Former university leaders are raising concern about the lack of women in top leadership positions at North Dakota’s 11 public higher education institutions. Currently only one has a woman president or CEO.
This comes at a time when the State Board of Higher Education is beginning the process of filling president vacancies at campuses in Bismarck, Dickinson and Devils Lake. In addition, North Dakota University System Chancellor Mark Hagerott will leave his position toward the end of the year.
Those raising the profile of the issue point out that nationally and within the state, women account for between 50-60% of enrollment and graduation rates in higher education.
They believe leadership at those institutions should better reflect those figures.
“The SBHE’s record for hiring women in CEO positions for the last 25 years shows a pattern and practice of discrimination on the basis of gender,” said Ellen Chaffee, who served 15 years as president at Valley City State University (1993-2008) and nine of those concurrently as president of Mayville State University through 2001.
Chaffee notes that five institutions had female presidents during the 1990s. That dropped to zero after 2008, until Valley City had two between 2014-2018, and Dakota College at Bottineau hired a woman leader in 2020.
Nationally, rates of women in president or CEO positions at colleges and universities rose by 10% from 2006 to 2022 and currently women comprise around 33% of those top leadership spots across the country.
“When it comes right down to it, in my opinion, there needs to be a concerted effort to hire more diversity,” said Debora Dragseth, Baker Boy Professor of Leadership at Dickinson State University who served as vice-president there from 2020-2022.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Dragseth said. “It’s ethical. But also the fact that the majority of college students are female. Who’s representing them? Who’s walked in their shoes?”
Dragseth calculated that women have served as the top leaders at higher education institutions throughout the state just under 6% of the time over the course of their history.
Five of North Dakota’s higher education institutions have never had a formal woman leader, including the University of North Dakota, Minot State University, Dickinson State University, Williston State College, and North Dakota State University (NDSU). NDSU did have an interim woman president for a brief period in 1969.
With Bismarck State College, Dickinson State University and Lake Region State College all in the process of searching for presidents, SBHE chair Tim Mihalick said there’s an opportunity to add female leaders at one or more of those schools.
“From my perspective, and I think of the board in general, I agree, we need more female representation,” Mihalick said. “When we get the qualifications that match the institution’s needs, I would absolutely see us hiring a female leader.”
A big aspect of finding the best candidates is being intentional during the search process, said Kim Lee, director of community strategy and engagement at the American Council on Education in Washington, D.C.
ACE has been active for two decades in promoting an initiative to try to reach parity in hiring top leadership in higher ed called Moving the Needle: Advancing Women in Higher Education Leadership.
“We still have more work to do if we want to look at gender parity,” Lee said.
She said it would be beneficial for search committees to tap into leadership development programs ACE has developed, and to consider using search firms that strongly consider diversity in their processes.
The process of filling a vacancy starts with the chancellor appointing a search committee. A presidential search typically takes 4 to 6 months, according to NDUS staff, with the SBHE providing direction on the use of a search consultant.
Procedural rules require the committee to submit at least three candidates for consideration by the SBHE.
“It’s probably not out of the reach of the discussion around this to ask the search firms to look for strong female candidates,” Mihalick said.
Chaffee said that the best pools of candidates include the best men and best women and are diverse in other key dimensions as well.
“You can’t be sure you’re selecting the best if you discount or fail to attract women applicants,” Chaffee said.
She also believes the SBHE and the chancellor’s cabinet at the NDUS both need more female representation, and that this could attract more qualified female candidates to president positions. The SBHE currently has just one female voting member.
On Jan. 14, State School Superintendent Kirsten Baesler announced six finalists – five men and one woman – for two open seats for the SBHE. Those names have now been forwarded to Gov. Kelly Armstrong for his first SBHE appointments of his new governorship, with terms beginning July 1.
“College students need to see and interact with diverse people as part of preparing for success after graduation,” Chaffee said. “If the SBHE does not seek, recruit and hire women, there is virtually no chance they will have strong women applicants and have the best possible new presidents.”
