BOZEMAN – This year’s celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day at Montana State University will feature the dedication of a new arbor and outdoor educational space at American Indian Hall.
The Oct. 13 event, sponsored by the Department of Native American Studies in the College of Letters and Science, will honor Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet tribal elder, activist, banker and rancher who attended MSU and received an honorary doctorate in 2002. The new arbor is located in the garden area north of American Indian Hall, the first building on campus designed and built to serve Native students. The $20 million facility opened in 2021.
The event will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and feature tours of American Indian Hall, an exhibit of art by Winold Reiss, refreshments, door prizes, honor song from the Bobcat Singers drum group and remarks from dignitaries, including a tribal elder and MSU President Brock Tessman. The dedication of the Elouise Cobell Garden Arbor is scheduled for 11:45 a.m.
Walter Fleming, former head of the Native American Studies department who is now retired, said the arbor was always part of the building’s design but the necessary funds weren’t available to include it when construction began in 2019. It was finished this summer after Elise Phares donated funds to match unspent building contingency funds for construction of the outdoor instructional space, a critical component of education for MSU’s Native students and the building’s design. Phares is the daughter of the late Elise R. Donohue, who made the lead gift of $1 million for construction of American Indian Hall in 2013. Donohue died in 2015. Phares made her donation to ensure that the project so important to her mother would be finished.
Fleming concurred that the arbor visually and culturally completes the circular design of the building.
“The arbor is a quarter round, which completes the architectural circle as it embraces the building,” Fleming said. “Symbolically, we have the arbor as a connection to the reservations, back to students’ homes. It’s also that notion that we’re creating a space for culture as an extension of the building.”
A new fire pit near the arbor will be a point of gathering that represents the element of fire, complementing other art installations at AIH that represent earth, water and wind, Fleming said. Edible and medicinal native plants that have grown in the outdoor area since the building opened in 2021 will remain, and Fleming said more plants are being added to soften the new flagstone hardscape. Also added this summer were some boulders to create an amphitheater-like seating area.
Meredith Hecker, head of the Department of Native American Studies, said the area will be a gathering place for meetings and special events. MSU faculty who wish to hold a class or schedule an activity in the space can contact the department to make arrangements.
Fleming said the department chose to name the arbor for Cobell to recognize her meaningful place in Native history. In a 2009 court case, Cobell contested the United States’ mismanagement of trust funds belonging to more than 500,000 Native Americans, challenging the government to account for fees from resource leases. In 2010, the government approved a $3.4 billion settlement for the trust case. Cobell died in 2011; in 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Cobell the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously.
“We thought the way to honor her is to name a space, particularly one that was associated with an open, outdoor kind of environment, because she did work to restore land to Indian ownership through the settlement,” Fleming said. “This outdoor space is a nod, in a way, toward restoring a little bit of Bozeman back to a Native-centric place.”
For more information about Indigenous Peoples Day events or the dedication, email nas@montana.edu or call 406-994-5260.
Ellie McConville, MSU Department of Native American Studies, at ellie.mcconville@montana.edu
