This symposium provides a space for generative conversations on what we know about Native American boarding schools and what that knowledge means. Join us in exploring the 20th-century history of North American Indian boarding schools in this two-day symposium, featuring speakers, workshops, and film.

About the Symposium

In the late-19th and early-20th century, throughout the United States and Canada, federal governments created boarding schools for Native American youth. Student experiences at each school varied, depending on living conditions, curriculum, and who oversaw the school (churches, federal employees, trained teachers, etc.). The boarding schools tried to strip children of their Indigenous culture, agency, and family. The white administrators forcibly cut children’s hair, sacred to many, and required that they only wear western clothing instead of their traditional clothing. In many schools, students were expected to adhere to strict rules that helped repress the expression of Indigenous culture. In most schools, for example, children could only speak English, a language completely unfamiliar to them. Failure to adhere to rules and complete assigned work could result in severe punishment. The schools subjected the children to inadequate diets, rampant disease, overwork, and overcrowding, which along with the poor building and living conditions resulted in poor health and even death.

The governments of Canada and the United States left the history of Native American boarding schools unacknowledged until relatively recently. Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada, made a formal apology for the implementation of boarding school systems and the trauma they produced in 2008, with President Joe Biden making the United States’ national apology in 2024.

This symposium brings together scholars who have worked with the history of Native American Boarding Schools in North America. The goal of this symposium is to spark conversation on what is known about Native American boarding schools and what this knowledge means. The Native American Boarding School Symposium will be hosted March 26–27 on Monmouth University’s campus.

The Native American Boarding School Symposium would not be possible without the generous help of the Diversity Innovation Grant from the Intercultural Center at Monmouth University. We are grateful for this grant and thank all of the co-sponsors of this event: the Office of the Provost, the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the School of Education, the Leon Hess Business School, the Department of English, the Department of Criminal Justice, the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, the Intercultural Center, the Department of History and Anthropology, and the Program in Gender and Intersectionality Studies.