@pochedle

A person with black hair stands smiling on a windswept sand dune overlooking Lake Michigan, wearing a green sweater and backpack. Behind them, rolling dunes, grasses, and a blue sky with scattered clouds.

Professor Researching Indigenous Environmental Stewardship with Support from Newberry Fellowship

November 10, 2025

Elan Pochedley, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and 1855 Professor of Great Lakes Anishinaabe Knowledge, Spiritualities, and Cultural Practices, was awarded the Newberry Consortium in American Indian and Indigenous Studies (NCAIS) long-term faculty fellowship to research how Indigenous peoples’ expressions of environmental stewardship and governance have been practiced, sustained, interrupted, and/or rekindled throughout the central and western Great Lakes region.

A photo composite of two people, a woman on the left and a man on the right.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion / Event / Faculty / News / Religious Studies

MSU Honors Inaugural 1855 Professorship Recipients

December 18, 2023

The inaugural roster of 1855 Professorship recipients, along with MSU administrators, Board of Trustees members, faculty, and guests, recently gathered for dinner in the Michigan State University Club Fireplace Room in celebration of this first cohort of Spartan professors who are dedicated to advancing Michigan State University’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) objectives. Included in this first cohort of 1855…

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion / Faculty / Faculty / Faculty Stories / News / Religious Studies / Research / Scholarship

1855 Professor: Researching and Teaching Native American Environmental Ethics

November 17, 2023

Elan Pochedley, Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Michigan State University, focuses much of his research and teaching on understanding the sustainable stewardship that Native Americans have demonstrated toward waters, plants, fish, wildlife, and their food systems. “One thing I’ve brought up in my IAH (Integrative Studies in Arts and Humanities) classes is thinking about how Indigenous…

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion / Faculty / Faculty / News / Religious Studies

Department of Religious Studies Awarded Inaugural 1855 Professorships

April 12, 2023

Michigan State University’s Department of Religious Studies will expand its curriculum to include a focus on Anishinaabe communities, and more broadly, Great Lakes Native American cultures thanks to the creation of two new faculty positions conceived by the Department’s winning proposal for an inaugural 1855 Professorship. Named for the year MSU was founded, the 1855 Professorships, created by the Office…