Indigenous People’s Day 2025

Santa Clara University honors Indigenous People’s Day this Monday, October 13, 2025. This date is now both an academic and administrative holiday, with no classes in session and University offices are closed.

We encourage members of the University community to engage and participate with these and other related events. This is part of our ongoing commitment to raise awareness and understand the Indigenous legacy of our campus.

Native American Symposium - Social Justice & Reconciliation in 2025

The 3rd Annual Native American Symposium at Santa Clara University will be held this Indigenous People's Day on Monday, October 13, 2025 from 1:00pm – 4:00pm at the Recital Hall (Music & Dance Building).

This year’s symposium with a focused discussion on Social Justice and a Call to Action, builds upon the 2024 Symposium which focused on the role of Reconciliation and the 2023 Symposium focused on federal recognition.

This symposium has been planned in collaboration with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area, and co-presented by SCU’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion, de Saisset Museum and the Community Heritage Lab.

The symposium is just one component of the University’s ongoing collaboration with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, and is intended to bring greater dialogue and civic engagement to the campus community and regional community. SCU sees the importance of providing a space in which Native leaders and community members come together with academics and others to explore themes and issues important to Native community partners; a responsibility that is important for all Bay Area institutions.

The Symposium is FREE and open to the community.  

For those not able to attend in-person, we are livestreaming the event: https://santaclarauniversity.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=9dc1aeca-53ce-4965-8bc6-b3690109be63 (Link will not be active until 12:45pm on October 13th)

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Immediately following the Symposium, the venue will be showing the tUrn presentation:

tUrn Indigenous Keynote: Shannon Rivers

Human Rights, Moral Responsibility, & Ecotactics

4:00pm - 5:15pm via Zoom  (To register to access Zoom)

Join Shannon Rivers, Akimel O’otham, for an exposé on the climate crisis from a committed and visionary Indigenous leader. He offers perspectives on our moral responsibility in the face of eco-terrorism and predatory capitalism.

This special presentation—and opening headliner of tUrn week—brings into focus the ongoing struggle for Indigenous stewardship, and the centuries-deep authoritarianism of church and nation that would have cultural, governance, language and land sovereignties totally obliterated, were it not for the keen, unerring, communal, sacred resistance tactics and spiritual activism of Indigenous peoples.

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The Indigenous People’s Day events are sponsored by various groups throughout the SCU community. A special thank you to the Muwekma Ohlone as well as the leaders of the SCU Native American Coalition for Change (NACC).