Indigenous Excellence is an episode of The Indigenous Revoltthat centers the voice of Dr. Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Ngāti Awa and Ngāti Porou, Māori), one of the most influential Indigenous scholars and educators of our time. With her permission, this episode features her keynote from the 2025 World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education (WIPCE) in Auckland, Aotearoa. WIPCE brought together 3,800 registered delegates, primarily Indigenous, from more than 25 countries, and became the largest academic conference in Aotearoa’s history. Dr. Smith has shaped Indigenous education and Indigenous research forgenerations, and her teachings refuse the myth that research is neutral. Her words remind listeners that knowledge is intergenerational, that stories and teachings carry responsibility, and that institutions do not get to define whatis ethical for Indigenous communities.

Music used with permission from Te Waiora Waikato.

Recorded on November 17, 2025.

Dickinson College Center for the Futures of Native Peoples (CFNP) held a Ground Blessing on November 8, 2024, marking an important beginning. In this episode, Trini, a Dickinson College student, Anna Nasser '25, and Ashley Ott, members of the local CFNP Advisory Board, reflect on their roles in helping host the Ceremony. They share what it means to support this moment, to be invited into Indigenous protocol, and to show up with care and responsibility as the Jim Thorpe Center for the Futures of Native Peoples took its first steps.

Recorded on November 10, 2025, in Carlisle, Penna.

In Their Dreams Are True, IndigenousRelatives who helped host the November 8, 2025, Ground Blessing at Dickinson College share their reflections on a Ceremony offered to set the land in a good way for the future Jim Thorpe Center for the Futures of Native Peoples.

Mary Thorpe (Sac and Fox, Absentee Shawnee,Prairie Band Potawatomi, and Kansas Kickapoo); Alejandro Higuera (Pascua Yaqui); Lynette Stant (Diné); Dr. Lydia Jennings (Pascua Yaqui); Perry Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo); MaredythSalazar (Laguna Pueblo); Gerilyn Tolino (Diné), and Dr. Amanda Cheromiah (Laguna Pueblo) speak from places of prayer, memory, and connection to the land.

Their voices remind us that our Ancestors dreamed thisfuture into being long before we arrived.

Song Credit: Cowboy Bosom by Fawn Wood

Recorded November 8-9, 2025, in Carlisle, Penna.