Emory, College of the Muscogee Nation team up with $2.4M grant

Award lets schools preserve history, Mvskoke language.

A $2.4 million grant will be used to build a partnership between Emory University and the College of the Muscogee Nation in Oklahoma.

Emory last week announced the award from the Mellon Foundation. It will allow the schools to develop Native and Indigenous Studies programs and work to preserve the Mvskoke language, including an online language certificate program that will be open to Emory students.

The initiative comes amid a reckoning at Emory, the state’s largest private university, over its part in displacing the Muscogee people who lived and worked on the land where the Oxford and Atlanta campuses are located. In 2021, the university’s board of trustees approved an official land acknowledgment of that history.

Emory officials said the initiative between a tribal college and a private research university is unique in the country.

The grant will help the two-year Oklahoma college become a four-year school with a special focus on teaching the Mvskoke language.

At Emory, the effort will set the stage for an “Indigeneity Hub” with new faculty and programs in language, literature and other academic fields, according to a university news release. The hub is intended to connect faculty, staff and students to learn about and consider the ethics of Emory’s relationship with the Muscogee Nation.

“This outstanding award will support innovative models for collaborative research and teaching and will forge enduring relationships between Emory, the Muscogee Nation and our broader communities,” said Carla Freeman, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Emory, in a written statement.

College of Muscogee Nation President Monte Randall said the joint effort acknowledges “the healing work that has been taking place.”

“As we work together to create collaborative spaces on our combined campuses using Mvskoke language and culture, we are effectively determining a pathway for Native people to heal from the trauma of dispossession and assimilation,” said Randall in a written statement.

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is one of the largest Native American tribes in the United States, with 97,000 citizens.