Carmen Simone, campus dean and Dakota College at Bottineau, said that while she appreciates the sentiment regarding the need to hire more women leaders, her own experience has been “extremely positive” and she is “grateful for the support we receive as leaders.”
Of the SBHE, she said: “I have full confidence that they will carefully consider the qualifications of each candidate and ultimately, they will choose the leaders who they believe will best serve our respective institutions.”
The North Dakota News Cooperative is a nonprofit news organization providing reliable and independent reporting on issues and events that impact the lives of North Dakotans. The organization increases the public’s access to quality journalism and advances news literacy across the state. For more information about NDNC or to make a charitable contribution, please visit newscoopnd.org. Send comments, suggestions or tips to michael@newscoopnd.org. Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NDNewsCoop.
Transforming a deteriorating school greenhouse into a community garden and educational space. Retrofitting an old building to create a town’s first-ever city hall. Kickstarting a commercial canning facility to teach residents how to preserve summer bounties, increase access to healthy food and expand Indigenous food sovereignty.
These are just a few of what could be a cascade of potential projects to raise the livability and viability of rural communities across the state if a legislative proposal to create a permanent endowment fund is approved this session.
Sponsored by Sen. Tim Mathern (D-Fargo), Sen. Terry Wanzek (R-Jamestown) and Rep. Mike Brandenburg (R-Edgeley), Senate Bill 2097 aims to establish a $50 million Rural Community Endowment Fund to act as a permanent resource for funding projects in communities under 1,000.
At the moment, most communities of this size struggle to navigate complex grant applications or secure matching funds required by federal and state programs, leaving them outside the fence of development funding.
The majority do not have economic development entities working to secure grants and loans, which this legislation aims to address.
According to 2022 U.S. Census data, 39.5% of the state’s population resides in rural, non-metro areas.
“Some of these smaller communities don’t have the economies of scale to be able to make investments in public works or economic development,” Wanzek said.
“The idea there is to have sustainability for a long time, to be able to have a revolving fund where small communities, if they get a loan or a grant or whatever, some of that money comes back, and then that endowment will be generating new income,” Wanzek said.
For Sen. Mathern, it aims to preserve a “rural value system” that’s being eroded as smaller communities dwindle due to a range of pushes and pulls.
“These smaller communities just don’t have the resources to develop programs to serve people so that they want to stay there,” Mathern said. “I think we need to keep rural North Dakota alive
for the values base that people develop there, and that serves everybody.”
Potential galore
As a mayor of a town with just under 140 people, Julie Hein said Wing has done well with addressing bigger infrastructure issues like water and sewer projects. But it’s the smaller things that make a community a community, outside of ensuring the faucets run and toilets flush, which are the harder asks.
Hein has scouted around for funding to help renovate a building that would become the town’s first city hall, as well as funds to rehab the Wing Theatre, which serves as a community hall, to no avail. Estimated costs for renovating the building to house the city hall run around $250,000.
“We don’t have the money, and there’s really no place to get grants for things like that,” Hein said.
The city now owns the building that could become city hall. It was formerly a bowling alley, then post office, then apartments. Wing hasn’t been able to do much with it other than beautifying the exterior with a mural because of a lack of funds.
For such a small town there’s a lot of vibrancy. Besides the theatre, there’s a relatively new gas station, a cafe, a bar and a school, mostly centered on Main St.
It’s a similar story in Glenburn, a town of just over 400 near Minot. The school there has a greenhouse, which has been slowly deteriorating. Desiree Carlson, operator of regenerative farm Esther’s Acres with her husband, Forrest, who also works as a high school teacher, would like to rehab the facility, but funds have been hard to come by. They’d likely need about $5,000 to fix it up.
“Anything that we want to do with it, we’ve been trying to find grants,” she said. “It’s really difficult, but the want and the need is there, and eventually it would be really awesome to get to the point where it turns into a community garden.”
In Fort Totten, a visit by Mary Greene-Trottier to the Cherokee tribal area in North Carolina, where she witnessed an innovative canning operation attached to a community garden, sparked her interest in setting up a similar facility back home.
