ODU to Mark Observance of Native American Heritage Month with Performances by SkyFest Group

October 23, 2013

November is Native American Heritage Month in the United States.

Old Dominion University will honor the event with a celebration from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 4, in the Hampton/Newport News Room of Webb Center.

The event, sponsored by ODU's Division of Student Engagement and Enrollment Services and Office of Intercultural Relations (OIR), will feature performances by the SkyFest Group, composed of Eastern Sky Native American Drummers, singers, dancers, spirit winds and a professional flute and drum group.

There will also be tribal information and vendor stations for attendees, which will include students from Norfolk Public Schools, who will be in attendance on a field trip.

For more information contact OIR at 683-4406 or oir@odu.edu.

The theme of this year's Native American Heritage Month, Nov. 1-30, is "Guiding Our Destiny with Heritage and Traditions."

Created by the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Native American Heritage Month began at the turn of the 20th century as an effort to gain a day of recognition for the significant contributions the first Americans made to the establishment and growth of the United States.

In 1990 President George H.W. Bush approved a joint resolution designating November 1990 "National American Indian Heritage Month." Similar proclamations, under variants on the name (including "Native American Heritage Month" and "National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month"), have been issued each year since 1994.

ODU's Office of Intercultural Relations is committed to creating a campus community that values and supports the cultural identities of each of its members.