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October 10, 2025 · 1:59 pm

An Honorary Doctorate

I am, at this moment, completely stunned. I understand I was nominated by Dr. Elmer Guy, President of Navajo Technical University and Carrie Billie, the former Executive Director of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. I cannot thank them and the selection committee at WINU enough.

World Indigenous Nations University

1 October 2025

The Office of the Chancellery

World Indigenous Nations University

winuenquiries@gmail.com

Mr Thomas (Tom) Davis Navajo Technical University

Lowerpoint Road, State Hwy 371 Crownpoint, New Mexico, 87313 Email: tdavis@navajotech.edu

Dear Tom

Re: Recommendation to receive a 2025 WINU Honorary Doctorate – Education (EdD) for Indigenous Education

The World Indigenous Nations University (WINU) was launched in 2014 at Crownpoint, New Mexico, USA, heralding in a new era of Indigenous higher education. The formation of WINU represented the culmination of global consultations with a gathering of First Nations educators, scholars, knowledge holders and Elders over an extensive period to establish a more culturally inclusive and responsive higher education system for their people. An inspiring source of WINU’s formation has been the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC), which called for critical changes to take place in the engagement of First Nations peoples in higher education.

Every year nominations are called for the WINU Honorary Doctorate Awards. They recognize the meritorious work of Indigenous Educators, Scholars, Knowledge Holders/Elders who their peers and community acknowledge as an inspirational leader. It gives me immense pleasure to advise you that a successful nomination has been received by the WINU International Review Committee nominating you for a 2025 World Indigenous Nations University (WINU) Honorary Doctorate as an outstanding Educator and Knowledge Holder.

The nomination received from Dr Elmer J. Guy and Carrie L. Billy and supported by the Navajo Technical University, acknowledges and honors your contributions as a transformative leader and active participant in the Tribal College movement since the 1990s, in the United States and globally. Carrie’s biographical statement of your achievements provides details of your leadership, advice and expertise that has helped transform Navajo Technical University and several other tribal colleges and universities, through partnerships, research programs, initiatives and new academic programs. Globally, you are recognized as instrumental in the creation of the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium.

The conferral of the WINU Honorary Doctorate upon you is seen as honoring and profiling your exemplary dedication and contributions through your work at the local, national and global levels. Your nominees seek to celebrate and salute you for the many gains you have made through your meritorious and scholarly contributions, which have advanced Indigenous education through your transformational leadership, diligence and commitment.

The WINU Board of Governors and the International Review Committee have endorsed that the meritorious Award of WINU Honorary Doctorate – Education (EdD) for Indigenous Education, be conferred upon you at this year’s annual WINU Conferral Ceremony, which will be hosted by Te Wananga o Aotearoa, Mangere Campus, Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand. This ceremony is an integral part of the WINHEC AGM scheduled for 13-14 November 2025.

The conferral of the WINU Honorary Doctorate upon you pays homage to the pertinence of your work to the Articles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to the foundational goals and objectives of the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC) and the World Indigenous Nations University (WINU).

Congratulations on the success of your nomination for this most meritorious Honorary Award.

Accordingly, you are invited to attend this year’s Ceremony at the 2025 WINHEC/WINU Annual General Meeting being hosted by Te Wananga o Aotearoa, Mangere Campus, 15 Canning Crescent, Mangere, Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand, where you will be officially conferred with the WINU Honorary Doctorate – Education (EdD) for Indigenous Education.

Unfortunately, WINU cannot assist with travel, accommodation or the WINHEC registration fee. However, should you wish to attend the meetings the registration and accommodation details can be found on the WINHEC website www.winhec.org. Please contact Dr Berice Anning, the Deputy Vice Chancellor WINU via email: winuenquiries@gmail.com to advise if you will be attending the Conferral Ceremony in person.

We look forward to receiving your advice as to whether you wish to accept the 2025 WINU Honorary Doctorate – Education (EdD) for Indigenous Education, and if so, whether you can attend this year’s formal Conferral Ceremony in Aotearoa.

On closing, the WINU Executive again extends to you the sincerest congratulations on the success of your nomination for this most deserving and meritorious honorary award

Professor Boni Robertson     Professor Jolan Hsieh

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March 30, 2025 · 3:48 pm

Hayes Lewis

Too many of the great American Indian leaders in education are passing. I keep mourning each one as they go beyond the blanket to where I cannot see. Thomas Davis

Hayes Lewis

I have been thinking about Hayes today,
How Agent Orange and his time in Viet Nam got him in the end,
But like all of us,
The ending is not the story,
Not the stone that has been shaped into a fetish
That means more than what it represents.

