Welcome to Bolman Forum

On January 19, following a two-day Native American Activism Confernce, United Students of Humboldt began an around the clock residency of Humboldt State University's Dr. Jacquelyn Bolman Forum. This website brings you updates from our community's perspective. Unified Students of Humboldt on Facebook UnifiedStudents on Instagram

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35-day HSU campus protest ends, negotiations continue

A group of Humboldt State University students who took up residency in a campus forum 35 days ago packed up their bedding for the last time Monday morning. The protestors are not giving up, they are progressing to a different stage of negotiations.

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Native American Activism Conferance at HSU.

January 19, 2015

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This isn’t a static movement, this is a student organization that is ready to evolve as the situation progresses,” Garcia said. “We had walk-outs and protests last semester, and when that didn’t seem to be enough to get the conversation started and going somewhere we progressed to this stage of residency. Now it is time for outreach.

Lilia Garcia, member of Unified Students of Humboldt in Eureka Times Standard 

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Unified Students of Humboldt End 35-Day Residency

ARCATA,CA ­­ 

In October of last year, HSU’s controversial firing of INRSEP (IndianNatural Resources Science and Engineering Program) director Dr. Jacquelyn Bolman inspired students, faculty, staff and Tribal members to participate in the largest demonstrations on HSU campus since the Vietnam War Era. At the end of the Native American Activism Conference on Martin Luther King Day, Humboldt State students announced plans to reside in the Bolman Forum (formerly Native American Forum) until a variety of demands were met. 

The 35 day residency has opened a platform at Humboldt State University for meaningful participation by students and local Tribal governments regarding the education of Native youth at the State University level. In a February 12th correspondence following the announcement of the residency, Gerald Jones from the Pacific Regional Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs acknowledged that “Student protests at HSU may provide an opportunity for us to partner to promote Indian Self­Determination (25 USC 450 et. seq./25 USC 3109),” an integral aspect of Federal Indian Policy since the Indian Self­Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. The demands of the protesters are in line with Article 15 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which states that “Indigenous peoples have the right to the dignity and diversity of their cultures, traditions, histories and aspirations which shall be appropriately reflected in education and public information.” 

The demonstrators have been in dialogue with Humboldt State University President Dr. Lisa Rossbacher’s administration to secure dates during which the protester’s nine demands will be negotiated. The list of demands outlines measures that upon implementation will promote equitable opportunity for students of color, which has diminished at the university during recent decades.

 In preparation for mediations scheduled between the students, President, and key members of Humboldt State University administrators on March 3rd, the Unified students have decided to suspend the round­the­clock demonstration as an act of good faith, acknowledging President Rossbacher’s “commitment… to working with Native American students and tribal nations regarding definitions of student success, the characteristics of appropriate student support programs, the historical and future plans for program funding, the utilization of space in the Native American Forum, and clear plans for how this space will be used in the future.” Students expect the Forum to be respected as an Autonomous Center for Indigenous Learning. 

While much of the focus surrounding this developing act of protest has centered around issues of Native American Education, Unified Students of Humboldt is a coalition of concerned students of Color and their allies, committed to promoting direct dialogue between students and administration to represent all pertinent perspectives. Support from the widerHumboldt and Tribal communities whom the University serves reveals a latent desire for involvement in local education from the larger community.

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For the physical and cultural soils being depleted every day, WE STILL RESIST

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Like those who came before, we must decolonize our education for those yet to come. Still we resist. 

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Tomorrow night! An open mic hosted in the Bolman Forum, focusing on decolonizing education through creative expression!

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Students Mass Against ‘Hebdo’-Fueled Hate Speech, Disrupt Tuition Hikes and Rise for Jessie Hernandez

TheNation.com featured us in StudentNation last week. We are their fifth story. It reads as follows.

In Arcata, Taking Residence for Native Justice

Since Martin Luther King Day, Humboldt State University students have taken up twenty-four-hour residence on campus in the newly christened Dr. Jacquelyn Bolman Forum—and plan to stay there until our demands are met. Dr. Bolman was the director of HSU’s Indian Natural Resource, Science and Engineering Program, and a beloved Lakota mentor, who was fired last fall for criticizing the university’s inability to hire faculty and staff of color, despite shifting student demographics in the state and public university systems. We are peacefully protesting school administrators for violating the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, California Education Code 66301, United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples articles 14, 18 and 19and the college’s mission statement. This is not an occupation, but a liberation—a reminder from Native students and the Unified Students of Humboldt that the university resides on occupied Wiyot Land. We have received public support from the Sovereign Wiyot, Tolowa and Yuroknations and more than thirty faculty and staff members.

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Native American Activism Conference at Humboldt State University (2015)

Powwows.com writer Corinne Oestreich joined us for our Native American Activism Conference on January 18th and 19th. She wrote a beautiful article about her experience with us.

