An accredited university dedicated to Indigenous studies could welcome its first students in the fall of 2027 to the former campus of Wells College.
The nonprofit Hiawatha Institute for Indigenous Knowledge recently bought the shuttered campus along Cayuga Lake in the village of Aurora for $12.5 million. The institute is focused on the preservation and study of Indigenous technologies, science, arts, language and more.
The campus sits on ancestral lands of the Cayuga Nation.
“I hope (future students) will come away from an education there with appreciation of their place and connectedness with everything else in the world, with other people, no matter who they are, and with the environment around them,” said Les Lo Baugh, president of the institute.
“And that they have a responsibility of stewardship,” he added, “and not exploitation of people or the environment.”
The institute formed in 2011, with a stated mission to preserve and promote the ancestral knowledge of North America’s Indigenous people. The group has worked with Syracuse University while both acquiring and preserving materials for study.
The plan is to occupy about a quarter of the Wells campus. Peachtown Elementary School and a community health center will continue to operate on campus.
The campus buildings require maintenance and repairs to address heating systems, water leaks, mold and ceiling damage.
“There's a lot of work that's going to need to be done, obviously, but it did not get multiplied two or three times from what it was before they closed, which was our concern,” Lo Baugh said. "It's good that it didn't get any worse than it is.”
He’d seen some of the damage shortly after Wells College closed, and recently visited campus after a period in which people were prohibited from stepping onto the property.
"(There’s) a lot of damage still in the dining hall and in the kitchen of the dining hall. Part of the ceiling came down in there, too,” he said. “The fact that they didn't clean up the plaster and fallen paint I actually took as a good sign that they're not trying to hide, cosmetically, damage that was there.”
When the time comes, possible collegiate offerings include traditional and contemporary medicine, sciences, Indigenous languages, arts, and music.
In a statement announcing the purchase, the institute noted that Indigenous people are underrepresented on college campuses. The new university would seek to change that, "by offering courses of study relevant to the needs of the Native nations. Its curriculum will place an emphasis on those skills which provide students with marketable skills without having to compromise their identity as citizens of their respective nations.”
The campus also will house the Joanne Shenandoah School of Music, according to the group — named in honor of the legendary GRAMMY and NAMMY award-winning Oneida musician and composer who died in 2021 at the age of 64.
Shenandoah was a founding board member of the institute, and her vision was a driving force for this undertaking, Lo Baugh said.
“Joanne, when she was quite ill, actually asked us to agree to dedicate our time to establish the indigenous college at Wells,” Lo Baugh said, adding that she had identified the area as having unique significance
The institute is not affiliated with or operated by any tribal nation or group, which he said was also in agreement with Shenandoah's wishes.
Her presence might already be felt there. During a tour of the buildings, board director Doug George Kanentiio, Shenandoah’s husband, said they came across something unexpected.
“You know what Wells did? They gave us a big Christmas present. They left all the musical instruments there,” Kanentiio said with a laugh. "Going through the building and I’m saying, ‘Hey, there must be 50 pianos there. Steinways, you know? Every office has a piano. And all sorts of drum sets ... they’re all there. So that'll be another gift that we will give to Native America is music, through Joanne.”
“(Hiawatha Institute) also anticipates increased social programs to concerts, formal lectures, art shows and sports events,” the group said in a statement.
There are currently no tribal universities identified east of Michigan, according to the American Indian Higher Educational Consortium, which described the need to establish one as "obvious and pressing.”
“There's a large concentration of Native people in Rochester and Syracuse and Buffalo,” Kanentiio said. “And they want to, almost without exception, find a way home, you know? Where can they go to learn about who they are, their heritage.
“The best future,” he continued, “is to get these kids and their enthusiasm and their wisdom and their intelligence and graft it to our wisdom, traditional people, our communities, and give them a common place of learning. To us, it makes sense.”
