Credits
naes.info is an independent overview of the history of NAES College. Much of what is known about the college today has been preserved thanks to the community that lived its story and to a collaboration between the American Indian Association of Illinois, which carries the history of NAES, Inc., and Northwestern University, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Collections as Data: Part to Whole initiative. This site is not part of that project and is not affiliated with any of these organizations.
A Community-Led Record
Collections about Native communities are strongest when they are shaped by the people whose histories they document. Decisions about what to describe, how to name things and how to present them are best made together with community members, former students, faculty and staff who understand the material from the inside.
That approach reflects a broader principle: collections about Native communities should be stewarded with those communities, not simply on their behalf.
Collections as Data
The Collections as Data idea encourages cultural heritage organizations to treat their holdings not only as items to be read one at a time, but as material that can be explored, searched and analyzed at scale. For a body of records like that of NAES College, this means patterns, relationships and themes can become visible: a reader can follow a course, a person or a community program across many documents.
- Access: materials described so they can be found by people who were never on campus.
- Context: records presented alongside the history that explains why they exist.
- Reuse: well-documented materials supporting teaching, research and community projects.
How to Use This Site
If you are new here, good starting points are the Library page, which describes the college library and its collections, and the Resources page, which offers practical guidance for learning more.
- Alumni and families may look for traces of their own education, relatives or former colleagues.
- Students and educators may use the overview to study Native higher education, community-based learning and urban Indian history in Chicago.
- Researchers may find in it an introduction to a model of community-based higher education.
When you quote, cite or build on material about NAES College, please acknowledge both the original collections and the community that created and preserved them.
Collections are strongest when the people they come from have a voice in how they are kept and shared.