Henrietta Mann

DR. HENRIETTA MANN is a Cheyenne elder with direct ties to her people’s ancient culture and with powerful memories of the historical forces that shaped today’s Western plains. She grew up hearing stories of her valiant, resourceful women relatives and was resolute from an early age to educate herself and to teach her own people first. Enrolled in the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, Henrietta learned humility and compassion from her elders. She was identified in her infancy as a leader, and now enjoys life as a Sun Dance and ceremonial prayer woman.

As a child, Henrietta demanded to go to public school, where she endured racism and discrimination. She persevered to earn a PhD in American studies in 1982. Henrietta was a pioneer professor in
setting the highest quality standards for the emergent field of Native American studies, which has since become an established academic discipline in the United States. She taught and mentored three
generations of Native students in higher education, inspiring many to current positions of leadership throughout Indian country.

The founding president of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College, Henrietta was the first individual to occupy the endowed chair in Native American Studies at Montana State University–Bozeman,
where she is professor emerita and served as special assistant to the president until 2016. She was among the main designers of the Native American Studies programs at the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Montana; and Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas.

Among her many honors, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Indian Education Association in 2008. Henrietta’s book Cheyenne-Arapaho Education: 1871-1982 is a classic
in the field of American Indian education.