UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Cornel Pewewardy, who earned his Doctorate in Education in educational administration from the College of Education in 1989, was one of 14 Penn Staters honored this fall with the Alumni Fellow Award, the most prestigious award given by the Penn State Alumni Association.
Pewewardy is professor emeritus of Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University and vice-chairman of the Comanche Nation. He has a profound belief in the power of Indigenous education and in the power of higher education, and has dedicated his life’s work to bringing those two forces together to improve both.
The Alumni Fellow program is administered by the Penn State Alumni Association in cooperation with the University’s academic colleges, campuses and the Office of the President. Alumni are nominated by a college or campus as leaders in their professional fields and accept an invitation from the president of the University to return to campus to share their expertise with students, faculty and administrators. During his time on campus, Pewewardy gave a book talk, “The Hunt for Red Pedagogy: The Transformational Indigenous Praxis Model.”