Native Land

Ho-Chunk, UWEC partnership will create cultural learning community

Tom Giffey, photos by Andrea Paulseth |

Formerly home to a community of Catholic nuns, The Priory was purchased in 2011 by an arm of the UW-Eau Claire Foundation. It’s now home to the Nature Academy (the university’s child care center), and beginning in 2015 it will be the site of a living-learning community focused on Ho-Chunk culture.
Formerly home to a community of Catholic nuns, The Priory was purchased in 2011 by an arm of the UW-Eau Claire Foundation. It’s now home to the Nature Academy (the university’s child care center), and beginning in 2015 it will be the site of a living-learning community focused on Ho-Chunk culture.

Going away to college can be disruptive for any student, and that’s especially true for Native American young people who may be leaving tight-knit tribal communities to live within mainstream American culture for the first time. UW-Eau Claire alumna Adrienne Thunder, a member of Wisconsin’s Ho-Chunk tribe, knows this firsthand. “When I left home, one of the messages I got was not to forget who I was,” explains Thunder, who is now executive director for the Ho-Chunk Nation’s Department of Education.

Last fall, the Ho-Chunk Nation and UWEC embarked on an effort to ease and enrich that transition, particularly for Native American students. The tribe and university are working to create a living-learning community that would focus on Ho-Chunk culture and traditions. The community, which would include about 56 students, would be housed at The Priory, formerly St. Bede’s, the onetime Catholic convent south of Eau Claire that a branch of the UWEC Foundation purchased in 2011. The community would be aimed at Ho-Chunk students but would be open to others as well, and would be launched in the fall of 2015. In addition to residential rooms, facilities at the 110-acre Priory would be converted into space for language and cultural education.

“I think we’ve made extraordinary headway because both groups have been very open to how two very dissimilar organizations can come together to work on a project they both believe in.” – UWEC official Katherine Rhoades, on the partnership between the university and the Ho-Chunk Nation to create a living-learning community at The PrioryOfficials from the university and the Black River Falls-based tribe have made rapid progress on the project since an agreement was signed in September by Chancellor James C. Schmidt and Ho-Chunk Nation President Jon Greendeer. “I think we’ve made extraordinary headway because both groups have been very open to how two very dissimilar organizations can come together to work on a project they both believe in,” said Katherine Rhoades, a retired UWEC professor and dean who leads a university task force on The Priory.

Rhoades’ committee was tasked with finding the “best and highest” use of The Priory. “Its really a quiet and beautiful place that’s a mere three miles from campus,” Rhoades said. The wooded acreage is a world unto itself, she added, and is a good complement to the nearby  – but landlocked – campus. Rhoades’ committee fielded about 200 ideas for the property’s future after UWEC began leasing it, and partnering with the Ho-Chunk tribe emerged as a top focus.

Currently, The Priory is home to the Nature Academy (the university’s child care center, which previously was on the main campus) as well as, since last fall, a pilot project in which 20 UWEC students have lived at the site. Rhoades said the pilot has been successful – students enjoy the quiet and seclusion, as well as having private rooms – which is a good sign for the future living-learning program. By the fall semester of 2014, part of what’s known as Building A, which also houses the Nature Academy, will be renovated into student housing. Meanwhile, rooms in a separate building that house students as part of the pilot project also will be renovated, and a third building, which formerly housed the convent’s chapel, will be converted into flexible education space, Rhoades said.

Ho-Chunk Nation President Jon Greendeer and UW-Eau Claire Chancellor James Schmidt signed an agreement Sept. 23 to collaborate on the project.
Ho-Chunk Nation President Jon Greendeer and UW-Eau Claire Chancellor James Schmidt signed an agreement Sept. 23 to collaborate on the project.

Beginning in 2015, students – Ho-Chunk and otherwise – who live at The Priory will take some classes on the main campus and others at The Priory itself. Organizers are particularly excited about one element of the living-learning community: The possibility of an “elder-in-residence” program that would bring older members of the Ho-Chunk Nation to stay at The Priory for a few days or a week to impart some of their culture and heritage on the students. “Our elders are our walking libraries,” Thunder explained. “They’re the folks who carry the knowledge that’s been going on back into time.”

Thunder is hopeful that the living-learning community will be a positive venture for both parties. While she views education as a tool for personal and cultural empowerment, she acknowledges that hasn’t always been the case for Native Americans: For generations, many Native American youths were sent to boarding schools where they were forbidden from speaking their own language or exercising their own traditions. Today, however, education can be used to foster that culture and language, Thunder said. Likewise, she said, the program may serve as something like a “study abroad” experience for non-Native students. Echoing a sentiment expressed by the chancellor, Thunder added: “We have a shared future whether we acknowledge it or not.” The Priory is now part of that future.