“They have an area where they promote gardening, and they allow the community members to come in and make jams, jellies. It’s to teach them, so they can make it healthier, less sugar if you need less, if you’re diabetic, if you have allergies to dyes. Things like that I thought were really interesting, because you don’t really see that in a lot of communities,” she said.
Greene-Trottier, director of the Spirit Lake Tribe food distribution program, said a canning operation like that would work well with the several community garden spaces that have been or are being established on the reservation.
“It wouldn’t just be canning, but the ability to dry meats,” she said. “If you buy jerky, the price of it is just ridiculous.”
Greene-Trottier said she’s always looking at ways to improve the community and educate at the same time, so something like this would dovetail with ongoing cooking, gardening and other training.
“I just think this is something that would be real unique to the community,” she said.
Housing, property tax relief
In other areas, tapping into funding provided by a rural community endowment could also help address housing issues, Rep. Brandenburg said.
With the way housing costs have increased, both for purchasing a house and building new, it’s become more difficult in smaller towns, because of potential risks for developers and potential resale depreciation for buyers.
“A person who builds a house out in rural North Dakota and spends $400,000 for a new house is probably only going to sell it for $300,000, and you’re probably going to lose $50,000 to $200,000 on it right away. That’s just the market,” Brandenburg said.
Due to those risks, it becomes harder to find banks to finance a new build.
“There’s just kind of a missing piece to it, and the missing piece is the assurance that if somebody builds a house, who’s going to hold that note, because, really, you’ve got some unsecured debt in that situation, and that’s the part that we’re gonna have to do some more work on,” he said.
A rural community endowment fund partially backing projects in towns that need new housing, but where there’s a potential risk, could be another mechanism for rural progress.
Megan Langley, executive director of rural development nonprofit StrengthenND, said with property tax reform such a headline issue this legislative session, something like this endowment shouldn’t be seen as competing with those efforts, but potentially alleviating them by sustaining and growing small communities.
“If communities are able to bring additional people into their small towns, improve their property values, diversify their businesses, diversify their economies and be more stable and viable, they’re going to be able to do so much more and not be so dependent on property taxes,” Langley said. “This is a part of that long-term property tax relief strategy.”
The North Dakota News Cooperative is a nonprofit news organization providing reliable and independent reporting on issues and events that impact the lives of North Dakotans. The organization increases the public’s access to quality journalism and advances news literacy across the state. For more information about NDNC or to make a charitable contribution, please visit newscoopnd.org. Send comments, suggestions or tips to michael@newscoopnd.org. Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NDNewsCoop.
Republicans in North Dakota appear to be souring on the state’s 2023 law banning abortion, a new poll indicates. Only 54% of Republicans support the law now compared to 71% who supported it one year ago.
The poll, commissioned by the North Dakota News Cooperative, also shows overall support has slipped. Total support among adults in the state now stands at 38%. A majority are now opposed to the law at 55%.
In NDNC polling done last November, 44% supported the ban and 48% opposed.
The law, passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Doug Burgum in April 2023, is currently in legal limbo and awaiting a ruling by the North Dakota Supreme Court. South Central Judicial District Court Judge Bruce Romanick struck down the law in September, arguing it infringed on medical freedoms and is unconstitutionally vague.
The ban had made abortion illegal in all cases, with exceptions for cases of rape or incest – but only when a pregnancy is under six weeks – or when a pregnancy posed a significant risk to a mother’s life.
Violations of the law by health professionals include potential penalties of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
On Nov. 21, North Dakota solicitor general Phil Axt called for the state’s Supreme Court to reinstate the law until the final determination is made.
There are currently no clinics providing abortions in North Dakota. Red River Women’s Clinic, previously based in Fargo, moved to Moorhead, Minn., in 2022 after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2023, state legislators strongly supported the ban, with the Senate voting 42-5 and the House voting 76-14 in favor of the law banning abortion in the state.
The new poll also shows support for an expansion that would provide a number of weeks where abortion would be legal. A total of 52% believe the number of weeks should be expanded while 36% say it should not be.
Overall, only 28% of surveyed adults strongly support the state’s abortion law and 45% strongly oppose it, according to the poll.
