Indigenous Peoples Day

Dear WesternU Community,

We will be observing our first, formal Indigenous Peoples Day at WesternU on Monday, October 9, 2023. On this campus holiday, I urge you to reflect on where we came from, where we are, and where we hope to go into the future. We at WesternU have a tremendous opportunity to support the health and well-being of Native communities not only around the world, but more importantly right here in the communities that surround us in Pomona, California and Lebanon, Oregon, right now. This is not only an opportunity that we at WesternU must take, but also a social responsibility justly rooted in our heritage of humanism that we should embrace and intentionally act upon.

WesternU is located within the current and traditional homelands of the Gabrielino-Tongva in California, and the Marys River or Ampinefu Band of Kalapuya in Oregon. We honor and pay respect to the elders, ancestors, and descendants as they continue caring for these lands on this Indigenous Peoples Day. As we honor and respect them together with the Costanoan Rumsen Carmel Tribe in Pomona, I hope all of us can imagine and actualize a future wherein we work in partnership with the Native American communities whose ancestral lands we traverse daily. Let us create sustainable ways of living in harmony, health, and service so that the inhumanity of the past does not recur ever again.

The history of Native, Indigenous and First Peoples around the world overflows with a tremendous loss of life, land, language, and culture. As an institution preparing future health care leaders, I call upon all at WesternU to commemorate this Indigenous People Day with our renewed commitment to humanism, eliminating health disparities, promoting the wellness of Native peoples, honoring Indigenous sovereignty, worldviews, and reconciliation as we teach, learn, and heal together.

Best wishes,
Robin