“I want to stop human suffering and the loss of human potential. Our purpose is to strengthen our people, our families and our children, and to act in the face of glaring human needs.”

Ada Deer
Director Emerita
American Indian Studies Program, UW-Madison

Ada Deer earned degrees in social work at the University of Wisconsin and Columbia. She is a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government - Cambridge . She has been honored by doctorates from various leading universities including the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Ohio State University .

Deer was the first member of her tribe to receive a master's degree. She became the first woman chair of the Menominee Nation, first woman to head the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs in the United States Department of Interior and the first American Indian woman to run for the Congress and Wisconsin 's secretary of state. In 1993 she became the first woman appointed an assistant secretary for Indian affairs in the US department of Interior. As the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs until 1997, she helped set federal policy for more than 555 American Indian tribes nationwide.

Among Ada 's various accomplishments, she chaired the Native American Rights Fund, helped revitalize the Wisconsin chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, organized workshops to train American Indian women as leaders, helped implement American Indian participation in the Peace Corps, designed a program to provide transitional support for minority rural people adjusting to urban life and worked with inner city youths in delinquency prevention programs.

Today, as the former director of the American Indian Studies program at UW-Madison, she urges Wisconsin Educators to continue to reach out and involve the American Indian community in education.

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