The Many Nations Longhouse filled with smoke from the fire, filtering through the tears and the laughs of speakers Sunday night and hung just as heavily as the sadness for the death of University professor Robert Proudfoot.
Proudfoot, a University associate professor of international studies and a member of the Seneca Nation of Indians, died in his sleep Wednesday. He was 63.
Mitch Wilkinson, a colleague and close friend of Proudfoot, began the ceremony with singing while he touched the small wooden box containing Proudfoot’s ashes placed atop an animal skin. This was done by all the speakers as they said goodbye to their friend and colleague.
“We’re here. We’re here, the people are here and our brother is here tonight,” Wilkinson said, stopping for moments when his tears overpowered his voice.
“He gave us so much; He gave of himself, every ounce of himself, to each of us,” Wilkinson said. “In the end he gave everything.”
Proudfoot played a significant role in creating the Many Nations Longhouse on campus, a building intended to serve as a community gathering point for tribe members, although his family and fellow faculty agreed that his voice will be his most remembered and cherished contribution.
He will live on in “the physical monuments of this longhouse and the more enduring monuments of our hearts,” University president Dave Frohnmayer said during the ceremony.
The fire, burning behind the remains of Proudfoot, began to crackle and the room grew warmer as Wilkinson asked the sisters, uncles, nieces and friends to stand, one by one, until the entire audience was on foot.
Wilkinson said there should be laughs along with the tears.
The stories, jokes and words of Proudfoot were the subject of many speeches at the ceremony, something most agreed revealed the warmth he shared and exuded.
A faculty member since 1991, Proudfoot expanded his teaching beyond the walls of the classroom, establishing the Vietnam-Oregon Sister Universities Project, traveling to Vietnam 53 times during the past 20 years, his colleague said.
Frohnmayer accompanied Proudfoot to Vietnam last summer, something that helped him realize the impact the professor had made across nations, nationalities and generations, he said Sunday.
Throughout his tenure at the University, Proudfoot was a well-known professor in the International Studies Program.
“He gave us the foundation to be good, conscious students in the International Studies Program,” said Adrienne Chaille, a senior in the program. She described him as an influential professor who was warm and welcoming to the many students who passed through his office and classroom doors.
Proudfoot was also the founder and director of the Center for Indigenous Cultural Survival, or CICS, a University organization dedicated to creating and sustaining cross-indigenous communities, according to the organization’s Web site.
Proudfoot reached out in the University and in the world, said Rennard Strickland, a University law professor.
“We were fighting an important battle, not just a battle in the Native American community,” he said.
Proudfoot earned his doctorate in 1984 from Oregon State University, where he also received his master’s degree in cross-cultural education. He was notably the first American to receive an honorary Ph.D. from Vietnam National University, according to the CICS Web site.
During his teaching career, Proudfoot was awarded both the Herman and Ersted distinguished teaching awards. In 2000 he was awarded the University Charles E. Johnson award, which is presented to a faculty member each year “who has demonstrated exceptional service to the University and its community,” according to the University.
Proudfoot is survived by two sisters and one brother.
UO professor leaves lasting impression
Daily Emerald
October 8, 2006
Jack Liu
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