Rate My Professor Jack Forbes

In 1969, Forbes joined the University of California, Davis, where he was instrumental in founding the Native American Studies program—one of the first at a major university—developing it into a full department, and serving as its chairman until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1994, after which he continued teaching until 2009. He co-founded D-Q University, California's first tribal college, in 1971 near Davis, serving on its board and volunteering as a faculty member for over 25 years until its closure in 2005. Forbes held prestigious visiting appointments, including Fulbright Professor at the University of Warwick (1980-81), Tinbergen Chair at Erasmus University Rotterdam (1984), and visiting scholar at Oxford University and the University of Essex (1985-86). He delivered guest lectures across countries such as Russia, Japan, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France, Canada, Mexico, Belgium, Switzerland, and Norway. His contributions earned him the American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1997, Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year in prose nonfiction in 1999, and Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas in 2009. Forbes's scholarship profoundly shaped Native American studies, advocating for indigenous self-determination, accurate multicultural histories, and the establishment of Native-led higher education institutions.