(from article) "Laura Hernandez, a student at HSU involved with the INRSEP program, said that she chose this institution having no idea what to expect, and found community and family in this program. She was a witness to the loss of Dr. Bolman as a Director and stated that “To see one who inspired, [and] guided, so immorally, hatefully and wrongfully taken from campus taught me that this will happen everywhere. But this conference leaves me with hope for a change.”

Read more at powwows.com

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Because we choose to fight for those we ❤️, even when the 🌍 turns away. #stillweresist

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Four-week students sit-in attracts support

On the first day of the spring semester, a group of Humboldt State University students declared that they would not leave a campus forum until the university administration met a list of their demands.

Four weeks later, the Unified Students of Humboldt have neither received the answers they are looking for nor left the forum.

What they have done is garnered support from the surrounding community.

“We have sort of built this huge bond at the forum,” said Bruce Bega, a protester and freshman Native American studies major. “We have a lot of support.”

Humboldt State alumni, faculty, staff, community members, local organization and tribal leaders have written letters of support to the students and to administration, brought the students food and offered assistance.

While the sit-in at the Native American Forum — renamed the Bolman Forum by students — began Jan. 20, protests began in Fall 2014 in regard to the firing of Jacquelyn Bolman, director of the Indian Natural Resources Science and Engineering Program.

The students’ No. 1 request remains the reinstatement of Bolman, whose firing has yet to be explained by the university due to personnel privacy issues.

However, since last fall the demands have expanded to include more student involvement in decision making, fully funding diversity programs, giving Indian tribes a role in education of their members and incorporating indigenous culture into the classroom among other things. A full list of demands can be found at welcometobolmanforum.com.

“They are striving for truth,” Wiyot Tribe Councilman Alan Miller said. “I feel it is a great thing what they are doing. Not enough people are being active.”

The university campus is on Wiyot ancestral land, and Miller said he believes that if the students are persistent they will get answers from administration.

“They are doing something now that is going to affect seven, eight generations, not just for the Wiyot, for native people,” he said.

As a tribal leader, Miller said he would like to see a conducive learning environment at HSU that helps encourage more native children to go to college. He said he believes Bolman drew in local students and helped them to get involved. He has visited the students to express his support for their cause.

“When you see these young people striving for better education and bringing that education home for our community, it brings my heart hope, it brings me joy,” he said.

Representatives of the Unified Students of Humboldt met with Humboldt State President Lisa Rossbacher in the beginning of February and plan to meet with her again with a mediator in the beginning of March.

Rossbacher was out of town and unavailable for comment, however a statement was provided by the university.

“The university is continuing to seek to have constructive dialogue with the students who are conducting the sit-in,” the statement read. “The students requested a mediator at a meeting in early March, and the president has agreed. The meeting will include a few representatives of the university and a few representatives of the students.”

Veterans for Peace, Humboldt Bay Chapter 56, a local group dedicated to finding peaceful ways to resolve conflict, has also expressed their support of the students through a letter to administration and has hope that discussions with administration will yield positive changes.

“We are thinking that hopefully President Rossbacher has a fresh mind and world view that could see the opportunity for a really progressive change at Humboldt State University for Native Americans and by extension all students of color and all the students of HSU,” Rob Hepburn of Veterans for Peace, Humboldt Bay and HSU alumnus said. “We are all connected and we all have a chance together as a community to change the environment of Humboldt State University to a more just and creative one. But we always have to work together.”

Representatives of the Northern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, Smith River Rancheria and others have sent letters to Rossbacher requesting to meet with her and discuss the situation regarding Native American affairs on campus since the sit-in began.

The Northern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association stated in their letter that “NCTCA remains deeply concerned with the reduction of programs directed at serving American Indian Students on campus as well as the dwindling number of American Indian Students who are choosing HSU as their place to study.”

--Eureka Times Standard Article, written by Juniper Rose. Read it on official website here.--

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Vets for Peace Standing in Solidarity with Unified Vision

"We believe that the administration is missing an historic opportunity to make HSU the premier university for Native American Studies in the CSU and within the United States. Indeed, HSU can and should be the model campus in the country for culturally sensitive and inclusive higher education opportunities for Native American students, the dissemination of information about Native American culture and history, and the study and preservation of local Native American cultures and languages.  Rather than HSU being estranged from local Native American tribes, it should become a center for welcoming and honoring tribal elders, leaders, and Native American scholars."

Read the full letter that Veterans for Peace Humboldt Bay Chapter 56 have sent to Humboldt State University here.

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Because I need a better education than my grandmother received in boarding school so that I can help mend the intergenerational trauma of our people... Still I resist!

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Historical trauma does not just affect the historically oppressed, it also affects members of the oppressor who have blindly given up everything to keep what they have. They are taught to obey and protect. #stillweresist

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You have more power than you think you do. 

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It would be easy enough to convince you of the injustice; Sympathy is not enough. It will take an active critical mass to change the status quo. Still we resist. 

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Still we resist, because I reserve the right to learn more about myself!!!