A donation from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community will support a Native American student internship program at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Sequoyah National Research Center.

“We are so pleased that the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community values the work we do for contemporary Native American communities and wants to invest in the center’s work and the education of Native American students,” said center Director Dr. Daniel Littlefield. “We hope to one day host a Shakopee student as a summer intern.”

The $3,500 donation will support the center’s Native American Student Summer Internship Program, which was created in 2010.

Since the program’s inception, the center has hosted 21 Native American undergraduate and graduate students for summer internships. The students have come from universities throughout the United States, including UA Little Rock, University of Oklahoma, Haskell Indian Nations University, and San Diego State University.

Each summer, students spend two months working on a project in the center. Past projects included processing and creating an aid for the research of a collection of papers of journalist Mark Trahant, indexing videos from the center’s symposium, and cataloguing maps and posters.

The program is designed to give participating students valuable work experience that will benefit them as they continue their education and look for jobs after graduation.

About the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community is a federally recognized, sovereign Indian tribe located southwest of Minneapolis/St. Paul. With a focus on being a good neighbor, good steward of the earth, and good employer, the SMSC is committed to charitable donations, community partnerships, a healthy environment, and a strong economy. Out of a Dakota tradition to help others, the SMSC has donated nearly $300 million to organizations and causes since opening the Gaming Enterprise in the 1990s.

About the Sequoyah National Research Center

The Sequoyah National Research Center is the world’s largest assembly of Native American expression. Located at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the center is a unique facility dedicated to the collection, preservation, and dissemination of all forms of Native North American expression and has served as an archive for Native Americans since 1983.