An Evening with Dr. Larry Skogen: To Educate American Indians

IN-PERSON EVENT presented by Bismarck State College's Bringing Humanities to Life initiative. 

Tuesday, November 12

Bismarck State College NECE Basin Auditorium 

6:30pm CT

A look back at history and a book discussion with author Larry Skogen

About the book:

To Educate American Indians presents the most complete versions of papers presented at the National Educational Association’s Department of Indian Education meetings during a time when the debate about how best to “civilize” Indigenous populations dominated discussions. During this time two philosophies drove the conversation. The first, an Enlightenment era–influenced universalism, held that through an educational alchemy American Indians would become productive, Christianized Americans, distinguishable from their white neighbors only by the color of their skin. Directly confronting the assimilationists’ universalism were the progressive educators who, strongly influenced by the era’s scientific racism, held the notion that American Indians could never become fully assimilated. Despite these differing views, a frightening ethnocentrism and an honor-bound dedication to “gifting” civilization to Native students dominated the writings of educators from the NEA’s Department of Indian Education. For a decade educators gathered at annual meetings and presented papers on how best to educate Native students. Though the NEA Proceedings published these papers, strict guidelines often meant they were heavily edited before publication. In this volume Larry C. Skogen presents many of these unedited papers and gives them historical context for the years 1900 to 1904.

About the author:

A native of Hettinger, N.D., Larry C. Skogen, Ph. D., holds degrees from Dickinson State University (B.S. in secondary education), University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg (M.A. in history), and Arizona State University, Tempe (Ph.D. in history).

Retired from a career in the U.S. Air Force, Dr. Skogen has been involved in education as a high school teacher and as a college faculty member and administrator in a variety of military and civilian institutions, including the United States Air Force Academy and the New Mexico Military Institute. In 2007 the North Dakota State Board of Higher Education appointed him as the sixth CEO of Bismarck State College (BSC). In 2013 he was selected as the interim chancellor of the North Dakota University System and returned to BSC as president in 2015. He retired from that position and became president emeritus in 2020.

He is author of Indian Depredation Claims, 1796-1920, published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1996, and in 2024 the University of Nebraska Press published his To Educate American Indians: Selected Writings from the National Educational Association’s Department of Indian Education, 1900-1904. A second volume to this work covering the years 1905-1909 is forthcoming.

Working with his brother, Gary E. Skogen, he wrote Not All Heroes: An Unapologetic Memoir of the Vietnam War, 1971-1972, published by The Dakota Institute in 2013.

HND Value Statement

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or Humanities North Dakota. However, in an increasingly polarized world, we at Humanities North Dakota believe that being open-minded is necessary to thinking critically and rationally. Therefore, our programs and classes reflect our own open-mindedness in the inquiry, seeking, and acquiring of scholars to speak at our events and teach classes for our Public University. To that end, we encourage our participants to join us in stepping outside our comfort zones and considering other perspectives and ideas by being open-minded while attending HND events featuring scholars who hold a variety of opinions, some being opposite of our own held beliefs.