Past Events

Acknowledging Our Legacy
As a newly reestablished affinity group in 2022 with the Wisconsin Alumni Association, we are thankful for the original Alumni who first formed the American Indian Affinity Group through The Wisconsin Alumni Association over 15 years ago.  Their work to also establish an endowment will allow us to support students in years to come. 

Below you will find a reestablishment history of Cooweeja and what we have been up to. We hope this history provides some institutional memory of what has been accomplished thus far and serves as helpful information as Cooweeja continues to expand and define its work.

Community Listening & Learning Sessions 2021
After over a decade of dormancy, the process of reestablishing our Affinity Group began during the 2020-2021 school year through a series of listening sessions. It was here we learned about the history of the original American Indian Affinity Group through a wonderful history telling by Janice Rice.  These listening sessions also resulted in discussions to re-establish and name the group in a way that reflect our mission and honors the original stewards to the land where UW-Madison (a land grant institution) stands.  In community conversation, we officially reestablished in the Fall of 2021 as the Cooweeja Native & Indigenous Affinity Group.  Cooweeja means Forward in the Ho-Chunk language. Through those sessions, the name Cooweeja was chosen meaning “Forward” in the Ho-Chunk language.

Check out this short video to hear more about Cooweeja's meaning.

Fireside Chat 2022
Following our wonderful Community Listening & Learning Sessions in 2021, Cooweeja Native & Indigenous Affinity Group was able to officially reestablish in the Fall of 2021. Once reestablished and getting trained in the important processes for keeping the group active with WAA, we were finally able to throw our first community event! The event was digital to include as many alumni as possible. The Fireside Chat in Spring of 2022 was a fun day of celebrating our formal reestablishment while also reintroducing ourselves to our community who helped us during the Community Learning & Listening Sessions in 2021. We were also able to hear good ideas for how to do keep improving as we build the group for the best of our community and talked about future plannings and gatherings.

Laughter is Medicine 2022

In the Fall of 2022, we celebrated Homecoming with our first in-person event on Wednesday, October 19, 2022 in the Memorial Union at The Play Circle. Laughter Is Medicine brought us together for an evening of laughter and community gathering with a Native Comedy Show featuring nationally known Native comedians Marc Yaffee and Janelle Niles, hosted by Casey Brown with music provided by DJ Kyree both of who are UW-Madison alumni.  The evening was followed by an alumni and community networking reception in Tripp Commons.

In 2023 & 2024 we focused on building campus connections by collaborating with Indigenous student groups and Indigenous-facing organizations on campus. Cooweeja Native & Indigenous Affinity Group joined the Indigenous Student Center Coalition (ISCC) in 2024 as a way to continue building campus connections and collaborations with future alumni and our community on campus. Connecting with programs and current students helped us to build a connected and collaborative foundation for the future. During this time, our collaborations included: