About the Program:
From their ancestral origins in the Great Lakes region to life on the Plains following the Buffalo and protecting their way of life against the government sanctioned colonization, The Northern Cheyenne have proudly and defiantly maintained their land and cultural ways against significant persecution. Today, Chief Dull Knife College is a central force in passing on language and traditions for the next generation at the same time that it prepares them to thrive in American higher education and on to successful careers. Learn how President Eva Flying’s vision for Chief Dull Knife College is inspiring not only members of her tribe, but educators around the country.
About our Speakers:
Eva M. Flying is the recently appointed President of Chief Dull Knife College. She is the College’s 6th sitting President, and the first woman to occupy this role. She is deeply rooted in the Southeastern Montana and Northern Cheyenne communities and is a champion of enhancing lives through health and education.
Flying began her postsecondary education in Wyoming at Sheridan College where she received her Associates of Arts in General Studies. From there she continued on to Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado where she obtained her Bachelors of Arts in Exercise Science. In 1999 she returned to Montana and completed her Masters of Science in Sports Administration at Montana State University-Billings. One of her
special achievements were completing her graduate internship at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill. Flying is started her Doctorate of Education in Community Colleges, with an emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion from California State University, Stanislaus. She is currently completing her PhD with Montana State University, in Bozeman, Montana.
Eva has spent a considerable amount of her professional career establishing and managing health and wellness programs at higher education institutions. She appreciates the importance of the Tribal College movement and has been personally involved. Being the first woman College President, she is already creating a path for young Cheyenne women to pursue their dreams, and her presence in the college in this leadership role is creating new pathways for all people to believe in the mission that Chief Dull Knife College instills. I will be studying education leadership (PhD), with Montana State University.
As president of Chief Dull Knife College. We are a 2- year tribal college in rural SE Montana. I am serving my community of Northern Cheyenne. I want to make an impact and one that will create change in what education can do for our community. The goal is to ultimately change lives through knowledge and through experience. To create change it has to come from our individual thought processes and beliefs in our systems and I believe that education is there to help improve the infrastructure and the socioeconomic base of our communities.
I enjoy working in education and seeing what's possible, hearing from my students and even my staff the growth that they go through by just being on campus. It's so rewarding and validating.
The area that I am most passionate about is native education. My mission is to expand and strengthen our economic infrastructure. We are in a rural/remote part of our state which must be creative in our workforce, for sustainable programs, what are livable wages, bridge the gaps for careers. As the president, it's my responsibility to care about the community and be able to forecast and bring opportunity to our young adults. Beyond the traditional 2-year degree, and retention, the goal of education is to get a job, have a career. I would like all our students to be able to have jobs in our community if they choose. When I tell my story of how I started working in my community, I say it didn’t happen for 30 years for me to be able to work at home. My job wasn’t available. Then when I felt I had the experience, there was a different challenge to overcome and that was community acceptance that didn’t look at my degrees or my experience but who my family is, does my community know me?
My message is about preserving our Cheyenne culture and our language. Everything that we do as a tribal people is for the people and is grounded in culture. This is a way of knowing and way of being and is a way of life. It is the thread that is constant and the purpose and intent for what we do. It is our inherent right to live and work on our reservation and to exercise that right of tribal sovereignty. Education is about preservation, living the values of who we are as Cheyenne people and those values include education through learning we strengthen our workforce, to take care of our community.
Sam Chestnut begins his 14th year as Head of The Lippman School, a multicultural Jewish Day School. Over this time the school has developed significant local, national, and international partnerships that have helped establish The Lippman School as an educational leader using Jewish values as a foundation for cross-cultural learning experiences.
In 2022, Chestnut assumed the additional role as the inaugural Chief Program Officer for JewishAkron to help our community develop meaningful programing in the Jewish community and with the many non-Jewish constituents we serve.
He is the founder and President of The Lodge Approach an educational non-profit that provides student and adult learning experiences with the Northern Cheyenne Nation.
Akron has been his home since graduating from Keyon College, B.A. History, and later the University of Akron, M.A. Education. He and his wife, Jennifer, have raised three children who attended both The Lippman School and then Firestone CLC.