The Janine Jamieson-Huff Memorial Award
This award recognizes involvement within the undergraduate organization Native American and Indigenous Students At Cornell (NAISAC), above and beyond the call of duty. The criteria for this award include dedication, initiation, organization, and leadership.
Starting this year, this award has been renamed in honor of the late Janine Jamieson-Huff (Tonawanda Seneca, Hawk Clan). Janine was a clan mother as well as a member of The Six Nations Iroquois Agriculture Society. She received a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a Master’s Degree from the University of Buffalo. She taught Native American Studies at Akron Central Elementary School prior to her passing in 2015.
Janine was a student at Cornell from 1969 to 1975. During her time on campus she was an outspoken advocate and activist for Indigenous student rights. She founded the Native American Student Association (the precursor to NAISAC) in 1971. She was responsible for early advocacy efforts for an American Indian Program at Cornell through the authoring of ten demands released to the University in late 1971. These demands called for active recruitment and support for undergraduate and graduate students, the development of an Indian studies program, respect for Indigenous religious beliefs and practices, increased course offerings on Indigenous history and contemporary issues, development of formal relations between Cornell and Indigenous Nations in New York State, and creation of an “Indian living unit.” Most of the elements of this petition became pillars of the effort to develop an American Indian Program at Cornell, and many of them eventually were realized.
Awardee: Colin Benedict ’21
Colin has been an active and committed member of Cornell’s Native American and Indigenous community since he first arrived on campus in Fall 2017. Since then, he has served multiple leadership positions in both NAISAC and AISES. He was also elected to hold the Minority Representative position with the Student Assembly for three semesters. His leadership has shown true passion in advocating for the rights of Native and Indigenous peoples and communities, as well as in championing such causes, as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls initiative or resistance to fossil fuel industry’s encroachments on Indigenous lands and overall exploration of resources. Most importantly, though, Colin has been the voice of the Indigenous student disapproval of the Cornell’s response to its complicity in Indigenous land dispossession in the wake of its founding as a Land Grant Institution. He brought this issue and a series of student demands to the halls of Cornell’s student and faculty assemblies and with the Administration itself.
In his junior year, Colin also led an initiative that culminated in the launching of the Native American/Indigenous Mentoring Program, which is now set to continue to benefit incoming Indigenous students for years to come. In collaboration with AIISP, as a senior, Colin embarked on an incredibly important journey to research Cornell’s history of Indigenous student activism in the early 1970s and their role in the founding of the American Indian Program in 1983. His dedication to this project allowed us to uncover the lesser-known reaches of the AIISP history, which Colin proposed to honor with remaining of the NASIAC Award as Janine Jamieson-Huff Memorial Award, in memory of one of those founders.
Finally, Colin has maintained his position as a student employee with AIISP for several years, serving the Indigenous student community in the halls of Caldwell and at Akwe:kon. He has also been quick to volunteer at program, community, and recruitment events and could be relied upon to get the job done.
American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) Award
This award recognizes an individual who demonstrates leadership, promotes professional development, actively engages in AISES meetings and events, and is a team player.
Awardee: Eleanor Glenn
Eleanor currently serves as the co-chair of AISES, and balances her intense workload as an engineer with her responsibilities to AISES. She has been the most engaged member of the organization, and we all look forward to what she’ll do next!
