CSU Press Releases

Online University Dean Presents Paper At Major Historical Conference

Tamrala Swafford, Dean of the College of General Studies at Columbia Southern University (CSU), presented a paper at the American Society for Ethnohistory Annual Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma on November 8th. This is a peer-reviewed panel and one of the major historical conferences in the United States.

The theme for this conference is “Tribes and Nations: Persistence and Adaptation of Indigenous Identities” and is co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tulsa and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Her paper is entitled, “Gadugi and the Government Agent: Land Use Decisions in Depression-Era Cherokee, North Carolina.”

Swafford holds a M.A. in English from Jacksonville State University, a M.A. in History/Cherokee Studies from Western Carolina University and is currently a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University in the Department of History. This research is a portion of her dissertation in progress entitled, “Gadugi and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians: Environmental and Economic History, 1934-1984.”

She is also an active member of the American Society for Ethno historians, the Southern Historical Association, American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians and honor societies, Phi Alpha Theta and Pi Gamma Mu.