On Sacred Ground: IPKC's Creation Story
February 7, 2022
Episode 1, Season 1
We are excited to welcome our two special guests, Irvin Harrison and Dr. Stephanie Waterman, for our first episode of On Sacred Ground: an IPKC podcast! Irvin and Dr. Waterman are co-authors of the 2017 article in the Journal of Student Affairs and Practice entitled: Indigenous Peoples Knowledge Community (IPKC): Self-Determination in Higher Education. This article describes the ways the members of the IPKC have indigenized their knowledge community through community cultural wealth, Indigenous knowledge systems, and relationality. Evidence of the IPKC’s impact on Indigenous visibility in higher education is presented. Furthermore, Irvin and Dr. Waterman were former leaders and co-founders of the IPKC in its earliest days.
Access the podcast on our YouTube channel. About our featured guests:
Irvin Harrison
Irvin Harrison is Dine’. Irvin Harrison is Diné (Navajo). His maternal clan is Hooghan Łání (Many Hogans) born for his paternal clan, Tł’ááshchí’í (Red Cheek). He grew up and was raised in the Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle (The Revolving Mountain) area located in New Mexico on the eastern part of the Navajo Nation.
He served as the inaugural national chair of the NASPA Indigenous Peoples Knowledge community. Irvin was introduced to student affairs as a NASPA Undergraduate Fellow while at the University of New Mexico (UNM), mentored by Laura Valdez, Director of University Advisement at UNM. Irvin received his master’s degree in Adult Post-Secondary Education with a specialization in Student Affairs from San Diego State University (SDSU). He received his bachelor’s degree in English (Technical and Professional Writing) from the University of New Mexico where he graduated with honors distinctions, cum laude - Baccalaureate Honors and magna cum laude - University Honors.
Irvin has worked in higher education for many years always preferring to work directly with the students to support their academic endeavors, student leadership and campus involvement, community outreach, and graduating with their college degree. Irvin was an Academic Advisor at San Juan College and previously Coordinator at Cal Poly Pomona, and Director at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He advised Native American students during their undergraduate education tenure, planning cultural programs and events, and worked with Admissions on outreach and recruitment. He has taught in the American Studies Program at SDSU.
Dr. Stephanie Waterman
Dr. Stephanie Waterman, who is Onandago Turtle clan, and serves as Associate Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto, in Leadership, Higher & Adult Education, coordinates the Student Development/Student Services in Higher Education stream. She researches Indigenous student experiences and associated support units and is currently using critical geography to do so. She is a co-editor with her colleagues Dr. Heather Shotton and Shelly Lowe of Beyond the Asterisk: Understanding Native Students in Higher Education in 2013 and Beyond Access: Indigenizing Programs for Native Student Success in 2018. She is currently working on an edited book with Dr. Charlotte Davidson, former IPKC co-chair, tentatively titled Indigenous Practices in Higher Education Classrooms.