The Payne Family Native American Center Will Reach Far Beyond Montana
Sometimes, a community effort has the power to change lives—not just locally, but around the world.
For the past few years that kind of across-the-board effort has been at work on The University of Montana campus. And the result is something outstanding: The Payne Family Native American Center. It’s the first of its kind in the entire country—a place that serves as an intersection for all things that relate to Native American culture.
The Payne Center will house UM’s Native American Studies Department and American Indian Student Services offices, as well as related campus programming—all under one roof. The unique gathering space will allow tribal leaders from across the state, the region, and the nation to come together to address common challenges, while also providing a bridge for American Indian and other cultures to explore the best that each has to offer.
The Payne Center, currently under construction and scheduled for completion in January 2010, was envisioned and supported by a dedicated team of donors, students, Native American groups, faculty, and local groups that sought to create something far beyond a structure made of bricks and mortar. They wanted to create a transformative presence on campus.
Leading the charge to create the new center was the Terry Payne family. “We couldn’t have done it without them,” said Christopher Comer, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “If key donors like the Payne family hadn’t offered support when they did and expanded and augmented the vision, we would not have ended up with the center as we see it now.”
The Payne family members are lifelong Montanans who wanted to make a difference in their state. The goal was to create a new kind of community, Comer explained. “The Payne Center would be a space where Native American tribes would come together, where students would come together, academic and non-academic interests would come together—all for the celebration of Native American culture.”
In fact, a sense of togetherness infused the project years before construction began. In October 2005, spiritual and community leaders from all of Montana’s Native American tribes gathered with the campus community for an historic sunrise ceremony to bless the Payne Center’s building site. It was the first time in more than 100 years that all the state’s tribes gathered for such a unified purpose.
The ripple effect created by the Payne Center is already evident. Experts from Australia and New Zealand are consulting with faculty at UM over challenges like preserving cultures and languages of their native peoples. “The issues Native Americans have struggled with are paralleled in people all around the globe,” said Comer. “As Montana makes great strides in working with Native populations here, it will be a great model for how to help work with indigenous populations around the world.”
That kind of achievement only happens when everyone commits to crossing boundaries and working as one.
“A unique constellation of goodwill and clever thinking went into this center,” said Comer. It’s that kind of thinking that will keep Native American communities vibrant and strong into the next century and beyond.