Michele Pavilionis Interview
Written by Alex Auzas
Michele is a Lenape, Lithuanian, and Sicilian-Italian woman who is an Alum of SOU. She was an Early Childhood Development major with Native American Studies and Outdoor Adventure and Leadership minors. She also went through SOU’s masters in interdisciplinary program receiving certificates in Holistic Education and Native American Studies with an emphasis in Outdoor Adventure Leadership. She has a lot of experience with naturalist study and Traditional Ecological Knowledge, experiential type of education, and Lakota Sun Dance and sweat lodge.
This term, as an adjunct professor, Michele is teaching two classes within Native American Studies: Native North America and Tribal Critical Race Theory. Both of these classes cover incredibly important topics, with Native North America covering Native culture across the US, Canada, and Mexico and Tribal Critical Race Theory covering legal practices within the US when it comes to Native Peoples. Michele has also done many a workshop through SOU’s education department connecting social and emotional learning to SOU’s standard logical learning. She likes to incorporate the Medicine Wheel within her teaching which comes from her Lakota Sun Dance background.
When asked what she likes about teaching Michele mentioned that she enjoys the creativity that her students use to solve problems. She loves to see people learning no matter what environment and uses the environment she creates within the classroom to have a sense of community. People interacting and being challenged fulfill her in indescribable ways and she deeply cares about every student that she teaches.
Outside of teaching at SOU Michele has worked at a camp that teaches pre-schoolers survival experience, which she was introduced to through her practicum in Grad school. She taught workshops during her Master’s Program on Native American perspectives within education. She was a part of Red Earth Descendants which is a grassroots, indigenous-based organization in the Rogue Valley that focuses on landback and education movements. Within the organization, she was a part of the group that brought the giant Grandma Aggie statue downtown that now resides in the SOU library. She has done so much more but all of them have always been centered around Native practices, education, and outdoor adventure leadership.
Finally, some of her future projects! Michele is going to be a speaker at the upcoming Holistic Teaching and Learning Conference in April, she plans to further introduce Native Practices within holistic education. Also in continuation of that goal, she is currently working on the role of Tribal Liaison within the Education department. She has previously held the position and has used it to get more Native people interested in becoming teachers to help teach their communities. She also continues to advocate for a required Native American Studies course for all SOU students to help break down more barriers within the institution so we can become more inclusive and anti-racist Lastly, a more personal project of hers is to make a traditional sweat lodge near SOU’s campus where she can help people and students outside of the more traditional education field.
Linktree: linktr.ee/sou_ers_program
