Dr. Amanda Cobb-Greetham to Deliver Remarks at SOSU Commencement on May 10

by SOUTHEASTERN PUBLIC INFORMATION
April 14, 2008

DURANT, Okla. ­ Spring commencement will be held at Southeastern Oklahoma State University on Saturday, May 10. The ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. at Paul Laird Field.

Immediately following the ceremony, at approximately 11 a.m., a reception for the graduates, families, and guests will be held at the Visual & Performing Arts Center.

This spring's commencement speaker is Dr. Amanda J. Cobb-Greetham, who serves as the Administrator of the Division of History and Culture for the Chickasaw Nation. In this position, she oversees the Chickasaw Nation's libraries and archives, language programs, the Chickasaw Press, and the Chickasaw Cultural Center Complex under construction in Sulphur.

Originally from Ardmore, Dr. Cobb-Greetham received her bachelor's degree from Southeastern Oklahoma State University in 1992 and her master's from the University of North Texas in 1993. After receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma in 1997, she served as an Assistant Professor at New Mexico State University and then as a tenured Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico. As a professor specializing in Native American Studies, she founded and served as the first director of the Institute for American Indian Research.

While a student at Southeastern, she was involved in a number of campus activities, serving as Student Senate President, Alpha Sigma Tau President, member of Sigma Tau Delta, member of the Student Advisory Board to the Regents, and as a member of the Chorvettes performing group.

A number of Dr. Cobb-Greetham's family members have also earned degrees at Southeastern, including her father, John G. Cobb; her sister, Liz Cobb McCraw, who is Dean of Students at Southeastern; her brother-in-law, Dr. Shannon McCraw, a Southeastern professor; and an uncle, E. Wayne (Pete) Byrd.

Dr. Cobb-Greetham is the author of Listening to Our Grandmothers' Stories: The Bloomfield Academy for Chickasaw Females, 1885-1949 (2000) which was selected as a winner of the 2001 American Book Award, as well as the 1998 North American Indian Prose Award. Listening to Our Grandmothers' Stories uses letters, reports, school programs, and interviews with students to tell the story of the Bloomfield Academy for Chickasaw Females, a boarding school which represents one of the rare instances in the 19th century of a Native community seizing control of its children's formal education.

Dr. Cobb-Greetham, with Jeannie Barbour and Linda Hogan, authored Chickasaws: Unconquered and Unconquerable (2006), the first book published by the Chickasaw Press. This photography book of Chickasaw history and culture received two medals from the Independent Publishers Association for design.

Her next book project, a co-edited collection of essays titled, The National Museum of the American Indian: Critical Conversations, is forthcoming in fall 2008 from the University of Nebraska Press.