Skaroniate Ron LaFrance, the founding director of Cornell University’s American Indian Program, was an activist and chief in the Mohawk Nation Council at Akwesasne Reservation, in New York State. He was instrumental in the founding of the Akwesasne Freedom School, one of the first and continuingly successful Native language immersion school in the US. Under his direction the Cornell American Indian program instituted the groundbreaking Full-Circle policy for Native students, which encouraged their return to live at their home communities upon graduation. LaFrance served as director of the Akwesasne Mohawk Board of Education. LaFrance earned a doctorate degree in Education, in 1995, from Cornell.
