Professor remembers heritage

Although IU professor of anthropology Wesley Thomas currently lives in Bloomington, he said he will never be able to call it home.\n"Every place I go to is just a place I reside, but it never is home," Thomas said.\nFor Thomas, home is New Mexico Navajo Indian reservation, where he was born.\n"Home is very much based on family," he said. "Everyone of my family members is there."\nThomas moved from the reservation 24 years ago to Seattle to receive his doctorate in cultural anthropology from the University of Washington. From there he went to work at Idaho State University as a professor. Thomas currently teaches Native American culture and society at IU -- and says he's "quite impressed with the students."\nThis Thursday, Friday and Saturday, First Nations, a Native American group on campus, is sponsoring a Native American lecture series and pow wow, both of which Thomas organized.\n"It was normal for me to do it here," Thomas said.\nWhile in Idaho and Seattle, Thomas organized pow wows like the one scheduled for this weekend. Holding an event like the pow wow was different there than it is in Bloomington.\n"Here, it's not part of the community," Thomas said. "So this is new territory for me in organizing a pow wow where it's not common."\nThomas had to import drum groups from outside the state for the upcoming pow wow.\nBecause of his Native American heritage, Thomas believes he teaches his courses differently.\n"When I first taught the freshmen, I thought I was going to save some reading time, so I provided firsthand information about Native American cultures," Thomas said.\nThomas thought the students didn't quite get the hands-on experience and would have rather read about Native American culture from textbooks.\n"I think I have to remove myself because my identity got in the way," Thomas said.\nThis semester Thomas is teaching an American Indian religions course along with a Native American culture class focusing on Native American art.\nThomas, who has been a weaver for close to 30 years, has had his own art displayed in the National Museum of American Indians in New York, as well as the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.\nSam Cronk, the manager of the digital archives for American Indian studies, is one of Thomas' colleagues. \n"He's an extremely dynamic individual," Cronk said. "He's an artist as well as a scholar."\nCronk believes through Thomas's work, IU will attract more diversity to campus.\n"I think he's going to really attract attention in terms of cultural anthropology but also attract a more diverse student body," Cronk said.\nThe fact that Thomas personally knows many scholars within the Native American community convinces Cronk that the professor can be very helpful to IU.\n"He knows Native American artists and scholars," Cronk said. "That's an incredible asset."\nLinda Cumberland, a former teaching assistant who worked with Thomas, agreed.\n"He has a very extensive network of friends within the Native American communities across the country," Cumberland said. "The four speakers that he's invited for the lecture series are all outstanding and well-known in their own right." \nCumberland believes that because of his background, Thomas intertwined his own experiences with his course curriculum.\n"Certainly there was an emphasis throughout his course on Navajo culture, not only because it is his own background, but it is the focus of his own studies," Cumberland said. "It's normal for any professor to draw on his or her own expertise."\nPart of Thomas' work on this campus has included efforts to create a community for Native Americans.\n"This year, he's made it a point to create community among the Native American faculty, staff and students," said Yolanda Trevino, an assistant dean for the research and university graduate school. "What I've seen him do very early on was try to create a community, a place where students didn't have to feel like they're the only ones."\nAs only one of two Native American professors at IU, Thomas is trying to bring Native American culture to the forefront of debate on campus one step at a time.\n"There's a conversation that has to take place along people of color and people who are members of diversity," Thomas said. "I always say we know how to spell diversity, but we don't really know what it means"