Coates Course

For being the one aspect of this course that was intensive in-class lecture historical learning (and the 9-hour Saturdays were real intense), the Coates lectures were excellent. The nature of the course as the officially sanctioned requirement for CN employees by the Chief combined with the esteemed Dr./Councilwoman Coates leading the course gave it much legitimacy as well. Learning a course of virtually brand new information that elementary through collegiate history has overlooked was very exciting as well. Having a tag team of Cherokee Nation politicians having written the book and feeding it to us is obviously potentially susceptible for bias, especially for certain issues such as the freedmen and the UKB, but on the whole it was fine, and having other established scholars helped to avoid that kind of riff-raff.

In regard to the course intensity, the catered Saturday lunches, unlimited drinks, coffee and bagels made the long days much more tolerable. And the chairs were awesome as well.