WVU-P officials present award to university president in South Dakota
West Virginia University at Parkersburg President Chris Gilmer, third from left, and WVU-P Vice President Brady Whipkey, fourth from left, present the Generations Award to Sinte Gleska University President Lionel Bordeaux and Vice President Debbie Bordeaux on behalf of the National Institutes for Historically Underserved Students. This first award honors multiple generations of one family who are advocating for equity and civil rights. The award was presented in South Dakota as part of Sinte Gleska’s annual Commencement last week. (Photo Provided)
The Grand Procession at Sinte Gleska University’s Commencement ceremony included the president of the university, the chief of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, tribal elders and special guests, and an Honor Guard of veterans presenting the U.S. Flag and flags of many tribes. WVU at Parkersburg President Chris Gilmer and Vice President Brady Whipkey participated as 60 graduates received GED diplomas through master’s degrees at the American Indian university in South Dakota last week. (Photo Provided)
Lionel Bordeaux, one of the longest serving college presidents in the United States, greets graduates, their families, guests and the Rosebud Sioux Reservation community Friday as part of the annual Commencement. Bordeaux assumed the presidency at Sinte Gleska University in 1973. (Photo Provided)
West Virginia University at Parkersburg President Chris Gilmer, third from left, and WVU-P Vice President Brady Whipkey, fourth from left, present the Generations Award to Sinte Gleska University President Lionel Bordeaux and Vice President Debbie Bordeaux on behalf of the National Institutes for Historically Underserved Students. This first award honors multiple generations of one family who are advocating for equity and civil rights. The award was presented in South Dakota as part of Sinte Gleska’s annual Commencement last week. (Photo Provided)
The Grand Procession at Sinte Gleska University’s Commencement ceremony included the president of the university, the chief of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, tribal elders and special guests, and an Honor Guard of veterans presenting the U.S. Flag and flags of many tribes. WVU at Parkersburg President Chris Gilmer and Vice President Brady Whipkey participated as 60 graduates received GED diplomas through master’s degrees at the American Indian university in South Dakota last week. (Photo Provided)
Lionel Bordeaux, one of the longest serving college presidents in the United States, greets graduates, their families, guests and the Rosebud Sioux Reservation community Friday as part of the annual Commencement. Bordeaux assumed the presidency at Sinte Gleska University in 1973. (Photo Provided)
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MISSION, S.D. -- Chris Gilmer, president of West Virginia University at Parkersburg, and Brady Whipkey, WVU-P vice president and chief of staff to the president, said they were honored to be the guests of Sinte Gleska University President Lionel Bordeaux and Vice President Debbie Bordeaux for Commencement on Friday.
Sinte Gleska is an American Indian university in South Dakota.
Lionel Bordeaux is one of the longest serving college presidents in the United States, having started at Sinte Gleska University in 1973. Debbie Bordeaux is Lionel's daughter.
Gilmer and Whipkey presented the Bordeauxes with the Generations Award from the National Institutes for Historically Underserved Students, an annual award recognizing multiple generations of the same family advocating for civil rights.
The Bordeauxes' hospitality was very moving, Gilmer said, and the Parkersburg visitors enjoyed watching more than 60 graduates and their families earn life-changing degrees.
"Seldom have I felt the spirits of my own ancestors with me more strongly than I felt them yesterday. We thank the good people of Sinte Gleska for their warm welcome," Gilmer said Saturday.
Lionel Bordeaux, 79, brings goodness and greatness together in one spirit as a distinguished statesman and a passionate warrior for his people, Gilmer said. He was recently inducted into the inaugural class of the national Native American Hall of Fame.
Sinte Gleska University is on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in Mission, S.D.
Gilmer described Bordeaux's office as being like a living museum and a timeline of the Lakota people.
"Dr. Bordeaux, however, is not a man living in the past. He respects it, reveres the sacrifices and the gifts of his ancestors, but he is clearly focused forward as he discusses the co-occurring tragedies of suicide, poverty, lack of economic opportunity, and hopelessness which consume far too many of the people he is working so hard to empower," Gilmer wrote in a blog.
"He talks to us about families living on $3,000 a year, three suicides occurring within a one-week period, governments that make promises he is still waiting for them to keep, an educational model which was built on European rather than indigenous values, and the history of his people which is so often rewritten from the White man's point of view," Gilmer wrote.
Gilmer said Bordeaux welcomed the two WVU-P officials to his homeland and placed them at the center of the most important day of the university's year.
Gilmer and Whipkey participated in the grand procession at the Sinte Gleska University Commencement during which they walked with Bordeaux and other elders and leaders, many in traditional attire, Indian drumming and chanting surrounding them, in a great circle around the huge room filled with graduates and their families, Gilmer said.
At the Commencement podium Bordeaux conferred degrees on more than 60 graduates, from GED recipients to master's degree recipients. "We could feel the palpable reverence his people have for him. Perhaps no one has given so much for so long to his people, and they know it," Gilmer said.
Gilmer offered remarks to the graduates. After Commencement, the WVU-P officials joined Bordeaux and the entire community in sharing a meal.
Gilmer said he hopes to be able to forge a partnership, cultural sharing someday between WVU-P and Sinte Gleska University.
"I thought about how I hope to take some of our students there one day and to welcome their students to West Virginia," Gilmer said as he left the Rosebud Sioux Reservation.