Loren BirdRattler, a member of the Blackfeet Nation who coordinated the country’s first in-house indigenous agricultural resource management plan, has been appointed the Montana State University Katz Endowed Chair in Native American Studies. MSU Photo by Adrian Sanchez-Gonzalez

Education | National

BirdRattler to speak about collaborations with tribes at MSU's Berger Lecture on February 11

Thursday, February 6, 2020

By MSU News Service

montana.edu/news

Loren BirdRattler, who is the Montana State University Katz Endowed Chair in Native American Studies, will speak about an MSU initiative that is building mutually beneficial research collaborations between MSU and tribal communities at the 2020 Berger Lecture. The lecture is set for 5 p.m. Tuesday, February 11, in Norm Asbjornson Hall’s Inspiration Hall.

BirdRattler’s lecture, “Increasing Mutually Beneficial Collaborations with Tribal Nations Through an Indigenous Research Initiative,” is free and open to the public. It will be preceded by a reception beginning at 4 p.m.

As the Katz Endowed Chair in the Department of Native American Studies,/a> in the College of Letters and Science, BirdRattler is helping to lead a groundbreaking Indigenous Research Initiative at MSU. The initiative will examine best practices for establishing and maintaining equitable partnerships between MSU and tribes for research conducted within tribal nations.

A member of the Blackfeet Nation, BirdRattler was named MSU’s fourth Katz Endowed Chair in Native American Studies last fall. BirdRattler has more than two decades’ experience as a strategic planner, policy developer, project manager and organizational developer in Washington, D.C., and in Indian Country.

Recently, BirdRattler led a community development planning effort creating the Blackfeet Agriculture Resource Management Plan, the first in-house indigenous agricultural plan in the country. In 2018, BirdRattler addressed the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues about the Blackfeet ARMP, a presentation that was so successful he was invited to return to address the U.N. General Assembly.

The annual Berger Memorial Lecture honors the memory of MSU benefactor Phyllis Berger. It is offered each year at MSU by a nationally recognized Native American, Alaskan Native or Native Hawaiian scholar, artist or leader speaking on Native history, cultures or contemporary issues of interest and importance to both Indian and non-Indian people.

For more information, call the Department of Native American Studies at 994-3881.

Loren BirdRattler can be reached at lbirdrattler@blackfeetnation.com. Walter Fleming can be reached at 406-994-5260 or wfleming@montana.edu.

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