The North Dakota Poll surveyed 500 adults between Nov. 17-19, and has a margin of error of +/- 4.4%. The poll surveyed roughly equal numbers of men and women, as well as equally from the eastern and western halves of the state.
The North Dakota News Cooperative is a nonprofit news organization providing reliable and independent reporting on issues and events that impact the lives of North Dakotans. The organization increases the public’s access to quality journalism and advances news literacy across the state. For more information about NDNC or to make a charitable contribution, please visit newscoopnd.org. Send comments, suggestions or tips to michael@newscoopnd.org. Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NDNewsCoop.
Throughout her 25 years as a school social worker, Michelle Vollan can’t recall a period when the number of acute youth mental health situations requiring hospitalization was as high as it was post-Covid.
Vollan has seen anxiety issues increasing, and along with that, attendance concerns and drops in grades for those affected. On the most severe end of the spectrum, thoughts of suicide and self harm have increased leading to cases of psychiatric hospitalization.
And while a spike two years ago which led to 25 psychiatric hospitalizations at the Bismarck middle school she works at has leveled off, she said, the overall situation remains a concern.
“I think, just from my experience, it’s drastically increased,” Vollan said, adding that hospitalizations have halved in the current school year. “However, I think there are as many kids that are suffering with anxiety, depression, that inability to cope … those numbers have not dropped.”
Schools were never meant to be the front line for addressing youth mental health challenges, but that’s what they’ve often become.
“North Dakota has a mental health crisis that we’re in the midst of, and our state is legally obligated to serve children that would have what they call serious emotional disorders or disturbance,” said Carlotta McCleary, executive director of the North Dakota Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health.
McCleary said around 18,000 youth in the state are in need of treatment for severe mental health issues, but few are getting the full support they need with continuous ongoing services.
According to numbers her organization gathered through open records requests, only 73 youth were treated through the state’s human service centers two years ago. Those numbers jumped to 966 during the 2023-2024 fiscal year, but are still far away from really meeting the population’s needs.
“We’re serving so few kids,” McCleary said. “Where does that pressure go? It goes to our schools.”
McCleary also said the number of youth dealing with severe anxiety has increased, which leads to snowballing impacts with attendance and grades to more acute situations.
“We know that the kids who attend school do better. Their outcomes are better. If they can be at school, on time and attend and not have attendance issues, their outcomes are better,” McCleary said. “Kids with anxiety have a great deal of difficulty, sometimes going to school and getting to school on time because of the anxiety.”
Left untreated, some youth brush up against the juvenile justice system and later, the adult criminal justice system. According to the most recent figures from the Division of Juvenile Services, 74% of the youth coming through the system have issues with mental health.
Two programs currently being rolled out across the state could begin addressing gaps in access, however, McCleary said. This includes a $3 million federal grant for implementing a System of Care system for youth from birth to 21 years of age in two regions of the state as well as a program for transitioning all clinics in the state to become Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs).
“I do believe it’s going to make a difference,” Vollan said of the programs.
System of Care is being put into place in the Lake Region Human Service Center around Devils Lake, which includes both the Spirit Lake and Turtle Mountain reservations, and in the West Central Human Service Center centered on Bismarck and including the MHA Nation and parts of Standing Rock reservations.
Implementing this stems from a 2018 behavioral health study ordered by the legislature to research strengths and gaps in youth behavioral health services, said Katie Houle, clinical administrator in the behavioral health division at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
System of Care is a set of philosophies and values, said Houle, that streamline and coordinate care for individuals and families dealing with mental health challenges by breaking down barriers between services preventing adequate care.
Too often youth with a mental health crisis can feel like a “hot potato,” Houle said, “being sent to different places and spaces and not feeling they are getting the services they need.”
Schools, inpatient and outpatient therapists, the juvenile justice system all have their own ways of addressing and interacting with youth, so anchoring them all in a system wide approach that includes the wider family and community is essential to building a better service climate, she said.
