Rate My Professor Henrietta Mann

Dr. Henrietta Mann, a full-blood Cheyenne enrolled with the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, is Professor Emeritus of Native American Studies at Montana State University (MSU) in Bozeman, where she was the first occupant of the Katz Endowed Chair in Native American Studies from 2000 to 2003 and served as Special Assistant to the President from 2003 to 2016. She earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico in 1982, with a dissertation titled Cheyenne-Arapaho Education: 1871-1982, which received the Eugene M. Kayden Award for best manuscript in the humanities and was published as a book. Her academic background also includes an M.A. in English from Oklahoma State University in 1970 and a B.A. in Education (English) from Southwestern Oklahoma State University in 1954. Prior to MSU, Mann was Director and Professor of Native American Studies at the University of Montana in Missoula for 28 years. She held visiting positions at Harvard University Graduate School of Education, University of California Berkeley, and Haskell Indian Nations University. In federal service, she served as Director of the Office of Indian Education Programs and Deputy to the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Indian Affairs from 1986 to 1987, and as National Coordinator of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act Coalition for the Association on American Indian Affairs.

Dr. Mann's contributions to Native American education and studies have been recognized with major awards including the National Humanities Medal in 2021 presented by President Joe Biden, the National Indian Education Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008, the University of New Mexico Bernard S. Rodey Award in 2008, the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award in 2001, and designation by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the top ten professors in the nation in 1991. She is the founding President of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College. Mann has delivered lectures throughout the United States, including Hawaii, and internationally in Mexico, Canada, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium. She has served as interviewee and consultant for television and film productions such as In the White Man’s Image, How the West Was Lost, Paha Sapa: Struggle for the Black Hills, The West, and Last of the Dogmen.