Stephanie Riedl decided to graduate with a degree in AIS in 2015 because "I wanted answers to my experience and my families experiences as Indigenous people. I wanted to learn how to be more supportive of my family, my urban Indigenous community, and my Sts’ailes and Coast Salish kin healing from colonialism."
"In the last year in the AIS program I was given a pseudo “research” assignment, to interview a woman in my family," they say, when asked about the most memorable part of the AIS program. "It sparked such a heartbreaking, healing, much needed conversation with my mother that I may not have had the courage to engage in, if not for the prompt and the support from Dr. Luana Ross and my fellow students. And for that I am so grateful!"
On advice they would give to others interested in the program, Stephanie says, "This is a valuable learning opportunity to study how Indigenous peoples are governing and taking care of their people across the globe but especially within the United States. Despite having received an abundance of unsolicited input to the contrary, these lessons can and should be applied in a variety of settings and contexts".
Currently, Stephanie is working as the Lands Executive Assistant for Sts’ailes (their First Nation).