The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a federally chartered establishment located on 140 acres 12 miles southwest of downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico, that offers a nationally accredited higher education program in the field of American Indian and Alaskan native arts and cultures, taught by Native and non-Native professionals, and open to all nationalities. Around 345 students attend IAIA, nearly 4,000 having studied there since it opened its doors, representing 82 tribes from reservations and rural and urban environments across the country. The Institute also houses an on-campus museum, which includes the 7,500-piece National Collection of Contemporary Native American Art and is the chief exhibition facility for contemporary art by Indigenous artists in the United States.
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy gave the Executive Order that established the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), as a high school, under the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and that same year its first class of students began studying at an improvised facility. The driving force behind the IAIA’s launch was World War II veteran and Cherokee Nation member Lloyd Kiva New, who identified the need for a fine arts school with a faculty and staff focused on fostering American and Alaska native artists. New collaborated with Dr. George Boyce, an educator with the same dream, in guiding the IAIA’s development during its formative years, and it gradually blossomed into the foremost training ground for a new generation of Native artists. In 1975 the Institute was converted into a two-year college, offering associate degrees in Studio Arts, Creative Writing, and Museum Studies. Then in 1986 it became one of three congressionally chartered colleges in the nation, and was charged with the study, preservation, and dissemination of traditional and contemporary expressions of Native American language, literature, history, oral traditions, and the visual and performing arts. Art galleries and museums started staging exhibitions of their paintings and sculptures at the institute, and after an Act of Congress transferred a federal building listed in the National Register of Historic Places to the IAIA, the agency’s evolving museum moved into it in 1992. In August 2000 the Institute relocated into its current 140-acre campus, and gradually bolstered its program to include a variety of 4-year baccalaureate degrees. The museum also continued to expand, in 2004 temporarily shutting down as it underwent an extensive renovation and opening again in a 4,000-square-foot downtown site in mid-2005. In 2010 the museum’s permanent collection relocated to the campus’s new science and technology building, a 7,000-square-foot facility where faculty, museum studies students, and visiting scholars can work with staff professionals to gain experience in the care of the collection.
Set in one of the largest art-oriented communities in the country, which also has one of the most diverse concentrations of Native people in North America, the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) offers two- and four-year undergraduate degrees.
They include:
- Associate of Fine Arts, in Creative Writing, New Media Arts and Studio Arts
- Associate of Arts, in Museum Studies and Indigenous Liberal Bachelor of Fine Arts, in Creative Writing, New Media Arts, and Studio Arts
- Bachelor of Arts, in Indigenous Liberal Studies and Museum Studies
Among the variety of courses taught at IAIA are: Indigenous Perspectives on Knowledge; How Indians Made America: American History Before Columbus; American Indian Mapping: Configuring Space and Time; and Story Weaving: Ways of Knowing and Telling.
The institute also offered its first distance learning via the Internet course, a Native Eyes Online Indigenous Studies class that examines a broad range of social, cultural, and world political issues from a tribal perspective. In addition, the Institute had a 6-Week Summer Film and Television program in partnership with Disney/ABC that included both a writer and producer workshop and that bought in acclaimed filmmakers from all over to give hands-on guidance to the selected students.
In addition, the IAIA has an outreach program, Center for Lifelong Education (CLE), funded by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The CLE provides outreach education, training and technical assistance to tribes and Indigenous people locally, nationally, and internationally, including the city of Santa Fe and the immediately surrounding Pueblos; tribes throughout the state of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado; many of the other federally recognized tribes, including Hawaiian natives and Alaskan Native Corporations; and Indigenous people in seven countries in southern Africa. The CLE addresses an assortment of topics, including wellness and nutrition, suicide prevention, community development, and cultural exchange, as it works to promote individual and tribal self-sufficiency.
The IAIA is also involved in many fundraising activities, to help support its operation, and seeks out charitable gifts through a variety of avenues, including a 501 Foundation, endowment programs, and corporate sponsorships, with Financial Aid accessible to IAIA students who want to attend but cannot without assistance. The IAIA Museum is periodically a place for IAIA students to display their work, and primarily a showcase for a wide range of exhibits from major figures in contemporary Native Art. It also hosts traveling exhibitions, and has a programs division that gives a glance into some of the topics IAIA students study, as well as delving into many other areas related to the contemporary Indigenous artist.
From the Web Site of IAIA
Map and Directions
IAIA’s Federal Budget Request for FY 2013 provides this breakdown of anticipated costs:
College & Library $2,408,000
Facility Operations $1,720,000
IAIA Museum $955,000
Finance & Administration $889,000
Admissions, Records, Enrollment $670,000
President’s Office $585,000
Center for Student Life $520,000
Information Systems $450,000
Institutional Advancement $450,000
Learning Support Center $300,000
Capital Improvements $200,000
Board of Trustees $90,000
Institutional Research $82,000
Center for Life Long Education $50,000
Operations Total $9,369,000
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