Dinner on Us is administered by the Native American House (NAH) and is part of the Lunch on Us Series within Student Success, Inclusion & Belonging.
Dinner on Us is a biweekly, one-hour program featuring scholar- and practitioner-led workshops alongside a shared meal. DOU workshops explore a range of subjects and provide participants with opportunities to connect with peers and experts in a casual setting.
This program is open to all eligible persons regardless of race, color or national origin. Reasonable accommodations are available upon request, please contact the Native American House at nah@illinois.edu.
DOU Learning Outcomes
- Participants will develop an increased awareness of a specific campus or community resource and/or services.
- Participants will build an understanding of accurate and respectful representations of Native and Indigenous peoples and communities.
- Participants will develop an appreciation for cultural and human differences across social and global contexts.
Community Agreements for Attendees
To create a learning atmosphere in which presenters and attendees feel respected by and connected to one another, we ask everyone to:
- Show up with good intentions.
- Be a good relative by demonstrating behaviors of reciprocity, responsibility, and relationality.
- Respect everyone’s identity, ability, background, voice, experience, and boundaries.
Fall 2025
Tuesday, September 9, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Location: Asian American Cultural Center (1210 W Nevada St, Urbana)
Partnering for Success: Library Support for American Indian Studies
Description: As the Library Subject Liaison to the American Indian Studies (AIS) program, Cindy Ingold provides research support, instructional guidance, and resource development that align with AIS curricular and community goals. This presentation will introduce students to key library services and tools (e.g., print, digital, and multimedia) that can support their academic journey and strengthen their work in AIS-related courses.
Presenter: Cindy Ingold, Library Subject Liaison to American Indian Studies, University Library
About the presenter: Cindy Ingold is the Gender Studies, Multicultural Services, and Political Science Librarian in the Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library, one of several departmental libraries on this campus. She is the library liaison or subject specialist for the departments of American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, Political Science, and the Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity. Within the library, Cindy serves on many committees, including the Collections Development Committee and the DEIA Advisory Committee. Professionally, Cindy is active in national library associations related to gender studies and political science.
Tuesday, September 23, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Location: Asian American Cultural Center (1210 W Nevada St, Urbana)
Warriors in the Archive: Indigenous Plains Artists, Sovereignty, and the Reclamation of History
Description: Nineteenth-century Indigenous warrior-artists documented intercultural conflict on the Great Plains, and though relegated to relative obscurity for decades, they now appear in archives and collections across the country. Today, Native Plains artists creatively call upon these drawings from earlier generations to renew and reclaim sovereignty over history and identity.
Presenter: Mary Beth Zundo, Ph.D., ABD, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Smithsonian American Art Museum Fellow, U.S. Capitol Historical Society Research Fellow
About the presenter: Mary Zundo is an art historian specializing in 19th- and early 20th-century visual representations of the American West. She has taught American art and American Indian Studies at Illinois, UC Santa Cruz, and Purdue University. Her research focuses on intercultural visual constructions of identity and has been supported by fellowships from the Smithsonian, Dartmouth College, Autry Museum, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others. She contributed to the award-winning book Ledger Narratives and is currently writing about a Civil War-era mural in the U.S. Capitol Building through a fellowship with the U.S. Capitol Historical Society.
Tuesday, October 7, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Location: Asian American Cultural Center (1210 W Nevada St, Urbana)
Finding Balance: Indigenous and Counseling Perspectives
Description: How do you understand the interconnectedness between college life and achieving balance? What practices or strategies support the pursuit of balance? Participants will engage in activities rooted in Indigenous perspectives about harmony, interconnectedness, and restoration, as well as counseling exercises that enhance self-awareness about balance. Facilitated by the Counseling Center’s Native American Outreach Team and the Director of the Native American House.
Presenters: Dr. Charlotte Davidson, Native American House Director, Alex Quintanilla and Bryan Deutsch, Native American Outreach Team Members, Counseling Center
Tuesday, October 21, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Location: Asian American Cultural Center (1210 W Nevada St, Urbana)
Enhancing Stereotype Awareness: An I-Journey Workshop
Description: This workshop explores the formation and perpetuation of stereotypes and how stereotypes affect our interactions with others.
Presenters: I-Journey Student Facilitators
About the presenters: I-Journey workshops are peer-developed, peer-led workshops covering a variety of topics. Facilitated by a pool of trained student facilitators, I-Journey workshops explore issues of social identity, exclusion/inclusion, and being an ally. Student facilitators meet with requestors to adapt, modify, or create a workshop to meet the needs of the specific groups.
Tuesday, November 4, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Location: IGB Conference Room 612 (1206 W. Gregory Dr., Urbana)
Indigenous Earthkeeping: The Role of Indigenous Knowledge in Conservation
Description: Drawing from her book Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science, Dr. Jessica Hernandez offers a compelling critique of Western environmental models, highlighting their exclusion of Indigenous voices and the tendency to view the environment as a resource rather than a relative. This presentation will explore how meaningful environmental progress necessitates the dismantling of extractive conservation paradigms and the integration of Indigenous knowledge systems grounded in land-based relationality and kinship.
Presenter: Dr. Jessica Hernandez (Binnizá/Zapotec & Maya Ch'orti’), Founder of Earth Daughters
About the presenter: Dr. Jessica Hernandez is a globally recognized Indigenous scientist, climate justice leader, and best-selling author whose groundbreaking work is redefining environmentalism through an Indigenous lens. Rooted in the Pacific Northwest, she bridges Indigenous science, traditional ecological knowledge, and Western frameworks to address the most urgent environmental crises of our time.
Tuesday, November 18, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Location: Salaam MENA Cultural Center (700 S Gregory St Ste A, Urbana)
Giving Thanks: Exploring Ontologies of Relationality
Description: The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) articulate a philosophy of gratitude and reciprocity through the Thanksgiving Address (Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen), often translated as “The Words That Come Before All Else.” In this Indigenous framework, Thanksgiving is not a single event but an ongoing, cyclical practice. By creating a dialogical space, this Dinner on Us program seeks to explore how gratitude, relational accountability, and respect for the diversity of life shape ways of knowing and being.
Presenters: Native American House and Salaam MENA staff members