McInnes: Linguistic justice would mean that every Indigenous child has at least the right to learn their own language. Bryce Richter

A new campus initiative is fostering awareness about the first languages spoken in Wisconsin.

Enwejig (pronounced ain-WAY-young) Indigenous Language Advocates is a group of professors, graduate students, and other campus partners who are committed to the preservation and promotion of Indigenous languages. Enwejig is an Ojibwe word meaning “those who speak.” Paramount of the group’s many goals is bringing linguistic justice to languages that have named nearly every corner of the state, but whose speakers are few.

“Under 500-some years of colonization, not only has there been a hope that Indigenous languages would disappear, but there has been active work to destroy and to outlaw those languages,” says Brian McInnes, an enrolled member of the Ojibwe nation, descendant of the Wisconsin Potawatomi tribe, and associate professor of civil society and community studies and American Indian studies at the UW. “Linguistic justice would mean that every Indigenous child has at least the right to learn their own language.”

Enwejig’s efforts encompass myriad facets of language revitalization, both on campus and across the state. Their programs include Project ENABLE, which incorporates Diné Bízaad — the language of the Navajo people — into the study of biological concepts; Nisinoon, a cross-linguistic database of words that compose the Algonquian languages; Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums, a partnership with the Information School (iSchool); and increased signage in Indigenous languages around campus.

According to McInnes, this work on the UW campus, which occupies ancestral Ho-Chunk land, can serve as a starting point for reckoning with a fraught past.

“When we try to think of truth and reconciliation, [we think about] our history — but what can be our future?” McInnes says. “Sometimes we don’t have a starting place, [but] this is something we can do: the restoration of Indigenous languages, the sign-posting of Indigenous terminologies and expressions and ideas, and the learning and use of those things by our campus community.”

For Enwejig, a hopeful future includes degree programs built around Indigenous languages so that students can take this work across the country.

“We have a dream of ensuring that our tribal language is the first language of our community,” McInnes says, “that the notions and the philosophies and the wisdom within our tribal languages enrich who we are as a people, how we do things, how we relate to each other, and how we are defined on the earth.”

Deer was the first American Indian woman to run for Congress in Wisconsin. Bryce Richter

Ada Deer grew up on Wisconsin’s Menominee Indian Reservation in a log cabin with no running water or electricity. She attended UW–Madison on a tribal scholarship, becoming the first member of the Menominee tribe to earn a UW–Madison degree. It was the first of many firsts. Next up: she became the first American Indian to earn a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of Social Work.

Deer worked relentlessly on behalf of the Menominee in their struggle to restore their land and sovereignty. In the 1950s, the federal government initiated a national termination policy that Deer describes as a “cultural, legal, and economic disaster” for affected tribes.

The Menominee tribe was the first to resist the policy and worked to achieve a historic reversal that set a legal precedent, which was later used by other tribes. The work of their grassroots organization, DRUMS (Determination of Rights and Unity of Menominee Shareholders), resulted in the passage of the Menominee Restoration Act in 1973. Deer was then elected as the first woman to chair the tribe in Wisconsin. She said later, “At Menominee, we collectively discovered the kind of determination that human beings only find in times of impending destruction. Against all odds, we invented a new policy — restoration.”

Deer returned to UW–Madison in 1977 as a lecturer in the American Indian Studies Program and the School of Social Work, and in 1992, she became the first American Indian woman to run for Congress in Wisconsin.

The following year, President Bill Clinton appointed her as the first woman to serve as Assistant Secretary–Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior. One of her most important works in this role was applying her powers to federally recognize 226 Native villages in Alaska, as well as helping to set policy for more than 550 federally recognized tribes.

From 2000 to 2007, Deer directed UW–Madison’s American Indian Studies Program. In 2010, she was recognized by the National Association of Social Workers as a Social Work Pioneer for her work as an advocate and organizer on behalf of American Indians. Deer credits her mother, also a fierce advocate for American Indians, for her confidence and dedication to social justice for all people. “I speak up. I speak out,” she says. “I want to do, and I want to be, and I want to help. And I’ve been able to do it.”

