They gathered at NC State on a Saturday afternoon in May with a shared goal: to explore a partnership rooted in community. 

Anthropology professor John Millhauser organized the one-day conference for university faculty, students and administrators,  and representatives of the Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina (TNNC) to discuss relationship-building and shared initiatives. The event was supported by an Engagement Innovation Grant, a program the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS) launched last year to fund faculty community and extension work across the state.

The grant program, administered through the college’s Office of Research and Engagement, underscores CHASS’ mission to align academic resources with community needs.

“Innovation here means making the effort to work with the TNNC by inviting them to campus to listen to key members and to share with them our capabilities,” Millhauser said. The event builds on a connection sparked two years ago, when Millhauser directed a volunteer archaeology project at Mordecai Historic Park. 

“Innovation here means making the effort to work with the TNNC by inviting them to campus to listen to key members and to share with them our capabilities.”

Conversations there with Tuscarora representative Rahnà·wakę·w Donnie McDowell laid the foundation for collaboration, later strengthened by graduate anthropology student Lily Cavanaugh’s work with the TNNC. 

Combined with the active presence of McDowell and other TNNC members throughout the Piedmont and eastern North Carolina, Millhauser said it seemed natural to channel that momentum into a larger partnership with NC State.

Building trust across cultural divides requires time, respect, a willingness to learn about needs, interests, and priorities, and to relinquish authority, he said. Acknowledging NC State’s Think and Do motto, he added that for this day, the hope was to do a lot of thinking.

For McDowell, this deliberate approach extended efforts to cultivate relationships grounded in mutual responsibility for North Carolina’s histories, landscapes and public memory.

“Respectful collaboration with a university means ensuring Indigenous communities are included as active participants in shaping interpretation, stewardship, education, and public engagement surrounding their own histories and ancestral landscapes,” McDowell said.

He identified public history, archaeology, cultural preservation and environmental stewardship as key areas for collaboration. That includes work involving Tuscarora heirloom corn, traditional foodways, and red wolf stewardship and habitat protection.

This focus on inclusion resonated with fellow Tuscarora representative Runęhkwáʔčhęʔ Duane Brayboy, who noted that Native communities in the Southeast are frequently generalized. “Indigenous communities have often been studied historically but not always listened to in ways that encourage sincere understanding,” he said. 

For the TNNC, this gathering felt different, he added. It offered a rare opportunity to be listened to as a living community through true dialogue, rather than being viewed solely through an academic or historical lens.

Brayboy emphasized that as an Iroquoian people, the Tuscarora possess a distinct history, language and homeland connection sustained through lived community, relationships and cultural memory. These elements are vital to addressing the ecological challenges society faces concerning land, water and disconnection from the natural world.

“Respectful collaboration with a university means ensuring Indigenous communities are included as active participants in shaping interpretation, stewardship, education, and public engagement surrounding their own histories and ancestral landscapes.”

Looking ahead, McDowell said success would be measured by establishing durable relationships that expand educational opportunities, strengthen public understanding of Tuscarora history and continuity, and encourage collaborative stewardship of shared cultural and historical resources.

“Tuscarora presence in North Carolina did not end in the colonial period,” he said. “Our communities remain connected to these lands and waterways through continuing cultural, historical and familial responsibilities today.”

Brayboy and McDowell agreed that the event’s most meaningful moments were the sincere, unscripted exchange of ideas between people who care deeply about stewardship, education and community. 

Millhauser highlighted NC State’s position as a land-grant university, seeing it as an opportunity to honor the history of Indigenous lands.

Building on that foundation, he hopes the conference creates a network to support future joint projects in research, policy, outreach, scholarships and curriculum development. This network could also support TNNC language revitalization, oral history preservation and community initiatives within their primary community in Robeson County. 

For participants, however, the conference’s essential outcome is to continue fostering a relationship built on listening, patience and shared responsibility.