Vice Chairman Cornel Pewewardy Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

Professor Emeritus, Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University and Comanche Nation Vice Chairman Cornel Pewewardy received the National Indian Education Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

He said without family he wouldn’t be where he’s at.

“What it feels like is just very rewarding but I’m not here by myself,” Pewewardy said.

Pewewardy said the requirement is to center your professional career in Indian education.

“I try to focus on creating new indigenous schools as a founder and architect administrator of the American Indian Magnet School in St. Paul, Minnesota, where it still exists today,” he said. “To running Bureau of Indian Affair Schools in the Navajo Reservation.”

He said being nominated by his peers like the Oklahoma Council for Indian Education, is an honor and the award reflects a dedication to decolonizing scholarship, transforming teaching, and having integrity-filled service toward native communities.

“So, to be as an educator we really need to do better than the previous generation,” Pewewardy said. “It’s not about being politically correct. It’s about doing the right thing; just being right. Being culturally and academically correct. It’s about making indigenous education stronger and more diverse in a global society.

In higher education, Pewewardy also helped in the education of 20 native teachers to be classroom practitioners to continue with the advocacy.

In the time he has left as the Vice-Chair of Comanche Nation, he plans to create a caretaking economy.

“The climate justice…needs to be recentered,” he said. “Recenter the labor of struggle of caretakers if it is to be successful. Caretakers can be powerful architects of a new economic system to replace capitalism through a caretaking economy.”

Currently, Pewewardy is in the midst of writing letters of recommendation for his students.