Gary Ebben ’82

Ebben combines an engineering mind with exceptional human-relations skills. Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs

Gary Ebben was inspired to go into military aviation by his older brother, Dale Ebben ’64, who was an Air Force fighter pilot.

Gary retired in 2019 as an assistant adjutant general for air of the Wisconsin Air National Guard. After earning his UW bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering, Ebben pursued Air Force pilot training. As a command pilot, he has logged more than 3,000 flying hours, including 64 combat missions in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Ebben enlisted in the Wisconsin Air National Guard in 1981 while attending UW–Madison. He rose through the ranks to become vice commander of the 115th Fighter Wing, a unit based in Madison that serves in Iraq and Afghanistan. After 9/11, Ebben oversaw the unit’s rapid conversion to readiness for active-duty service. He then became commander of Wisconsin’s Volk Field Combat Readiness Training Center near Camp Douglas. At the time of his retirement, Ebben’s role entailed leading nearly 10,000 airmen and soldiers, as well as the entire Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs, which also includes Wisconsin Emergency Management.

Reflecting on his career, Ebben has been struck by the fact that “we have so many tremendous young men and women in this country — extraordinary individuals who are willing to serve their country and commit to a purpose bigger than themselves. I have been incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to wear the uniform and serve alongside them.”

Ebben has received 21 awards for his service, including the military’s Distinguished Service Medal, the National Guard Association Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Air Medal, and the Iraq Campaign Medal.

He has been involved with the UW’s ROTC program, providing shadowing and mentoring opportunities. He is active with the Wisconsin National Guard Challenge Academy for high school at-risk youth, and he helped create the Wisconsin Guard’s STARBASE program for fifth-grade science, technology, engineering, and math. Ebben is also an active supporter of the Badger Honor Flight, a program that gives veterans the opportunity to see memorials that have been erected in their honor.

One of his former supervisors, the late Major General Al Wilkening, said that Ebben’s strengths combine an engineering mind with exceptional human-relations skills. “I’ve supervised hundreds of officers in my 40-year career,” he said, “and I’d put Gary in the top 1 percent.”

Thomas J. Falk ’80

Falk: “Never stop being curious about the world around us and the people who live in it.” Courtesy of Kimberly-Clark

Tom Falk grew up in the Milwaukee area as the oldest of nine children. After earning his UW accounting degree, he began his career with what is now Grant Thornton, and in 1983, he joined Kimberly-Clark, known for brands such as Kleenex, Huggies, Scott, Kotex, Cottonelle, and Depend.

The company sent him to Stanford to earn a master’s degree in management, and he steadily worked his way up the ladder, serving as chair of the board and CEO for 16 years before retiring at the end of 2019.

During Falk’s 36-year career, Kimberly-Clark’s total shareholder return outperformed the S&P 500, and he was instrumental in transforming the company into a global leader in consumer products. Over the years, Falk has garnered numerous accolades for his business acumen. Forbes magazine has described him as an “operations wiz,” and Barron’s said he was “a master of efficiency” who ended each day with an empty in-box.

Falk was a key player in the company’s acquisition of Scott Paper, and also in the turnaround of European operations, achieving major efficiencies. He was the chief architect of Kimberly-Clark’s global organizational structure and Go to Market initiatives, which saved more than $200 million in two years by reducing costs in the supply chain. Falk also led sustainability initiatives and increased gender diversity during his time at Kimberly-Clark. An avid reader, he made a habit of preparing an annual booklist so that his team could get to know him better.

Falk has served on the board of visitors for the UW’s business school and has chaired the board for the UW Foundation. Falk and his wife, Karen Falk ’80, have been generous with UW–Madison, supporting endowed faculty chairs and scholarships in both the Wisconsin School of Business and the School of Education, from which Karen graduated.

Falk serves on the boards of Lockheed Martin and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and as a national governor of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. He chaired the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas’s 2013–14 fundraising campaign, and he and Karen chaired the 2019–20 campaign. They also made a generous gift to the organization’s Coronavirus Response and Recovery Fund.

Falk says that the motto he has lived by is “Never stop learning. Never stop being curious about the world around us and the people who live in it. They will teach you something new every day.”

