Land & Labor Acknowledgement

The Vermont Connection Volume 46 Coalition and Insurgence: Responding to the Anti-DEI Climate in Higher Education. Article 2 April 2025 Land & Labor Acknowledgement Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/tvc Part of the Higher Education Commons Recommended Citation (2025). Land & Labor Acknowledgement. The Vermont Connection, 46(1). https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/ tvc/vol46/iss1/2 This Editor's Note is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Education and Social Services at UVM ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Vermont Connection by an authorized editor of UVM ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact . ii • The Vermont Connection • 2025• Volume 46 Land & Labor Acknowledgement TVC Executive Board The Vermont Connection 46 Executive Board invites you to reflect upon the land on which you now engage with this extensive and globally diverse community. Members of the Vermont Connection span across the regions of the world, each of which has diverse connections to settler colonialism, as indigenous peoples, settlers, and individuals still impacted by the effect of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The higher education organization which facilitates the establishment of this journal and community, is deeply entwined with the historical and ongoing attempted genocide of Indigenous communities and the exploitation of enslaved people. In recognition of this, we present the following Land Acknowledgement, adopted by the University of Vermont Board of Trustees and other crafted by the Vermont Connection 43, acknowledging the land occupied by the University of Vermont. Additionally, we urge you to seek out information and resources pertaining to the land upon which you reside and to engage in acts of solidarity with your local Indigenous communities. The University of Vermont Land Acknowledgement The University of Vermont is situated within a space of communal interaction and trade, shaped by the presence of water, and overseen by successive generations of Indigenous peoples, notably the Western Abenaki. Recognizing the intricate connections between water, land, and communities aligns with the university’s mission. Acknowledging the profound and lasting impacts of our collective histories on Indigenous peoples and their territories is integral to the university's continuing efforts in education, research, and community involvement. It serves as a vital reminder of our shared past and the interconnected futures that bind us all on this land. UVM honors the Indigenous knowledge deeply rooted in this environment and pledges to uplift the Indigenous peoples and cultures existing on this land and within our community. The Vermont Connection acknowledges that the University of Vermont was founded and currently occupies the traditional, ancestral, and contemporary territory of the Abenaki nation of Missisquoi, specifically the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi. Despite historical efforts to displace the Abenaki from this land, including forced sterilization through the Eugenics Survey supported by UVM on its campus, the Abenaki persists in residing on and nurturing this land. We are thankful for the opportunity to learn on their ancestral territories and recognize that colonization remains a continuing process marked by broken treaties and continued occupation of Native Lands. As members of the Vermont Connection and the University of Vermont community, we acknowledge our shared complicity in benefiting from this arrangement and assert our joint responsibility to advocate for the sovereignty of Native nations, as well as the return of land and iii • The Vermont Connection • 2024 • Volume 46 financial resources to the Abenaki people. We invite you to read more about this from the Abenaki perspective. We further encourage all members and people affiliated to the Vermont Connection to deepen their understanding of whose land they inhabit, and we encourage you to learn more about the Indigenous communities, federally recognized or not, who have served as stewards of the lands where you are situated. We encourage all associates of the Vermont Connection to familiarize yourselves with the knowledge needed to transcend beyond land acknowledgements and develop tangible actions for supporting Indigenous communities. With this understanding, we recognize the Indigenous descendant communities upon which our university property rests. As we gather to share the collective insights contained in the 46th volume of The Vermont Connection Journal, we honor the involuntary sacrifices by the Indigenous communities and commit to advancing educational equity and transformative liberation within higher education. This land acknowledgement has been adapted from the syllabi of Dr. Tracy Arambula Turner, Dr. Jason C. Garvey, Dr. Tiffanie Spencer, and co-created by the members of The Vermont Connection 43 Executive Board.  (...truncated)