{{short description|Native American organizer and educational leader}} {{for|the librarian|Faith Edith Smith}} {{Use mdy dates|date=December 2020}} {{Infobox person | name = Faith Smith | image = | caption = |title=President |organization=NAES College | alma_mater = Purdue University | citizenship = Lac Courtes Oreilles Ojibwe }}
'''Faith Smith''' is a Native American activist and educator. Her career included work at Chicago's American Indian Center, with the Native American Committee, and most notably as the president of the Native American Educational Services College from 1974 to 2004.<ref name="Straus">{{cite journal |last1=Terry Straus |first1=Anne |last2=Valentino |first2=Debra |date=2003|title=Gender and Community Organization Leadership in the Chicago Indian Community |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4138960 |journal=American Indian Quarterly |volume=27 |issue=3/4 |pages=523–532 |doi=10.1353/aiq.2004.0086 |jstor=4138960 |s2cid=161163473 |access-date=November 5, 2020|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
==Early life== Smith spent her early childhood on the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe reservation in Wisconsin.<ref name="Katz">{{cite book |last1=Katz |first1=J.B. |title=Messengers of the wind: Native American women tell their life stories |date=1995 |at=1748 |publisher=Ballantine Books |location=New York |isbn=9780345402851 |edition=First}}</ref> She attended the Kinnamon School there.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Zufall |first1=Frank |title=Museum's grand opening another step in telling tribe's story |url=https://www.apg-wi.com/sawyer_county_record/kinnamon-school-grand-opening/image_19f6d7d0-8d9f-11e6-94d2-0753cab13976.html |website=www.apg-wi.com |date=October 8, 2016 |publisher=Sawyer County Record |access-date=November 24, 2020}}</ref> Her family relocated to Chicago,<ref name="Katz"/> and she later attended and graduated from Purdue University in 1966.<ref name="Chicago Reader">{{cite news |last1=Stevenson |first1=John |title=Indian Affair: a celebration at NAES College |url=https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/indian-affair-a-celebration-at-naes-college/Content?oid=878372 |access-date=November 24, 2020 |work=Chicago Reader |issue=October 3, 1991 }}</ref> She commented that "because of affirmative action, colleges were vacuuming Indian communities across the country, finding the brightest Indians, but after college, a lot of them couldn't make the transition back home. They had changed. Their communities had changed."<ref name="Katz" />
==Career== In the mid-1960s, Smith became involved with the National Indian Youth Council, the first independent Native American student organization. After graduating from Purdue University, she began working at the Chicago American Indian Center (AIC) as a caseworker.<ref name="Katz" /> In a 1991 interview, Smith said that she and others at the AIC felt the organization should focus on the alleviation of "poverty and the problems of Indians on the streets," but that there was also "a strong contingent of people who felt that the center ought to be more of a middle-classy sort of thing, a social center or that sort of stuff."<ref name="Chicago Reader"/> In the late 1960s, Smith and others formed the Native American Committee (NAC) within the AIC to pursue more activist goals and a more comprehensive educational vision, the NAC incorporating as an independent body in 1970.<ref name="Laukaitis">{{Cite book|title=Community Self-Determination: American Indian Education in Chicago, 1952-2006|last=Laukaitis|first=John|publisher=SUNY Press|year=2015|isbn=978-1-4384-5768-0|location=Albany, NY|pages=52}}</ref> Member Helen Whitehead (Ho-Chunk-Ojibwe) described NAC: "Our main thrust is to start at the time they're very young and to build a positive self-image."<ref name="LaGrand">{{cite book |last1=LaGrand |first1=James B. |title=Indian Metropolis: Native Americans in Chicago 1945-75 |date=2002 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |location=Urbana |isbn=9780252072963 |page=230 |url=https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/78cpe6ck9780252072963.html}}</ref>
Smith was an assistant to Robert Reitz, an anthropologist and long-time director of AIC, when Reitz died unexpectedly in 1971. Smith was appointed interim director. In August of that year, the AIC board of directors voted to dismiss Smith for "insubordination and questionable banking practices." Smith's supporters responded by convening a meeting of the full AIC membership, which both reinstated Smith and replaced numerous members of the board of the directors.<ref name="LaGrand"/>
That same year, NAC founded in collaboration with Chicago Public Schools the Little Big Horn School to address the needs of Native American high school students, and then in 1973 the O-Wai-Ya-Wa Elementary School program. In 1974, Smith and NAC founded and Smith became the president of the Native American Educational Services College (NAES College), the first urban institution of higher learning managed by and serving Native Americans.<ref name="Straus"/><ref name="Laukaitis" /> Smith served as president of the college until 2004, when she resigned and was replaced by Dorene Wiese.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Cohen |first1=Jodi S. |title=Native American college calls off its fall schedule |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2005-09-30-0509300156-story.html |access-date=October 24, 2020 |work=Chicago Tribune |issue=September 30, 2005 |publisher=Tribune Publishing}}</ref>
==See also== {{Portal|Indigenous peoples of the Americas}} * Urban Indian * Native American civil rights * Red Power movement
==Notes== {{reflist}}
==References== *{{cite book |last1=LaGrand |first1=James B. |title=Indian Metropolis: Native Americans in Chicago 1945-75 |date=2002 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |location=Urbana |isbn=9780252072963 |page=230 |url=https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/78cpe6ck9780252072963.html}} *{{Cite book|title=Community Self-Determination: American Indian Education in Chicago, 1952-2006|last=Laukaitis|first=John|publisher=SUNY Press|year=2015|isbn=978-1-4384-5768-0|location=Albany, NY|pages=52}} *{{cite thesis |type=PhD |last=Browning LeVeen |first=Deborah |date=1978 |title= Hustlers and Heroes: Portrait and Analysis of the Chicago Indian Village |publisher= University of Chicago }} *{{cite journal |last1=Terry Straus |first1=Anne |last2=Valentino |first2=Debra |date=2003|title=Gender and Community Organization Leadership in the Chicago Indian Community |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4138960 |journal=American Indian Quarterly |volume=27 |issue=3/4 |pages=523–532 |doi=10.1353/aiq.2004.0086 |jstor=4138960 |s2cid=161163473 |access-date=November 5, 2020|url-access=subscription }}
==External links== * [http://aicchicago.org American Indian Center website] * [https://naes.info/history/ Native American Educational Services College history]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Faith}} Category:Living people Category:Purdue University alumni Category:Lac Courte Oreilles Band people Category:Activists from Chicago Category:Academics from Chicago Category:Activists from Wisconsin Category:Academics from Wisconsin Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:21st-century American educators Category:21st-century American women educators Category:21st-century Native American women Category:21st-century Native American people Category:20th-century Native American women Category:20th-century Native American people