Amy Locklear Hertel to Head American Indian Center at University of North Carolina at Chapel HillPosted in Articles, Campus Life, Media Archive, Native Americans/First Nation, United States, Women on 2012-05-06 22:51Z by Steven |
Amy Locklear Hertel to Head American Indian Center at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Indian Country Today
2012-04-29
Tanya Lee
Amy Locklear Hertel, newly-selected director of the American Indian Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was admonished by her grandmother to pursue her education. “Grandmother told me to get all the education you can. What you learn in your head no one can take away. You need to learn all you can and use it to serve your community. I like to think she would be proud of me,” says Locklear Hertel, who starts her new job May 1.
“All the education you can get” so far includes a B.A. in interpersonal communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), a master’s degree in social work and a Juris doctor from Washington University in St. Louis and a nearly-completed Ph.D. from Washington University’s George Warren Brown School of Social Work.
Going back to UNC will take Locklear Hertel, her husband and their young children, Ava, 3, and Ahren, 1, back home. “I’ve wanted to go home for years, but the right opportunity never came up. I know my purpose is to serve our tribal communities in North Carolina. When this position became available, I felt like I had been training for it all along, with my interdisciplinary work, advocacy, and research in tribal communities. This job fits my interests and abilities and for me it answers the question, ‘How can I best serve our communities?’” Her family and community have been generous in welcoming her home. “Everybody back home has been wonderful, welcoming us,” she says. “They told me when I left I had to come back to serve in this community.”
Locklear Hertel grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a place halfway between her mother’s Coharie and her father’s Lumbee communities that her parents chose so that she and her younger brother would be able to participate in the life of both tribes. Her father worked in a glass factory, and her mother in the Fayetteville school system…
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