Personal Statement

I have been extraordinarily blessed to grow up in a family of strong women on my mother’s side, with an adventurous and gifted aunt on my father’s side. They, along with numerous models have shown me how to be courageous, articulate, present, engaged, curious, passionate, intelligent, and kind. The best of them taught me graciousness of heart combined with a profound commitment to justice and fair play.

It was these qualities that enabled me to say that I wanted to be a woman university professor when I had seen only one, and who enabled me to persevere when no other women were in graduate class after graduate class, from 1966-1973. The feminists who came before me also enabled me to play my part in cracking the door a bit wider as one of the two first Affirmative Action hires at Montana State University. Teaching in Montana also confronted me with how little I knew about Native Peoples, their cultures and thought ways. I shared my ignorance and then my learning process with students as we faced together the un-thought-out racism that permeated our lives. In that process I began to explore and develop a scholarly program that would protect, preserve, and honor the richness of the Native American Literature that was transforming my life.

It has been a great privilege to teach Shakespeare, that inordinately gifted humanist; and the Victorians, who struggled with the shift to the modern mind (my two Doctorate fields); along with the Native American Literature that brought me to the bi-cultural sightedness necessary to truly understand the Self and the Other.

To my students, how can I ever thank you for all that you have taught me about language and meaning. To my Native American colleagues, how can I ever thank you for your patience and encouragement, guidance and insight, that helped me become the scholar I wanted to become. To my mother, sister, and heart friends, how can I ever thank you for what you taught me about love. So much that I have achieved in my life I owe to you.

I'm the studious one in the middle surrounded by wonderful women, with Dad as picture-taker!