2023 Robinson-Roeder-Ward Fellowship Awarded to Shelly Craig and Brettagne Aleck

Mount Adams School District teachers, Shelly Craig and Brettagne Aleck of White Swan, Washington were awarded the 2023 Robinson-Roeder-Ward Fellowship.

Craig and Aleck presented during the Local Learning workshop at AFS in Portland, Oregon: Learning Tradition, Learning Traditionally: Indigenous Teachers and Allies Examine Pathways to Systemic Educational Transformation. The workshop included an introduction to the new state-mandated Indigenous History curriculum in Oregon, panel discussion, and opportunities to work on new ideas together.

Shelly R. Craig, Mt. Adams School District teacher

Wa’xamnuut is a Yakama Nation Member who brings native cultural resources, activities and knowledge into the school district.

Brettagne Aleck, Mount Adams School District teacher

The Robinson-Roeder-Ward Fellowship is awarded by the AFS Folklore and Education Section in memory of folklorists Beverly Robinson, Bea Roeder, and Vaughn Ward. Each was a person of vision, scholarship, and activism, and they inspired a generation of folklorists working in K-12 education. The prize is awarded to an educator who is engaged in folklore, ethnography, or cultural heritage and K-12 education.

Beverly Robinson was known as a theater historian, folklorist, producer, writer, director and professor in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and the African Studies Program at UCLA. As a scholar and innovator, Beverly brought folklore and folklife into the public eye. Bea Roeder, studied Hispanic folk medicine, worked for the Colorado Council on the Arts as a regional folklorist and was a force behind the CCA/NEA project Ties that Bind, a multimedia kit about Colorado’s many folk traditions for school teachers. She was deeply involved with Native American culture and spirituality and a student of the Lakota language. Vaughn Ward, a folklorist and musician, taught high school English where her students organized the first Niskayuna Festival, was a staff folklorist for the Lower Adirondack Arts Council and founded the Black Crow Network to support tradition bearers and those with an interest in interpreting the history of the Mohawk-Champlain region and eastern Adirondacks.