Suppose people have been walking down the second floor of the Campus Center recently. In that case, they might have realized that the Native American artifacts known as the Betts collection that used to fill the display cases in the middle of that floor are now empty. Over Spring Break on March 5, the display cases were cleared, and the Native American artifacts were moved to a climate-controlled room in the archives of the Hartzler Library. Currently, EMU is working on having people from the university reach out to different Native American tribes and see if they want these cultural objects to be repatriated. Nobody appears to be in charge of it because people have been busy with the Viewpoint premiere and LovEMU Day. There is an ad hoc committee called the Land and Indigenous Peoples Committee. It is not an official committee recognized by EMU; they are staff and faculty that care about this issue. It is led by Timothy Seidel, Program Director – Peacebuilding, Development, Global Studies. Brian Martin Burkholder, University Chaplain, also a committee member, said, “The ad hoc committee is not empowered by the university to take any university-sanctioned action on this issue, but we are hoping that EMU will soon recognize us.”
According to the Smithsonian, repatriation is when a museum or institution works with a group of people to return human remains or cultural artifacts to the correct group. EMU is currently working on repatriation of these objects and other things. Jim Yoder, professor of biology, program director of biology, chemistry, and environmental science, and curator for the Suter Science Museum, said he is in the early process of repatriating some other anthropological artifacts from the Suter Science Museum.
Dawn Neil, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Coordinator, took the Betts collection off display and moved it to the library. Neil said, “EMU has two different collections of Native American artifacts. One is the Betts collection, which comprises 25 different pieces and is now in the archives, and the second is a collection kept in the Suter Science Museum archives.” The two collections are not related to one another, but EMU is hoping to try to repatriate both collections.
The Betts collection was donated by Erma Schnabel in 1991; the collection belonged to her deceased husband, Merle Betts. Betts had purchased these from various tribes throughout the Southwest of the United States. Schnabel died in 2021 in Souderton, PA, and there is now a scholarship for international undergraduate students in her name.
Trina Trotter Nussbaum, Associate Director of the Center for Interfaith Engagement (CIE), talked about when she attended EMU in the late ‘90s. Nussbaum said, “I remember some artifacts that got repatriated while attending EMU. The Campus Chaplin at the time, Bruce Martin, helped hold a ceremony to return them to the correct times.” From the mid-90s until this year, there have been no new developments in repatriation. Nussbaum said, “It was time for these artifacts to be taken off display. My office got moved in 2013 to the second floor of the Campus Center. I then had to walk past the display case every day to get to my office. This is when I realized we had to get them off display.” Nussbaum continues to say, “About two years ago we had people from VTEC, which is Virginia Tribal Education Consortium, come and tour the campus. It was then that I knew we had to do something. I was embarrassed walking by the display case and showing Native Americans these artifacts.” Nussbaum is glad that they finally have been taken off display. She commented, “It just felt colonial that we were displaying them. I am glad that EMU is trying to return them to the proper tribes.” That process is more complex than it might seem; all of the artifacts are labeled by the tribe but not correctly labeled. Some are just generally labeled like Souix, even if it is more of a specific tribe in the region than the Souix.
