Udall Foundation Welcomes New Member of the Board of Trustees
Posted:
11/20/2024
In September 2024, Heather Cahoon was appointed to the Board of Trustees (Board) of the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation (Udall Foundation) by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. after confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Cahoon, the Udall Foundation’s first Trustee from the state of Montana, replaced long-serving Trustee and former Board Chair Eric D. Eberhard. The Udall Foundation welcomed Cahoon to her first Board of Trustees Meeting on October 30, 2024.
"The Board is very excited to welcome Heather Cahoon as a Udall Foundation Trustee,” said Board Chair Lisa Johnson-Billy. “Heather has a wide range of experience on issues directly related to the Udall Foundation’s mission and programs. I look forward to working with her in the coming years as the Board continues to provide supervision and direction to the agency regarding its congressionally mandated work."
Heather Cahoon said, “It is a pleasure and honor to be chosen to serve on the Udall Foundation Board of Trustees. The impact of the Udall Foundation, through its environmental and Native programming, resonates closely with my own professional and personal experiences. I look forward to supporting and furthering the agency’s programs and service to the Nation in my role as a Trustee.”
Cahoon is an award-winning poet, scholar of Federal Indian policy, and an Associate Professor of Native American Studies at the University of Montana. She holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies and an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Montana. She is also the founder and former Director of the American Indian Governance and Policy Institute.
Learn more about Udall Foundation Trustee Heather Cahoon by reading her bio.
About the Udall Foundation
The Morris K. Udall Foundation was established by the U.S. Congress in 1992 as an independent executive branch agency to honor Morris K. Udall's lasting impact on this Nation’s environment, public lands, and natural resources, and his support of the rights and self-governance of Native Americans and Alaska Natives. In 2009, Congress enacted legislation to also honor Stewart L. Udall for his half century of distinguished national leadership in environmental and Native American policy. The agency is known today as the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation (Udall Foundation) and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona.
The Udall Foundation is authorized by Congress to:
- Award Scholarships, Fellowships, and Internships for study in fields related to the environment and to Native Americans and Alaska Natives in fields related to health care and Tribal public policy.
- Connect youth to the Nation’s public lands and natural resources to foster greater understanding, appreciation, stewardship, and enjoyment of those lands and resources through photography, positive outdoor experiences, and environmental education through the Stewart L. Udall Parks in Focus® Program.
- Provide funding to the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy to conduct policy research and outreach on the environment and related themes.
- Provide funding to the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, a program of the Udall Center, for research, education, and outreach on Native American and Alaska Native health care issues and Tribal public policy issues.
- Provide funding to The University of Arizona Libraries, Special Collections to serve as the repository for the papers of Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall and other such public papers as may be appropriate and assure such papers' availability to the public.
- Provide impartial collaboration, consensus-building, training, and conflict resolution services on a wide range of environmental, natural and cultural resources, Tribal, and public lands issues, conflicts, and disputes involving the Federal Government through the John S. McCain III National Center for Environmental Conflict Resolution.
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