How did this project begin?
The Associated Students of Madison [ASM] passed a resolution in September 2016 and asked for two things. They asked for a plaque next to Abraham Lincoln, interrogating Lincoln’s role in the Indian wars of the western Great Lakes and the subsequent hanging of 38 men, the largest mass execution in U.S. history. And then they wanted some explanation of how land grants intersect with native land cessions and the entirety of public education. The institution has to respond in some way, including one that might address [those] concerns. But there’s a lot of interest in pulling back beyond the colonial years of the United States and looking at the full 12,000 years of depth of humanity here. We’re still working on the first sign. It’s a lot harder than we ever imagined.

What makes it so difficult?
There’s a lot of trauma, grief, and frustration from the side of the First Nations here in the western Great Lakes. … These signs have to acknowledge that. There’s a process to whatever we share.

This sounds complex.
We started as a bureaucratic process [last] summer, hammering out learning goals, getting some initial ideas … And when it came to our first draft, the Ho-Chunk members on our committee said, “Just giving us your ideas to translate is not collaboration.” … That made us really stop and reflect. We realized that we needed to get to a place of sharing that would more mirror how they would run this process.

You’re from a Native background. Does that build your credibility with the Ho-Chunk members of the committee?
I’m Mandan Hidatsa, Diné Nations, and you’re either Ho-Chunk, or you’re not Ho-Chunk. It’s binary. … So I’m in the same boat as a lot of European Americans. Not from here is the category.

Where will these signs be located?
One is in direct response to ASM — by the Lincoln statue. Another is proposed at the Observatory Hill overlook, because it allows for a big-picture understanding of the depth of humanity that lived here. It’s next to the Washburn Observatory. And then another sign by the Observatory Hill effigy mound group, a sign by the Willow Drive effigy mound group, and then the last sign would potentially be next to Social Sciences.

Why Social Sciences?
That’s where we [currently] have the Blackhawk marker from the Class of 1888, which talks about the ethnic-cleansing policy called the Indian Removal Act and how it affected the western Great Lakes. But the Blackhawk marker is talking about people from Rock Island, Illinois. Retreated and pursued are the two verbs on the sign. … It would be wonderful if the Class of 1888 had written, instead, that the Ho-Chunk persisted in establishing resistance. The Ho-Chunk are still here. The sign would look very different. Its verbs would be resisted and remained. It’s a more complicated story.

Jeff Miller

Too often, we’re tempted to experience much of our world through the lens of a cell phone camera. But each April, the On Wisconsin Annual Spring Powwow creates a swirl of feathers, beads, and colors that moves too quickly to capture on screen.

At last year’s event in the Field House, spectators rose as participants took to the floor for the Grand Entry, and a Ho-Chunk elder offered blessings in the tribe’s traditional language. A drum circle played the “Veterans Honor Song,” and veterans entered carrying tribal banners, POW-MIA flags, and the American flag. The procession continued until all participants — organizers, pageant royalty, and jubilant community members — were dancing in a circle.

For nearly four decades, the scene has looked effortless. But members of the planning committee, UW-Madison’s Wunk Sheek student organization, know it’s just the opposite.

Wunk Sheek was founded in 1968 with a simple goal. “We’re trying to bridge the gap between the UW campus community and the eleven tribal nations living in Wisconsin,” says Samantha Pecore x’16, the group’s vice president. The small population of Natives on campus sparks a need to educate the majority on American Indian culture. Wunk Sheek does so in part by organizing Native November, featuring numerous campus events to celebrate American Indian Heritage Month, and holding the spring powwow.

The powwows are free and open to the general public as well as members of the Native and campus communities. They provide opportunities for all to actively participate during inter-tribal songs in which everyone is encouraged to dance. Last year’s event drew more than 2,800 attendees, and many of the dancers, singers, and drummers were from the Ho-Chunk tribe, which historically occupied the Madison region.

“We always honor Ho-Chunk because we’re on their land,” explained Pecore at last spring’s wrap-up meeting. They also honored Oneida, a tribe whose ten-thousand-resident reservation is near Green Bay.

“We try to switch it up between the various tribes. We’re just trying to be inclusive,” she said. Looking around the room at her fellow Wunk Sheek members, she smiled, adding, “All of us are from different tribes.”