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Grant funds NMU Anishinaabe language project

MARQUETTE, MI--   Northern Michigan University has received nearly $135,000 from the state's Native American Heritage Fund to expand undergraduate and graduate Anishinaabe language course offerings.

The NMU Center for Native American Studies will embark on a new initiative called the Anishinaabe Learning Community Project. The ALLC will create two new Anishinaabemowin courses that align with existing courses on Michigan-Wisconsin tribal relations, and tribal law and government. It would result in two new graduate courses, intended to support the potential development of a graduate program in Anishinaabemowin documentation and translation.

The ALLC project is designed to address three challenges facing Michigan’s tribal nations: the endangered status of the Anishinaabe language; low numbers of students graduating from Michigan universities with a distinct concentration in Anishinaabe language learning; and the significantly low number of K-12 Anishinaabe language teachers statewide.

The Michigan Native American Heritage Fund (NAHF) was created as part of the Second Amendment, approved in 2016, to the 1988 Tribal-State Gaming Compact between the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi (NHBP) and the State of Michigan.

Nicole was born near Detroit but has lived in the U.P. most of her life. She graduated from Marquette Senior High School and attended Michigan State and Northern Michigan Universities, graduating from NMU in 1993 with a degree in English.