Professor Matthew Makomenaw is the Assistant Dean of Yale College and Director of the Native American Cultural Center. At the NACC, he has the goal of supporting Native students in all professional fields as well as preserving culture and language while belonging at Yale. Much of Professor Makomenaw’s research and work focuses on college access and retention for Native students. One of his projects has been to create a culturally sensitive college readiness program for Native students. It details how to talk about students’ culture in their essays and how to find welcoming schools, to make the college application and research process more accessible. Part of his work in making Native students and other students of color feel at home at Yale is through supporting the pre-orientation program, Cultural Connections. This program helps students get adjusted to the campus climate and prepares them for conversations around aspects of identity, like race and sexual orientation. Another program Professor Makomenaw and the NACC supports is the Native American Language Program, a community education project in New Haven that teaches and preserves Native American languages and culture for students in New Haven.
Professor Makomenaw’s seminar, Contemporary Native American K-12 and Postsecondary Educational Policy, builds on his research and college readiness work. Native American communities are invisibilized in education policy, and their culture and languages are viewed as historical relics. Professor Makomenaw writes in his syllabus “Emphasizing the existence of Native American people in contemporary educational systems is essential in changing the discourse and trajectory of Native American student success.” The course teaches the success and bravery of Native Americans in education. Again, from Professor Makomenaw’s syllabus, “the impetus of this course will center on the resiliency, strength, and imagination of Native American students and communities to redefine and achieve success in a complex and often unfamiliar educational environment.”