May 21, 2013 – North Dakota State University’s Department of Nursing and Cankdeska Cikana Community College will hold the second annual conference focused on American Indian nursing in North Dakota June 11-12 at Spirit Lake Casino and Resort, St. Michael, N.D.

Titled “Past, Present and Future of American Indian Nurses in North Dakota,” the purpose of the conference is to develop strategies for recruiting and retaining American Indian students in the nursing profession. The event is geared for health care professionals, health care administrators, nursing program faculty and nursing program administrators.

Keynote speakers will be Sandy Grande, professor and chair in the education department at Connecticut College, New London, Conn., and Cynthia Lindquist, president of Cankdeska Cikana Community College in Fort Totten, N.D.

Grande, author of “Red Pedagogy,” also is faculty fellow in the Holleran Center for Community Action and Public Policy. She has served in several administrative capacities at Connecticut College, including special adviser to the president for Institutional Equity and Diversity and faculty representative on the strategic planning committee. In 2004, she was appointed chair of a committee to develop the Center for Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity at the college. The center was established in 2005. Among her many honors and awards, Grande was named a founding scholar to the Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy at McGill University in California.

Lindquist has been president of Cankdeska Cikana Community College, which serves the Spirit Lake Dakota community, since 2003. She also is an adjunct faculty member in community medicine and rural health at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She is a founding member of the National Indian Women’s Health Resource Center and has served as a member of the Council of Public Representatives, an advisory council to the director of the National Institutes of Health. She is former executive director of the North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission.

The conference agenda also includes presentations on the health professions occupation grant, Next Steps program, using nominal group technique to determine recruiting and retention strategies, American Indian nursing demographics mapping project, nursing workforce needs and youth education employment survey results. Elder nurses, nursing students and employers will share their perspectives through panels and presentations.

There is no charge to attend the conference, but participants are encouraged to register by May 29. To register, visit www.ndsu.edu/aicup/aicup_conference.

The conference is funded by the University Partnership Research Grant for Health Professional Opportunities, #90PH0019, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families.

NDSU is recognized as one of the nation’s top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.