Learning and Working Together Across Cultures

Shirley Williams (Kusemaat) is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Whiteswan Environmental, an Indigenous-led nonprofit advancing place-based education, cultural restoration, and environmental stewardship in the Salish Sea. A Lummi leader and co-founder of Whatcom Intergenerational High School, she works to align Indigenous knowledge systems with public education through the 13 Moons curriculum, supporting youth pathways, Tribal sovereignty education, and Truth, Healing, and Reconcili-ACTION. 

Travis Tennessen is the founder and convener of Community Engagement Fellows, and directs the WWU Center for Community Learning. His research and teaching about environmental conflicts inspired his work to convene and develop social learning tools that foster healing, mutual recognition, and collaboration across sectors and cultures. He received his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is an honorary member of the Wenger-Trayner Social Learning Lab.

Gene Myers (BA in Human Ecology from Huxley College / CENV, WWU, 1982 and Ph.D. in interdisciplinary Human Development, Univ. of Chicago, 1994) is a human ecologist and applied social developmental psychologist. Much of what he does is learn with my students how to help them become well-oriented and competent educators in the complex space of learning in coupled socio-cultural-natural systems. Much of his learning in this has happened via  4 decades+ experiential spring 4-course practicum, now done in collaboration with Indigenous partners here.

Kwastlmut – Sadie Olsen is a Lhaq'temish (Lummi) member and co-founder of Whiteswan Environmental, an Indigenous-led nonprofit advancing cultural restoration, place-based education, and environmental stewardship in the Salish Sea. A graduate of Northwest Indian College’s Bachelor of Science in Native Environmental Science program, she focuses on revitalizing Indigenous knowledge systems through classroom to place-based learning. She received the 30 Under 30 Changemakers Award for Social Justice for co-founding Whatcom Intergenerational High School and currently serves in a 900-hour AmeriCorps position supporting partnership work between Whiteswan Environmental, Whatcom Intergenerational High School, and Western Washington University’s Center for Community Learning and the College of Environment. Her work supports youth leadership, decolonization, and the restoration of longhouses and ancestral homelands, grounded in relationship, health, and cultural resurgence.