University of Massachusetts Amherst and four nearby local colleges will receive a $2.5 million grant for Native American and Indigenous Studies through the Mellon Foundation. (Hoang 'Leon' Nguyen / The Republican)

Good news was delivered to several Western Massachusetts colleges and universities looking to enhance their study of Native American and indigenous cultures and history.

Five Colleges, Incorporated has been awarded a $2.5 million, four-year grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help its member campuses transform how they approach Native American and indigenous studies, with the goal of enhancing teaching, learning and scholarship in the field. The grant is one of the largest made by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the consortium to date, and is one of the consortium's largest from any source in its 50-year history.

"We are honored to receive this funding from the Mellon Foundation," Five Colleges executive director Sarah Pfatteicher said. "This award represents the Mellon Foundation's continued support for the consortium and the significant work our member campuses are doing to advance the humanities in service of society. Importantly, it also recognizes our efforts to build sustained, reciprocal relationships with Native American scholars and communities, and will support further efforts in this area."

The Five College campuses includes Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Connecticut River Valley region has historically been a crossroads of Indigenous nations, according to Pfatteicher, and remains a hub for scholars, leaders artists, writers and activists in the field.

"With this remarkable grant we want to honor, humbly and respectfully, this history of being a space where people's pathways converge," Pfatteicher said.

Called Gathering at the Crossroads: Building Native American and Indigenous Studies at the Five College Consortium, the effort will allow the campuses to develop and establish a set of new academic pathways for students interested in Native American and Indigenous Studies, as well as create new advising structures to guide students through these academic options.

The grant includes funding to bring a variety of scholars and Indigenous experts to the campuses as collaborators.

"We are thankful to Mellon and thrilled to expand NAIS's reach and programming," said Professor Laura Furlan, faculty member at the University of Massachusetts and chair of the long-standing Five College Native American and Indigenous Studies Committee. "This truly is an exciting time to be a part of NAIS in the Valley."

Amherst College professors Lisa Brooks and Kiara Vigil issued a joint statement in supporting, writing that "for many years, a hallmark of the Five College Native American and Indigenous Studies program has been an abiding commitment to collaboration and community building. We are excited about the opportunity this Mellon Grant offers us to further build and extend that collaboration and community, providing additional needed support to nurture these ongoing efforts, which will enable future intellectual and cultural work within the Five Colleges, throughout the Kwinitekw Valley (the Native American name for the Connecticut Valley), and across a wider Native network."