Minerva Allen

Minerva Allen is a pillar in her Lodge Pole and Fort Belknap reservation community, an educational leader at Aaniiih Nakoda College, a creative poet and writer and a source of wisdom and advice for two Montana State University presidents. The excerpt from Tribal College Journal below describes some of the many contributions that make Allen extraordinary.

"...As with all of the elders, Minerva teaches across the curriculum. She may be teaching history and culture in American Indian studies classes or helping out in a biostatistics course where students count colored beads to demonstrate probability in the Sunk Pa science laboratory that bears her name. In astronomy, she tells stories of how the stars were used to guide one’s way at night or what the moon tells us about planting crops or the coming weather. Students in Introduction to Nursing spend the day with Minerva and other elders at the Lodge Pole Senior Center, where she is the director, to learn about traditional medicine and lifeways. Minerva visits the traditional plant class to talk about specimens on the prairie that have medicinal properties. Her published poetry books are used in English and education courses, and her teaching of the Nakoda language brings alive the role of an elder for ANC students."

"Minerva Allen is a pillar in her Lodge Pole and Fort Belknap reservation community, an educational leader at Aaniiih Nakoda College, a creative poet and writer and a source of wisdom and advice for two Montana State University presidents.”