“It’s really going to take strategic planning and partnerships across juvenile justice, child welfare, schools, both public and private behavioral health services, and most importantly, thinking about how we work with our family organizations and youth that have these issues,” Houle said.
The second program being developed, and part of a longer term process, has been to identify clinics to begin transitioning to CCBHCs in the state with a goal to eventually transition all eight regions to this certification, said Daniel Cramer, clinical director of behavioral health clinics at DHHS.
North Central Human Service Center in Minot was the first site identified to actively work towards CCBHC status, Cramer said. Northwest Human Service Center in Williston and Badlands Human Service Center in Dickinson are now additionally working towards becoming a CCBHC.
Cramer said this involves prioritizing care coordination and includes hiring behavioral health liaisons at each clinic to establish key relationships with community partners, as well as care coordinators to provide targeted care management.
Certified clinics would be required to have crisis services available 24/7, develop comprehensive services so individuals do not have to coordinate this themselves through a variety of providers, and to assist those in need in navigating the variety of care they need.
“That’s what we’re all moving towards,” Cramer said. “How we can open our door more broadly for those in need, and then assure that when the need is sought out and or identified, that we’re working with all of our partners to build up to meet that need.”
Vollan said the state system for addressing mental health issues had a broader framework called “wraparound” where it seemed easier to identify what needs and options were available not only for youth in a mental health crisis but also their wider family.
That approach fell away over time and treatments and options have become increasingly siloed.
“When we did wraparound, like back in the day, it truly was this is your team, how do we talk through what supports not only our kids needs, but our parents, the siblings, all of those other pieces that you look at,” Vollan said. “It just left a lot of our families with the question, what do we do? Where do we go when my child is having a crisis?”
Houle said the DHHS has developed a contract with the National Wraparound Implementation Center to assess where North Dakota’s system is at and how it could be reintroduced. This includes specific measures on engaging with families and developing cross system plans where one person is holding each member of the team – wrapping around a child – responsible.
“A lot of parents and caregivers of children with complex needs are burnt out, experiencing really severe caregiver stress, all of those types of things,” Houle said. This could include engaging mentors, faith communities, coaches and other relatives to provide an embrace of support.
“In an ideal system I feel like wraparound and other types of care coordination will work alongside clinical treatment services to make sure the right children are getting into the right place at the right time,” Houle said.
Other wider systems of support could also include meeting underlying issues of instability and stress including addressing poverty, lack of access to transportation, as well as food and housing insecurity, Houle said.
The North Dakota News Cooperative is a nonprofit news organization providing reliable and independent reporting on issues and events that impact the lives of North Dakotans. The organization increases the public’s access to quality journalism and advances news literacy across the state. For more information about NDNC or to make a charitable contribution, please visit newscoopnd.org. Send comments, suggestions or tips to michael@newscoopnd.org. Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NDNewsCoop.
Community support has been overwhelming as the Three Affiliated Tribes battle round-the-clock to contain wildfires raging across northwest North Dakota.
One of at least six outbreaks over the weekend, the Bear Den Fire near Mandaree remains 20% contained at time of publication. As of early afternoon more than 11,000 acres were actively burning, including significant portions of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.
The fire has burned more than 28,000 acres since it began early Saturday, according to the North Dakota Forest Service. They said a priority on Monday was controlling the fires with air support from the National Guard Black Hawk helicopters.
The Bear Den Fire destroyed two residences and multiple structures but caused no injuries, according to authorities. The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation’s Emergency Operations Center lifted mandatory evacuation orders for residents of both Four Bears and West reservation segments by Sunday afternoon.
Authorities said a fire located near Ray killed one man, 26-year-old Johannes Nicolaas Van Eeden of South Africa, and left another in critical condition.
As crews continue battling blazes that began in the early morning hours on Saturday, community members are ensuring hot meals, toiletries and other supplies are available to those coming off long shifts or residents affected by the fires.
Rancher Howard Fettig was on fire watch near Bear Den Bay when he spoke to Buffalo’s Fire in the late morning on Monday. It’s been “neighbors helping neighbors, both on and off reservation,” he said.
“I think it’s an eye-opener.”
