UC Santa Cruz Honors Native Americans With Concert And Events April 6

SANTA CRUZ, CA–A daylong Native American College Information Day at UC Santa Cruz on Friday, April 6, will be capped by a symposium and concert celebrating the lives and culture of contemporary Native American women.

The concert and symposium, "Profiles in Courage: Native American Women Breaking Barriers," are being hosted by the UC Santa Cruz Transfer Partnerships Program. All events will be held in the Cowell College Dining Hall and are free and open to the public.

Barriers to educational and economic success, as well as cultural exploitation, are among the topics that will be addressed by an array of nationally recognized speakers and artists during the symposium, which takes place from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Speakers are musician ElizaBeth Hill (Mohawk); Dr. Laura Williams (Juaneno), a professor of family medicine at UC Irvine; Gloria Bear (Blackfeet), a firefighter and Native American women’s rights activist; and Muriel Crawford (Chippewa) and Marlene Bear-Walters (Blackfeet), activists who successfully challenged the state legislatures of Minnesota and Montana to remove the word "squaw" (an Algonquin word meaning "whore") from the geographical landscapes of both states.

The evening concert at 7 p.m. features Sharon Burch (Navajo) and ElizaBeth Hill (Mohawk), both nationally renowned Native American folk singers and songwriters. Burch’s music has been called "enchanting and accessible" by national music critic Paige La Grone. Burch, who won the Native American Music Award Artist of the Year in 1998, will perform in her native Navajo language with acoustic guitar, harmonica, and drum. Hill is a prolific award-winning songwriter and storyteller whose candid, contemporary songs reveal her Native American roots.

The concert and symposium follow events scheduled throughout the day as part of the Early Academic Outreach Program’s American Indian College Information Day, during which high school students visit UCSC to learn about college opportunities. For more information, contact Tonya Lawrence at (831) 460-3016 or via e-mail at [tlaw@cats.ucsc.edu][2]. The UC Santa Cruz Transfer Partnerships Program works with 13 community colleges to increase the number of students transferring to the University of California.