Enhancing Curriculum with Blackfeet Language and Culture

FAIN: AD-258950-18

Blackfeet Community College (Browning, MT 59417-5146)
Sterling Schildt (Project Director: June 2017 to September 2018)
Jim Peterson (Project Director: September 2018 to July 2023)

A two-year project to record Piikani-speaking elders and incorporate interviews into liberal arts courses at Blackfeet Community College.

In an effort to bolster support for the storytelling tradition and language preservation on the Blackfeet nation, Blackfeet Community College (BCC) proposes a three-phase initiative that seeks to 1) document fluent language speakers, 2) translate, archive and organize their messages according to theme, and 3) integrate this work into units of study accessible by all BCC students as a part of their coursework. The first of these objectives will be completed in the first year by directly interviewing key Piikani speakers. Through planning general prompts and questions ahead of time, these interviews will be organized, and the first year will mainly be devoted to collecting and documenting this information. The second year will be focused on translating and organizing interview content into 60 concepts within four thematic units to be studied at BCC as well as integrating the archived, translated interviews into the BCC Liberal Arts curriculum.