Howard Fettig, rancher helping create fire guards north of Mandaree
MHA Nation’s Emergency Operations Center in New Town is requesting donated snacks, coffee, toiletries, and bottled water. Community members at the Emergency Response building in Mandaree welcome donations of brown paper bags to make sack lunches, toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, kitchen trash bags, coffee, bath towels, and laundry soap.
Lyda Spotted Bear told Buffalo’s Fire the support staff and fire fighters have been very thankful for the consistent supply of hot meals as they rotate through shifts. A steady flow of local volunteers is providing supplies and delivery, Spotted Bear said.
The fire’s path missed Fettig’s home by just half a mile, razing fences, trees and the pasture where he had planned to graze animals this fall.
The crisis was nowhere over, he said, as Monday’s southern winds were making flare-ups’ path unpredictable.
He was one of many farmers and ranchers standing by with tractors to create fire lines – stretches of tilled soil stopping the spread of flames.
“I think it’s an eye-opener,” Fettig said. He hopes people understand it will happen again and “we need to have a better understanding on how to protect people.” Western North Dakota is in moderate to severe drought with no relief of dry conditions in the near future.
The Bear Den Fire drew a coordinated response from the tribes, U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, North Dakota Forest Service, Department of Emergency Services, Army National Guard and Highway Patrol.
Dry conditions and high northwest winds – with gusts recorded over 75 miles per hour – pushed fires southeast on Saturday. The exact cause of the fires remains unknown.
Elkhorn Fire, which has burned more than 20,000 acres south of Watford City, was 20% contained Monday afternoon, with no reported injuries or destroyed residences.
By Sunday evening, emergency responders had almost entirely contained a fire near Arnegard and another by Charlson, the Garrison Fire near Emmet and two fires that merged between Ray and Tioga. Downed power lines have left more than 300 without electricity statewide.
The post Three Affiliated Tribes emergency responders combat 11,000-acre Bear Den Fire appeared first on Buffalo’s Fire.
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If you stop at a roadside restaurant anywhere between North Dakota and Oklahoma, you might not immediately get a sense of culinary diversity. Many menus in rural and small-town middle America consist of high-calorie burgers and processed Caesar salads, along with a few trending items like Buffalo cauliflower or flatbreads. Of course, the region does include diverse cuisines, but you have to seek them out, and even those restaurants often depend on ingredients from massive food suppliers such as Sysco that tend to homogenize flavors.
The middle of the country’s reputation for bland food completely ignores our Indigenous peoples. Within this core of America, dismissed by some as “flyover states,” lies a rich tapestry of culinary heritages. The states of Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, the Dakotas, and Iowa are home to 58 federally recognized tribes, each with unique food traditions, including the amazing agricultural heritage of the Mandan, Arikara, and Hidatsa; the bison-centered foodways of the Plains tribes like the Lakota and Cheyenne; and the many cuisines of tribes forced into modern-day Oklahoma after Andrew Jackson’s racist Indian Removal Act.
As a member of the Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, a chef, and a historian, I see the massive potential in harnessing, cultivating, and elevating the Indigenous culinary creativity that permeates this massive region. A broad, Native-led restaurant industry could become a huge driver of food-focused tourism. I imagine a world where we could travel across this terrain, stopping at Indigenous-focused restaurants representing the many tribes, and experiencing the true flavors of the area.
In Nebraska, travelers could taste heirloom hominy made with Ponca corn, sage grouse with wild onions, or venison with prickly pear. In the Dakotas and the Great Plains, they might find smoked venison with the rich Lakota chokecherry sauce called wojapi, or antelope with nopales and rosehips. In Oklahoma, Cherokee cooks could whip up grape dumpling soup with stewed rabbit and bergamot-fried onion with turkey eggs and plums for those passing through. These restaurants, with menus rooted in game dishes, heirloom seeds, and wild plants, would fit within a broader Native movement that acknowledges the contributions of Indigenous peoples, educates the public, transcends colonial borders, and promotes understanding about the biodiversity existing alongside cultures.
