To the Editor:
After hearing Cherokee Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller speak about issues concerning her nation and other groups of Native People in the United States, I wish to express my gratitude to her for coming to Dartmouth. I feel greatly honored that I was able to be present when she shared her thoughts and feelings with such a small group of people.
But I have primarily written this letter as a thank you to Russell Thornton, the Samson Occom Professor of Native American Studies, who has worked hard to make this talk and other NAS activities available to Dartmouth students and to the greater Dartmouth community.
I was a student of Professor Thornton's in his NAS 45 class, Revitalization Movements, this past Winter term. Being non-Native in a class taught by a Cherokee professor and populated by a large number of Native students of varying backgrounds was a new experience for me.
The class was an opportunity for me to feel the experience of an "outsider" to a community different from my own, yet it also drew me in and allowed me to learn things to which I might not have been exposed had the class been populated and moderated differently.
I think it is important that a Native American hold Professor Thornton's esteemed position in the department, but his qualifications for such a position go much further than his ethnicity, as they well should.
Thornton is a true academic, and he is better known, better spoken and better published than many of the other professors I have been fortunate to know at Dartmouth.
More importantly, however, Thornton is all of the things that most Dartmouth students so often remark on, when asked what they like about the student-faculty relationship at the College. He is kind. He is caring. He is accessible. He is interested in his students. He is unafraid to share his own thoughts, feelings and opinions, as well as those in texts and articles. He elevates learning by extending it outside of the classroom, in colloquiums and meetings which unite the minds of students and intellectuals. Thornton embraces many of the qualities which define a great academic mind and a great human being. He is a benefit to his department and to the greater Dartmouth community.
Since I am headed down the road to graduation, I have thought often about thanking those who have made my time at Dartmouth especially meaningful.
In this case, I have chosen to make my compliments and gratitude known to the Dartmouth community at large because I think that both Thornton and the entire Native American Studies Department make an important contribution to this college, a contribution which is not always respected and appreciated.
I hope that they will continue to contribute to the atmosphere of the school after my class is gone, and that they will continue their move towards an increasingly scholarly agenda, one that includes educating the Dartmouth community at large (especially about the history and potential future options of the College). Thank you Professor Thornton for all of your efforts and I hope that you and the department can continue them.
MOLLIE HEATH '94
