The Myaamia Center is Preserving Native Voices

How Miami University is helping revitalize the Indigenous languages of Turtle Island’s Tribal Nations.
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The Myaamia Center holds a stomp dance at the Miami University practice football field before the 2024 Myaamiaki Conference.

Photograph by Scott Kissell, Miami University

The Myaamia Center at Miami University turns 25 in 2026, marking a quarter century of the university’s efforts to honor the southwest Ohio Indigenous tribe for which it’s named. What started as one employee’s quiet quest to preserve Miami tribal culture, backed by the Miami tribe, has transformed into a larger initiative to revitalize Myaamia language and culture at one of the oldest public universities in the country.

Miami Tribe students attending Miami University receive a handmade graduation stole. Daryl Baldwin, executive director of the Myaamia Center, and Karen Baldwin, who makes the stoles, distribute them during the Myaamia graduation celebration, 2024.

Photograph by Jonathan Fox, Myaamia Center

In addition to the Myaamia Center’s mission, Miami’s National Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous Languages works with more than 20 Tribal Nations to keep these languages from extinction. In late 2024, the institute was awarded a $2.1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to expand access to archival materials, specialized training, and technology through increased grants, apprenticeships, and fellowships, demonstrating the university’s commitment to respecting the history and indigenous people of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.

Staff from the Myaamia Center share cultural education materials at the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma’s annual Winter Gathering in Miami, OK, 2025.

Photograph by Jonathan Fox, Myaamia Center