Lecture

Dr. Helen Maynor Scheirbeck (1935-2010), a Lumbee political scientist, educator, and community organizer, both led and served as a consultant to governmental and non-governmental organizations related to American Indian tribal recognition, education, and community development. Dr. Scheirbeck assisted with the founding of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to chair the Indian Education Task Force, and served as the director of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Office of Indian Education. She also assisted in the development of the Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act (1978), was appointed head of the Indian Head Start Program, and served as assistant director for public programs at the National Museum of the American Indian. Dr. David E. Wilkins (Lumbee) is the E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professor in Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. He concentrates much of his work on Native politics and governance, particularly on the transformations that Indigenous governments have both coercively and voluntarily engaged in from pre-colonial times to the present.