritage Preservation Officer. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Accomplishements for the 2014-2015 Project period included hiring a new project coordinator. The project coordinator was able to successfully complete three student worker federal background checks as reduired by the federal regulations which oversee Haskell Indian Nations University complience. The project coordinator successfully completed a new hire training manual, Cultural Center policy and procedure, various use forms. The Coordinator conducted an assessment of the Cultural Center and installed a new buidling security system and replaced the Fire Stystem to reflect current software. A new Lawrence walking art tour map and educational literature was developed in conjunction with launching a new website for the Cultural Center. A microfilm Haskell Indian Leader access project was established to meet the high number of requests for information. The project coordinator installed three new exhibits in the Cultural Center to commerate Haskell's 130 years of progressive education and created a new brocheure to accompany the exhibits. The project director focused on outreach and establlishing partnerships with other museums, tribal historic preservations programs and Art affiliated organizations. Established partnerships inlcude: Haskell Cultural Center and Museums in conjunction with the University of Kansas Indigenous Nations Studies program and KU Museum Studies graduate programs created a unique experience fpr students to recieve hands on training and through internships and practicum experience. This collaboration developed and completed and internship opportinuity for one KU graduate student. The American Indian Studies Department at Haskell Indian Nations University has also partnered with the Haskell Cultural Cneter and Museum to exstend a 2015 summer internship opportunity to one of its graduating seniors. This internship was successfully completed and both recieved the required credit hours. Haskell Cultural Center has partnered with the University of Kansas' Continuing Education program and the Dole Center for Humanities to provide educational tours and literature information regarding the history of Haskell to visiting Fullbright student scholars and visiting professors of the program. Formal dicussions, speaking engagements and educational seminars are provided by the project coordinator. University of Kansas Lied Center for the performing Arts and Haskell Cultural Center have partnered to provide all public school teachers in the Lawrence Public school USD 497 grades 5-8 with a teacher training program. This training program provides cultural sensitive training as well as a review of educational literature used in the classroom to meet Kansas State standards. Haskell Cultural Center and Museum has worked in collaboration with the Kansas Department of Transportation to fulfill the State requirements for posting of information sinage along the Kansas interstate. The University of Kansas Spencer Art Museum as informally agreed to partner with the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum to assist with conservation and preservation methods of Haskell's textile collection. Haskell Cultural Center has established a collaborative agreement with the Kansas State Historical Society and Douglas County Historical Society to obtain all information regarding Haskell's history to expand the current database information system. Two interactive workshops will be offered at the start of the 2015 school year before grant period year one ends. The first workshop will include traditional Lakota methods and techinques of skinning a buffalo and tribal uses of the parafleche. The second workshop will be from the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Healthy Gardening program. Featured will be traditional gardening harvesting techniques and preparation of traditional Indian corn.
Publications
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