The Advisory Board of the Jim Thorpe Center for the Futures of Native Peoples reflects the brilliance and creativity of our people, and it strengthens this work through collective leadership. The Center is rooted in a place like no other. Carlisle holds deep and complicated histories that continue to shape our responsibilities today, and the work asks for presence, honesty, truth telling, accountability, and relationship building. Without state or federal tribal recognition in Pennsylvania, this work relies on building wider circles of relationship and expertise beyond the local area. For that reason, we are guided by both a national Advisory Board, Dickinson Student Advisory Board Fellows, which also has local community members. Our Advisory Board brings a breadth of experience and knowledge, and includes members with family connections to the Carlisle Indian School. Together, these circles of guidance help shape our programs, steward partnerships, and initiatives grounded in relational accountability, community responsibility, respect for Indigenous knowledge systems, and honoring both past and future generations. In a place this emotionally charged, it takes a village, and this Board is part of how we do the work in a good way.