He was gentle, softspoken,
But the dreams he had!
He wanted to somehow reach into the spirit
Of every Zuni and American Indian child and young person
And stir alive with what they really are,
A blessing on the earth.
A gentle rain after weeks of unrelenting sun
That explodes the high desert into wildflowers,
Sun flowers, bee balm, Indian paintbrush,
The colors of life as bright as any rainbow.

As a Superintendent of Schools
He worked hard to stir up accomplishments
Inherent in spirits touched by the spirit
Of the Zuni heritage and history.
At the Institute of American Indian Arts
He worked to allow the creative fires
At the heart of who American tribal people are
To create a renaissance 
So powerful it would wipe away
The foolish prejudices and preconceptions
Of those who still believe that Indian live in teepees
And have failed to join the contemporary world.
At A:shwi College he labored
To bring a college into being,
A tribal college that honored language, culture, and history
By bringing it alive,
Making it the heart of what learning should be.

But even this is only a little bit of what he was.
He has been one of those people
Who speak and people listen.
One of those people whose courage
Is not in their deeds alone,
But in the presence of how they hold themselves
As season passes season and days become a summation
Of all that is good and perfect upon the good earth.

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March 7, 2025 · 9:45 am

Recipe for Metamorphosis, Democracy to Dictatorship

By Thomas Davis

First, secure a charismatic character,
preferably a male who has lived a flawed life 
seething with perceived slights and resentments.
Then have him attract two kinds of followers:
those who believe society has left them unfairly behind
and those who can imagine their support for such a leader
can help them gain power, wealth, or prestige.

After the charismatic leader secures followers 
through outrageous statements and dramatic performative art,
enflame resentments against elites and their status quo,
laying claim to a mythological glorious past with glorious values
that only a Great Leader can magically bring back to life—
as Christ did with Lazarus.
Claim divine intervention in the Great Leader’s life,
proving beyond doubt that God is on the Great Leader’s side
as he crusades against society’s carnage brought about by elites,
even if they masquerade as common people,
that have gained benefits they clearly don’t deserve.

Then, have the Anointed One win His election
by making Him the only news worth covering by the press
as he attacks the press and paints them as part of the hated elite.
Let the Great Leader encourage his followers 
to attack those not absolutely on his and their side
so that everyone begins to fear being the target of the Great Leader’s wrath.
Attack the integrity of elections, 
claiming fraud where no fraud exists.
Eliminate voters from voting rolls in places where the vote might be negative.
And always, let the Great Leader be outrageous and bold
and filled with the glory of who He is and who He will be.

Then mix in rich oligarchs willing to fund
ugly campaigns against any opposition,
creating division among different populations of people whenever possible,
making good people afraid to step out in the line fire,
fearing to have reputations and lives damaged by lies advertised against them.
Enrich the supporting rich with government largesse beyond measure.
as power flows into the Great Leader’s glory.
Develop and implement policies that hurt
the stranger, the poor, the old, the handicapped, anyone
who his followers can see as lesser than themselves because of his actions.

Create a new Golden Age 
brought to fruition by the Great Leader’s genius
as he thumps his chest and has his minions praise his glorious leadership
over and over again.

Celebrate dictators around the world and attack democracies as leeches
taking unfair advantage of a country that has benefited from their trade
and become the rich democracy it has become.
Get the public to recognize the glorious strength of strong men.

Accustom those who have always seen themselves as good people
to cruelty as immigrant children and families are deported,
starving children in famine areas die as aid that kept them alive is yanked away,
and families with the need for special programs spend nights crying
as they worry about whether they are going to lose benefits
and lose all as they face increased disability, illness, or some other devastation.

Let the Great Leader mock those who fought in the War to End All Wars 
or the soldiers who protected the country 
or became prisoners of war because they were fools
as he declares love for the military he attacks,
weakening the honor a country has for its independent military structure.
Then begin to erode the rights of the press and poets who write poems he doesn’t like
or artists who create art that anybody who is Great can see is ugly.
And always, create dramas that dominate the news
as He mocks those who report on or oppose his antics,
claiming He is the only one whose words count,
that the Great Leader who saves the country can break no law or tell no lie.

And as you are doing all of this, 
use raw power to begin dismantling society’s norms and institutions, 
creating norms and institutions in Your image,
claiming norms and institutions that created and maintained
peace and prosperity for seventy years has led to carnage and failure.

And after institutions and norms have been damaged beyond repair,
point out how terrible the previous leadership was to allow such failures
and blame them for every problem the Great Leader creates.
Surround the Great Leader with sycophants
as everyone must acknowledge the gloriousness of the Great Leader’s Glory.

Metamorphosis is complete:
Democracy is no longer needed.  The Great, divine Leader is the country that serves him.

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