The University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) commits to acknowledging the land on which we reside. We honor our Native Indigenous communities past, present, and emerging, and recognize the original inhabitants and traditional guardians of what is now Colorado Springs.
We honor this land as the ancestral home of the ‘Nuuchiu’, which includes the Northern Ute, the Southern Ute, and the Ute Mountain Ute Peoples. The ‘Nuuchiu’ originally referred to Pike’s Peak as ‘Tava-kaavi’, or Sun Mountain, being the first peak of the Shining Mountains to see the sun’s rays.
We also recognize the many Indigenous Peoples in this region, including the Apache Nation, the Arapaho Nation, the Cheyenne Nation, the Comanche Tribe, and the Kiowa Tribe, and their historical and continuing relationships as stewards of this land.
Land acknowledgments do not exist in the past or as historical context. Colonialism is a current and ongoing practice, and thus we remain mindful of its present impacts. As an institution of higher education, we share the responsibility to actively listen, reflect, and center the histories and lived experiences of Indigenous Peoples.
In community, we will work to dismantle the tragic and oppressive systems that displaced Native Peoples and commit to promoting Indigenous visibility and re-indigenizing our spaces.