Back to search

Professor honors work of Chief Wilma Mankiller

May 20, 2010

Kathryn England-Aytes will teach in Cherokee Studies Program as visiting scholar

The war for Indian children will be won in the classroom. – Wilma Mankiller

The quotation from the late principal chief of the Cherokee Nation is displayed in the cubicle of Kathryn England-Aytes, a lecturer in the Social, Behavioral and Global Studies Division at California State University, Monterey Bay.

It serves as a daily reminder that native voices in education are critical. And it makes her invitation to spend the summer as a visiting scholar in the Cherokee Studies Program at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla., especially meaningful.

NSU dates to 1846, when the Cherokee National Council authorized establishment of male and female seminaries to fulfill the requirement of a treaty between the United States and the Cherokee Nation that public and higher education be provided for the Cherokees.

It is the second oldest institution of higher education west of the Mississippi, and still has a proud heritage of serving native people, currently claiming the largest number of full-time undergraduates who are American Indians.

As the granddaughter of a Cherokee educator who began her teaching career in 1908, England-Aytes (pictured above) continues to be influenced by stories of her grandmother's teaching.

"My grandmother's influence has reached into the 21st century in my multimedia classrooms with technology she could never have imagined, but within a learning environment she would easily recognize, and hopefully enjoy," England-Aytes said.

England-Aytes attended public schools in Oklahoma in the 1960s, pursuing higher education as a returning student in the 1980s while raising two daughters. She completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in psychology and social science at Southern Oregon University, graduating summa cum laude, while working as a family advocate within the criminal justice system.

Since 1998, she has taught courses in social and behavioral sciences in Oregon and California, but her heart is often in Oklahoma, and she is delighted to return there to teach a course entitled "Historical Perspectives of Native American Women," which will include presentations by Cherokee Nation historians, educators and tribal members.

The course comes at a particularly poignant time, just weeks after the death of Mankiller, who last October had been named NSU's first Sequoyah Institute Fellow.

"I cannot imagine Tahlequah without Chief Mankiller," England-Aytes said. "Her early passing was such a loss for the Cherokee Nation and beyond. We are using one of her books as a text, and it is certainly a privilege to be able to honor her extraordinary work and life, not only for native women and the Cherokee Nation, but for women across the world."