Henrietta Mann

Henrietta Mann (Cheyenne, b. 1934) is a Native American academic and activist. She was one of the designers of the Native American studies programs at University of California, Berkeley, the University of Montana and Haskell Indian Nations University. In 2000 she became the first American Indian to hold the endowed chair of Native American studies at Montana State University and was honored with the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award. She retired in 2004 and became a special advisor to the president of Montana State University.

In 1970, Mann completed her master’s degree in English literature at Oklahoma State University–Tulsa and was hired as part of the faculty for ethnic studies created after the Third World Liberation Front strike at University of California, Berkeley. She helped develop the curricula for the first degree program for ethnic studies in the United States, while at Berkeley. That same year, she joined with other Native American women including Grace Thorpe in the founding of the National Indian Women’s Action Corps, an empowerment organization. After teaching for two years at UC Berkeley, in 1972, she was hired to direct the Native American Studies program at the University of Montana, in Missoula. She would be a key designer of the curricula and taught at the university for 28 years. As a Danforth Fellow, Mann continued her education, earning a PhD in American Studies from the in Albuquerque in 1982. That year, she was honored as Cheyenne Indian of the Year, for the American Indian Exposition. Between 1986 and 1987, she took a leave of absence from the University of Montana, teaching at Harvard University and serving in the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Indian Education Office.

Mann was the first woman American Indian woman to hold the position of director of Indian education programs and was selected by Assistant Department of the Interior Secretary, Ross Swimmer. Mann was selected by the American Indian Heritage Foundation in Washington, D. C., as Indian Woman of the Year for 1987. In 1991, Morton stepped away from her duties as director of the Native Studies Program and was promoted to a professorship which would give her more time to focus on writing. That year, she was featured in Rolling Stone as one of the top ten professors in the United States. During her time at the University of Montana, she took eight sabbaticals and became a widely respected speaker nationally on the issue of Indian education. During one of those leaves in 1993 and 1994, she helped design a Native American Studies Program for Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. In 2000, she was selected to receive the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award. In 2001, Mann moved to Montana State University, to accept a position as the first person to occupy the endowed chair of Native American Studies at MSU. Retiring from teaching in 2003, Mann became a special advisor to the president of Montana State University. She served as one of the trustees who guided the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in 2004. In 2008, she was honored by the National Indian Education Association with a lifetime achievement award and in 2016, she became one of only two American Indians elected to the National Academy of Education.

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