The University of North Dakota Office of Multicultural Student Services (OMSS) is hosting renowned Native American activist, writer, and environmentalist Winona LaDuke for a mini-summit titled “Transitioning to Change: Moving Toward a Just Community” on Thursday, September 10, at 1:30 p.m. in the Memorial Union River Valley Room.

LaDuke also will participate in a tree planting ceremony at 9:30 a.m. at the Era Bell Thompson Multicultural Center. There will be a reception following the tree planting at the center at 10 a.m.

LaDuke, an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg, lives and works on the White Earth Reservations. As Program Director of the Honor the Earth Fund, she works on a national level to advocate, raise public support, and create funding for frontline native environmental groups. Honor the Earth works nationally and internationally on environmental justice and sustainability issues in Indigenous communities.  LaDuke, the author of five books, also works as Founding Director for White Earth Land Recovery Project.  She is perhaps best known nationally for her run on the Green Party ticket as the vice presidential choice of Ralph Nader in the 2000 election.

LaDuke graduated from Harvard University in 1982 with a degree in rural economic development. She was named Woman of the Year by Ms. Magazine in 1997 and won the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1998. In 1994, LaDuke was nominated by Time magazine as one of America's fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age.

She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2007.

The mini-summit is presented by OMSS in conjunction with the Multicultural Awareness Committee, a standing committee of the UND Student Government; the College of Education & Human Development; the Era Bell Thompson Multicultural Center; American Indian Student Services; Students for a Democratic Society; and the Department of Educational Foundations & Research.

Contact:
Matsimela (“MC”) Diop, director
Multicultural Student Services
Era Bell Thompson Multicultural Center
University of North Dakota
(701) 777-4362 mcdiop@mail.und.edu

Juan Pedraza, Office of University Relations
University of North Dakota
(701) 777-6571 (office) (701) 740-1321 (cell)
juanpedraza@mail.und.edu