Certificate in Indigenous Research and Education (CIRE)
Overview
The Certificate in Indigenous Research and Education (CIRE) is a 13-credit certificate taken in a sequence over three academic semesters that begins in a fall semester. Certificate Requirements include 13 credits, with five required core courses (10 credits) and an elective course (3 credits) that is pre-approved and taught by an affiliate faculty member. Classes are through a cross-disciplinary partnership with the Department of Culture, Society and Justice, Natural Resources and Society, and Education.
Participation
Currently, participation in the certificate is limited to students accepted and participating in the CIRCLES program. The certificate will be open to university student registration in the coming years.
Details
This certificate is foundational to the University of Idaho land-grant mission and seeks to enhance relational accountability between the university and Indigenous lands, people, and Knowledge Systems within the state of Idaho and the region. This certificate supports transformative teaching and research that furthers partnerships with Tribes and Tribal-State nation building in higher education by preparing students to work and design at the intersections of natural resources, social and cultural well-being, and enhancing learning settings to address epistemological diversities.
The certificate covers 1) American Indian and Indigenous Knowledge systems; 2) Land education theory and practice; 3) competence in Indigenous and community-based methodologies in a specific field; and 4) completion of a research-based presentation.
This certificate will prepare Indigenous and non-Indigenous graduates to engage actively in the following ways:
Student Learning Outcomes
- Students will be able to navigate the academic institution in ways that affirm Indigenous peoples’ goals and priorities while recognizing the ways the institutionalized educational systems has not been designed around these goals and priorities.
- Students will understand the various ways that Indigenous STEM is practiced in communities, and how these relate to their own research and education.
- Students will be able to examine how learning has happened in Indigenous communities and will be able to compare these with learning as presented in academic institutions.
- Students will be able to explain principles of ethical partnering with Tribal communities and the ways that these are put into practice in their own research.
- Students will analyze tribal sovereignty as a bedrock for addressing complex issues of sustainable community development in the US.
- Students will design research that engages methodologies grounded of Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies and axiologies and scholarship in the field of Indigenous research.