A dinner celebration and awards ceremony will be held on Sept. 25 in the School of Forestry to honor the Kaibab Paiute Tribe’s collaborative research relationship with Northern Arizona University.
NAU’s 12-year partnership with the Kaibab Paiute Tribe provides student research opportunities to assist the tribe in accomplishing education and community goals to protect tribal wildlife, fisheries and parks.
“These programs are providing NAU students with the opportunities to develop field research skills and environmental education competencies,” said Sally Alcoze, an associate professor in the College of Education, who helps manage the collaboration. Thom Alcoze, a professor of wildlife and native ecology in the School of Forestry, supervises students’ research projects in collaboration with Danny Bulletts, director of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks for the Kaibab Paiute Tribe.
Projects have included vegetation analysis, migratory bird surveys, small mammal inventories in the pre-, post-wildfire pinyon-juniper habitats, collecting five years of bat ecology data, and multiple environmental education activities with tribal youth.
Sally Alcoze said the tribe provides field research sites, 24-hour emergency services and “invaluable associations with tribal leaders and elders and powerful experiences to understand a singular Native community.”
The event will include a reunion with students who benefitted from the tribe’s generosity, a visual presentation highlighting more than a decade of collaboration, and a celebratory dinner for invited guests.
NAU service projects with the tribe have included fish derbies at the Kaibab Paiute Community Pond, community meetings, wildlife habitat improvement, elder assistance and volunteer work at the tribe’s annual Heritage Day celebration and powwow.
For information, contact Sally.Alcoze@nau.edu.