On August 1 2025, Shelly Lowe (Navajo) from Ganado Arizona became the newest president of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, NM. She previously served as chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities and led the Harvard University Native American Program. Lowe told KUNM about her first introduction to IAIA when her son was looking for an art school.
SHELLY LOWE: He was going to school in the northeast and of course, his teachers were looking at schools in the northeast region. They weren't kind of looking beyond the scope of where an appropriate and good art school might be for him. And I happened to say to him, you know, ‘It's about time we maybe think about IAIA, because it might be a place where you would really like.’ I had the opportunity then to drive through, without my son, stop in, I walked into the admissions office, they were very nice. I said, ‘Can I do a tour for my son? Can we do it on FaceTime?’ So we did, and I got kind of a really good introduction to what the school was all about. And I just knew that for him, you know, someone who's Navajo, who was growing up outside of the Southwest, coming to a school that understood his cultural background was going to make a huge difference for him.
KUNM: As a former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities and as an Ivy League educator, what kind of knowledge and skills did you attain that you're able to use as the president of IAIA now?
LOWE: One of the things that I was confronted with when I went into the Ivy League institutions was the amount of support that was lacking for Native students, the amount of knowledge that individuals had with administrators, faculty of their students, about where Native students were coming from, what was important aspects of their cultures that they were bringing with them into the institution, and how to cultivate and strengthen those cultural assets. I found that we had to work really, really hard to try to just inform and educate Ivy League institutions about the best ways to work with Native students. But that helped me also to see in what ways you could strengthen institutions and what offices you could work with to really bring forward well-rounded, holistic support for Native students, while helping them to maintain their culture right and to use that as a strength.
As I came into the chair of National Endowment for Humanities, it was the first time I stepped out of working solely with kind of Native students and Native-focused projects and an agenda, and I got to see firsthand the work that was happening across the country in support of Native cultures. But I also came back to reminding myself, and I would say this fairly often, how to do things the right way. And the right way means the way that we were taught, right? The way that we are taught in our cultures to do things, which is not always the way that the federal government and the national political landscape works, clearly. But it was something that I could remind myself to draw upon, and by reminding myself I knew and understand how important it is to give support, to give resources to communities.
KUNM: So what interested you in pursuing this job as president of the Institute of American Indian Arts?
LOWE: I think that the institution has grown in so many different ways to become a premier higher education institution that teaches Native art and culture. And I'm really excited to be able to be a part of it, and to be immersed in not just the support for students, but supporting faculty, the curriculum that can be developed. I've had the opportunity now to kind of see what's happening all across the country in terms of Native art, and IAIA really is, to me, the premier institution, and one that I knew I really wanted to be a part of at some point.
KUNM: What do you hope to achieve during your time as president?
LOWE: Well, I hope that IAIA is world-known. I think they have done a very good job, and I think that many people are aware of the institution and its strength. I would like to see us have support from many, many entities, philanthropic foundations, from major donors who really see the work that our alumni are doing, and our graduates and our students. And I do think I would like to really have an opportunity to cultivate the alumni that are out there, because they're doing such amazing work, and they're all in such great positions. They're making a huge difference nationally on what people's understanding of Native culture is, both in the contemporary and in the more traditional sense. And I would really like to see that grow. I'm really looking forward to just being around students again and being a part of a campus and helping that campus to grow as much as I can.
Support for this coverage comes from the Thornburg Foundation.
