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Topic: Native American Issues

Matthew S. Makley

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Matthew S. Makley, Ph.D., is the Interim Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Prior to his appointment as interim provost in January 2025, he served as chair of the History Department and completed three terms as Faculty Senate president. His areas of expertise include modern U.S. history, U.S. history, U.S. West, Indigenous history and Native American history.

Makley has been teaching at MSU Denver for over 10 years. He also taught courses at Arizona State University while earning his doctorate. He received the prestigious 2016 Faculty Senate Teaching Excellence Award for Tenured Faculty and a Teaching Excellence award in 2017.

Makley published a book titled “The Small Shall be Strong: A History of Lake” that was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2018. He also co-authored the book, “Cave Rock: Climbers, Courts and a Washoe Indian Sacred Site,” which was published by the University of Nevada Press in 2010 and has a current manuscript titled, “The Small Shall be Strong: A History of Lake Tahoe’s Washoe Indians,” that is being published by the University of Massachusetts Press. He also helped produce a short documentary about an Iris farm and its relationship with water in Boulder, Colorado called “Long’s Gardens: An Urban Oasis.”

Makley received his doctorate and master’s in history specializing in Native American history, and the history of the American West from California State University and a bachelor’s in history from Humboldt University.

Jonathan Kent

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Jonathan Kent, Ph.D., is retired professor of Anthropology at Metropolitan State University of Denver, where he has taught since 1986. He has an ongoing archaeological field project in Colorado and is analyzing data obtained while conducting field research in Peru. He curates the MSU Denver Seed Collection, the Comparative Osteology Collection, and the Ashton Ethnographic Collection.

He is the Founder and Co-Director of the Laboratory of Anthropology. He was the Founder and first faculty advisor of the student anthropology club, ALPACA. He is a three-time awardee of Fulbright-Hays Fellowships. He has been named Outstanding Faculty Researcher by Golden Key Honor Society, has been named as the President’s Outstanding Teacher, and has won the college’s Distinguished Service Award. In addition to archaeological field schools, he teaches classroom courses in Archaeology, Introductory Physical Anthropology and Prehistory, World Prehistory, Human-Animal Relationships, Ancient American Civilizations and South American Archaeology.

Renee Fajardo

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Renee Fajardo,J.D., is the coordinator of Journey Through Our Heritage (JTOH) program at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She has been the program director of JTOH since 2010, which places university students of color into local high schools and middle schools as mentors. In addition, she has collaborated with community members and MSU Denver students on several projects, including the Return of the Corn Mothers with master photographer Todd Pierson and the Aurora Fox Cultural Concerts Series with the Colorado Folk Arts Council, which allows school children in Denver the opportunity to attend free cultural concerts once a month during the school year.

Fajardo has extensive knowledge of cultural, ceremonial and community traditions of numerous indigenous people. Her own Chicana/Native American (Picuris Pueblo) and European roots allow her to be sensitive to the many nuances that face today’s students of color. She has co-authored the numerous books in the Tummy Tale series, such as “Holy Mole Guacamole,” that preserve family food traditions of Colorado. She has also written hundreds of articles about Hispanic artist, culture and historic insights. Fajardo is a Denver native and graduate of the University of Nebraska.

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