Institute for the Study of Societal Issues

The Joseph A. Myers Center was founded in 2010 with a mission is to provide the people of Indian country with pragmatic research products that can be employed to improve the quality of life for Native Americans throughout the US. The Center fulfills this mission by bringing the resources of the University to Native communities; developing, coordinating and funding collaborative, community-driven research projects; providing technical assistance and training; disseminating research publications and reports; and hosting conferences, colloquia and other events open to the public on topics of concern to Native communities.

As part of our mission, we also acknowledge and make visible the university’s relationship to Native peoples. The Center sits on on the territory of xučyun (Huichin), the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people, and every member of the Berkeley community has, and continues to benefit from, the use and occupation of this land, since the institution’s founding in 1868. We recognize that the Muwekma Ohlone people are alive and flourishing members of the Berkeley and broader Bay Area communities today, and we would like to thank the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and Native American Student Development (UCB) for developing this land acknowledgement and resource page.