Bonnie Brown, M.A.

Native American Studies Program Coordinator

Program Coordinator, Teaching Instructor, Native American Studies

2021 Appointed to Morgantown Human Rights Commission

2017 Eberly College Award for Outstanding Public Service

2012 Neil S. Bucklew Award for Social Justice Recipient

2011 WVU Service to Diversity Award

Brown joined WVU as an assistant professor of journalism in 1996, but her professional and academic interests in media representations of Native Americans and other groups led her to begin working for the Native American Studies Program in 2001 and being appointed coordinator in 2005. She teaches Introduction to Native American Studies and has developed courses on Contemporary Native American Issues, Native Women in Leadership, Sovereign Tribal Nations, Native Leaders in Action, Black Indians, and a seminar with Walter Echo-Hawk (Pawnee Nation) called “Courts of the Conqueror” (based on his recent book, In the Courts of the Conqueror: The Ten Worst Indian Law Cases Ever Decided). She has been a non-voting member of the National Congress of American Indians since 2005 and is a member of the Native American & Indigenous Studies Assoc.

She has organized a number of public lectures, symposia, a West Virginia Teacher Institute, service learning projects, and a 2021 workshop for educators and librarians centered on the Carlisle Indian Boarding School, as well as:

"THIS LAND WAS ALREADY LOVED: Native Leaders Discuss their Nations' Connection to Place" public forum October 10, 2023

“An Evening with U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo (Muscogee (Creek) Nation), 2022

"The Seneca and the Great Law of Peace," Jamie Jacobs (Tonawanda Seneca), 2019

"Traveling the Red Roads, Defining the Map," William Gollnick (Oneida Nation), 2019

"Protecting Children, Preserving Families: Lessons from the Indian Child Welfare Act," Dr. Sarah Kastelic (Alutiiq), 2018

"Imagination, Memory, and Engagement: Expressing Indigenous Geographies with Cartographic Language," Dr. Margaret Pearce (Citizen Potawatomi Nation), 2018

“Peace, Equity, and the Good Minds,” Chief Oren Lyons, traditional faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan and a member of the Onondaga Indian Nation Council of Chiefs of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Haudenosaunee (People of the Long House), 2017

"Why Justice Looks Different in Indian Country," Dave Archambault, II, then-chair of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation), 2017

“An Evening of Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) Poetry,” Dr. Margaret Noodin, 2016

“From Reservation Cabin to the Corridors of Power: Changing Our World from Within,” Ada Deer (Menominee), 2016

“We Are All Related: Indigenous Reflections on Resiliency,” Dr. Daniel Wildcat (Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma), 2015

“The Cherokee Word for Water,” film screening and discussion, Charlie Soap (Cherokee Nation), 2015

“Traditional Medicine for Modern Problems,” Klane King (Blackfeet Nation, Blood Tribe), 2013

“Then and Now: Archeology, History, and Preservation in the Mountain State Region,” symposium, 2013

“In the Courts of the Conqueror,” Walter Echo-Hawk (Pawnee Nation), 2013

“MODOC: The Tribe that Wouldn’t Die,” film and book discussion, Cheewa James (Modoc), 2012

Peace Tree: “The Enchanted Yoemem of Northwest Mexico and the Desert Southwest,” Dr. John Joseph Candillo (Pascua Yaqui), 2011

"Yellow Wolf: Journey from Log House to Rushmore," Gerard Baker (Mandan Hidatsa), 2011

“Telling the Stories: American Indian Interpretation in the Trans-Allegheny Region,” symposium, 2011

“Who Owns the Past? Siouan Indian Peoples in Virginia and West Virginia,” Dr. Karenne Wood (Monacan), 2010

“Protecting and Respecting Our Ancestors and the Making of the National Museum of the American Indian,” Suzan Harjo (Cheyenne, Hodulgee Muscogee), 2010

“A Crossroads of Native Culture and History: Examining the Native American Heritage of West Virginia and the Region,” teacher institute, 2009

“Who Speaks for the Dead: Kin, Science, the Law?” symposium, 2009