There’s a long way to go before this dream can become a reality. Many non-Native diners, if they think of Indigenous food at all, can only conjure up fry bread, a survival food taught to us by the U.S. military. Unfortunately, this food, made with commodity ingredients provided by the U.S. government such as white flour and lard, has also contributed to the high rates of diabetes and heart disease that our people have historically suffered. Though fry bread is now an inextricable chapter of our foodways, it should in no way be considered the full story. Other Indigenous culinary identities have been buried, just as Native stories and art are distorted through non-Native gift shops, galleries, and even museums.
Moreover, Native communities are largely economically cut out from other parts of the tourism industry, which brings in billions of dollars a year to each heartland state. This is especially true for national and state parks, lands that Native communities have stewarded for countless generations (despite some attempts at co-management and small economic programs to funnel money to tribes). In South Dakota, for instance, Black Hills National Forest and Mount Rushmore attracted 3.6 million tourists in 2021, but the poverty rate on the nearby Pine Ridge Reservation is 53 percent. Pine Ridge, like all reservations, is still segregated, with scarce economic opportunities. As Native residents struggle to find any kind of economic peace and survive in food deserts off government-supplied rations and junk food from gas stations, they also continue the fight for their ancestral spaces.
At the same time, the tourism industry could be a powerful tool for change — and this renaissance is already happening, if slowly. Native chefs and food entrepreneurs are working hard to showcase their cultures and reclaim their narratives, one dish at a time. Native-owned restaurants are proving that they’re not just relics of the past preserving traditional dishes, but living, evolving blueprints that continue to nourish and sustain their communities economically, as well as nutritionally, culturally, and environmentally.
Take, for instance, the work of chef Nico Albert Williams at Burning Cedar, a catering and education nonprofit project out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. At pop-up dinners, Williams offers menus with contemporary dishes like seed-crusted venison chops, smoky cedar-braised brown beans, venison and hominy stew, and Cherokee bean bread. It’s just one of several operations, including 2024 James Beard semifinalist Natv, that is making Oklahoma a hub for regional dining experiences.
At Owamni, my restaurant in Minneapolis, my team focuses on decolonizing our diet, removing ingredients like wheat flour, dairy, sugar, beef, pork, and chicken, all items introduced to the region not long ago. Through our cuisine, we are showcasing what’s possible, with dishes like slow-braised elk tacos with fresh tortillas from Potawatomi corn — made at our Indigenous Food Lab — finished with tangy maple-pickled onions, grilled sweet potatoes with maple and chiles; or slow-smoked bison short rib with bitter aronia berries, finished with pickled squash.
It is unfortunately still rare to find Indigenous food businesses like these. One barrier is trying to define Native American food in a country that has no idea what that means, especially breaking down the oversimplified category of “Native food” to reveal the immense diversity across foodways. Another barrier is financing; good luck finding any of the support required to start businesses on a reservation, without a rich uncle, outside investors, or even reliable access to a bank account. Racial inequalities are very much baked into the systems and institutions needed to launch a restaurant.
Dismantling these barriers would require a lot of work, but it could start in public spaces. State and city governments can purchase from Indigenous food producers, such as farmers, foragers, hunters, and fisheries, which would help strengthen and grow much-needed food economies. Indigenous offerings should be made available in schools and hospitals to help normalize these ingredients on menus. If we highlight foods and cultures so they are not only acknowledged but cherished, a future can develop where the richness of our collective heritage is a source of pride and inspiration for every American. We can learn to embrace our amazing diversity instead of fearing it.
Indigenous foodways are attainable models of sustainability, offering a proud connection to the land. They also provide a path to food sovereignty, enshrining the right for Native peoples to define themselves on their own terms. But even if those arguments aren’t acknowledged by those who have ignored Indigenous needs for so long, Native restaurants could begin to rewrite the reputation of “flyover country.” The heartland could become a more desirable tourist destination, not just for its natural beauty, but for its cultural and culinary heritage. With every plate of smoked venison, heirloom hominy, or stewed rabbit, we get a little closer.
You are on Native land, so let us celebrate the vibrant, varied tapestry that is the true heart of America.
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