On a crisp day in East Lansing, the smell of traditional food drifted through the Multicultural Center at Michigan State University as students, faculty, staff, tribal members and neighbors gathered shoulder to shoulder. Live music filled the room between the words of traditional prayers, and for a few hours, the campus felt like a homecoming for Indigenous culture.
That welcome event kicked off a multi-day celebration of Indigenous heritage at MSU, and it was about far more than good food and songs. Indigenous leaders said the gathering existed to keep traditions alive for everyone on campus — current students, staff and newcomers alike. University leaders and community members took turns introducing themselves and pointing students toward the resources available to them while they study at MSU.
For Devon Kuwanquaftewa, an advocate at the Multicultural Center, the moment was deeply personal. "Cultural practices like this played a big part in my success at Michigan State University," Kuwanquaftewa said. "Joining the university as a staff member and allowing to provide that experience for other individuals has definitely been an inspiration for me."
That sense of passing something forward is at the heart of what comes next. Starting the following morning, Spartans and the wider community are invited to roll up their sleeves and build a birch bark canoe — a craft that Indigenous communities have practiced for centuries. The build will stretch across four days, with sessions running from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. at the Multicultural Center on campus. Anyone with curious hands, whatever their background, is welcome to take part.
Why does this matter? Across the country, Indigenous students often report feeling invisible on university campuses, their histories reduced to a single page in a textbook. Events like this one push back against that erasure. By gathering to share food, song, prayer and hands-on craft, MSU is treating Indigenous culture not as something to be studied from a distance, but as something living, shared and actively passed along to the next generation.
The canoe build is especially meaningful. Birch bark canoes are more than transportation — they are engineering marvels that Indigenous peoples honed over countless generations, lightweight yet sturdy enough to carry people and goods across vast waterways. Building one together, side by side over four days, is a lesson in patience, collaboration and respect for the land. It connects today's students to skills their ancestors refined long before this university ever existed.
The celebration is a reminder that culture is not a museum piece. It lives in the voices that sing, the prayers that are spoken and the hands that shape bark into a boat. For the students and community members leaving the welcome event with full stomachs and open hearts, the real work — and the joy — of continuing that tradition was just beginning.