Welcome Home Project

Ursinus College, Perkiomen Valley School District Partnership With Delaware Tribe of Indians Welcomes Them Home.

The school district and the college will help acknowledge history, culture, and legacy of Lenape people.

Save the DateS: Lenape Symposium 2024
August 7-9, 2024

John Thomas of the Delaware Tribe of Indians speaks about the exhibit of items on loan to the college from the Thomas family.On Tuesday, April 12, 2022, Ursinus hosted the Delaware Tribe of Indians, along with their fellow Lenape Tribes.

On Tuesday, April 12, 2022, Ursinus hosted the Delaware Tribe of Indians, along with their fellow Lenape Tribes. John Thomas speaks about the exhibit of items on loan to teh college from the Thomas family.

Assistant Chief Jeremy Johnson of the Delaware Tribe of Indians speaks prior to signing the statement of mutual intentions during a campus ceremony on April 12, 2022.

College President Jill Marsteller'78, Assistant Chief Jeremy Johnson of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, and Board President Jayson Saylor of the Perkiomen Valley School District sign the statement of mutual intentions, during a campus ceremony on April 12, 2022.

Members of the Delaware Tribe of Indians sing a traditional Lenape song after the signing of the statement of mutual intentions, during a campus ceremony on April 12, 2022.

Welcome Home team

Pictured above left to right: Seamus Clune, Principal, Perkiomen Valley Middle School East; Barbara Russell, Superintendent of Schools, Perkiomen Valley School District; Delaware Tribe Elder, John Thomas; Heather Lobban-Viravong, Vice President for Inclusion and Community Engagement; Lakota Tribe Elder, Faye Thomas.

A Shared Responsibility: Ursinus Hosts Indigenous Representation Symposium

As part of its Welcome Home Project, the Division of Inclusion and Community Engagement and the the Delaware Tribe of Indians co-hosted the first Symposium on Indigenous Representation on August 8 and 9 in the Lenfest Theater and the Innovation and Discovery Center.

Welcome Home: A Historic Partnership

Ursinus began a partnership with the Delaware Tribe of Indians and the Perkiomen Valley School District in 2021 on the Welcome Home Project, which honors the history, culture, and legacy of the Lenape people, who for thousands of years inhabited parts of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania—including the Collegeville area.

Welcome Home

On April 12, our community solidified its connection with the Delaware Tribe of Indians alongside the Perkiomen Valley School District in a historic Welcome Home event.

College Shares Land Acknowledgement Statement

In an email message to the Ursinus community on March 8, 2022, President Marsteller shared the Land Acknowledgement Statement recently approved by college leadership.

Ursinus, PVSD Partnership Brings Delaware Tribe of Indians Home

The school district and the college will help acknowledge history, culture, and legacy of Lenape people.

Partnership with Delaware Tribe of Indians Moves Forward

Chief Brad KillsCrow and Assistant Chief Jeremy Johnson of the Delaware Tribe of Indians visited campus as part of the Welcome Home Project, a partnership that includes Ursinus College and the Perkiomen Valley School District (PVSD).

Early North America: Lori Daggar Assistant Professor of History

The scope of Lori Daggar’s research is as extensive and as complicated as the history of the United States—which is, in fact, just what her book, Cultivating Empire, explores. Daggar’s work focuses on the development of U.S. imperialism in the early 19th century in “Indian Country,” or what is now Ohio and Indiana. In particular, the book project analyzes the work of Quaker missionaries trying to “assimilate the Indians.”

Learn More About Lenape History

The Delaware Tribe is one of many contemporary tribes that descend from the Unami- and Munsee-speaking peoples of the Delaware and Hudson River valleys.