Indigenous Studies Working Group

Trinity College is located just west of the Connecticut River, within Wangunk homelands. The river valley has sustained countless generations of Wangunk people, joined by Indigenous communities from across the globe, including within Hartford’s Andean, Central American, and Caribbean communities. Situated in Hartford, we at Trinity have ongoing investment in recognizing and celebrating the Indigenous communities of Connecticut, New England, and beyond.

In 2017, faculty members at Trinity College founded the Indigenous Studies Working Group (ISWG), which supports research and teaching in Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) on campus. The ISWG is committed to fostering responsible NAIS scholarship and community engagement and to supporting Native and non-Native students in the shared work of decolonizing the spaces where we live and learn.

For the first three years (2017-2020), the group met regularly in person each semester to discuss a work of NAIS scholarship, followed by an author visit. In recent years, ISWG work has been more ad hoc and virtual, often supporting events driven by students and faculty across campus. In 2023-24, four faculty members, four students, four staff members, and one alumnus and Hartford resident have been part of Trinity’s Land Acknowledgment Committee. That college-wide process is developing a language acknowledgment statement and ensuring that the statement is accompanied by commitments to Trinity’s Indigenous community as well as the broader Indigenous community of Hartford.

We welcome interested students, professors, or community members to contact  [email protected] or [email protected].