New Native American Studies program for South Carolina

Jim Largo writes in Indian Country Today that two teachers and an archivist at the University of South Carolina at Lancaster have been authorized to start a Native American Studies program at the USCL campus. The program could get under way as soon as this fall.

When it is in place it will be the state's only such program and the only one in the entire Southeast.



The project was stimulated, according to Professor Stephen Criswell when Dean John Catalano expressed a desire for a program based on a collection of articles about the Catawba Indians, which were donated to USCL by Tomas J. Blumer. Blumer had studied the Catawba Indians for more than 40 years.


As the program develops, it could lead to a baccalaureate degree in Native American Studies, in conjunction with telecourses from the Columbia, SC, main campus. USCL is a two-year satellite campus.



Criswell reported that the campus will hold a Native American Studies Week in the spring and will stage a Cawtawba Pow Wow on November 17, 2007.


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