Like many public-facing institutions, SIUE has formulated a Land Acknowledgement Statement "to recognize and honor the original inhabitants" of our region - Native Americans (see https://www.siue.edu/diversity/guiding-frameworks/land-acknowledgement-statement.shtml). This presentation will address why this is important, what the SIUE Land Acknowledgement statement means, and how we chose which tribes to acknowledge. They may no longer live on our campus, but to be clear: the Native Americans we acknowledge are still alive today and still recognize their ties to this land, their traditional homeland, which they did not leave by choice.