This year’s Native American Heritage Month during November marks five years since the founding of the Native American Student Association on Elon’s campus. 

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Five years ago, a group of Elon students with Native American heritage recognized the need for a space where they could connect with one another and educate their peers about their unique cultures. This vision led to the creation of the Native American Student Association (NASA).

NASA was formally founded in the spring of 2018 by Arielle Watkins ’18, Bear Tosé ’18 and Xena Burwell ’18. That formal founding followed a vision created years before when the three students conceptualized NASA and laid the groundwork for the club during their first year at Elon. But they saw the full product of their work when the club was officially registered in 2018 during their senior year.

Paula Patch, a senior lecturer in English and the club’s faculty adviser, expressed pride in the club’s growth since its founding. “Over the past five years, this small group of students has kept the organization alive, and they have slowly built up the capacity to host events,” said Patch. “I am very proud of the work that the students have done in the past two years, in partnership with the CREDE especially, to host events and raise awareness of Native and Indigenous culture.”

Jorah Midgette ‘25 is currently president of NASA and said has found a community within the organization. Midgette has dedicated time to creating a safe community for Native American and Indigenous students on campus since she joined the organization during her sophomore year.

“Before coming to Elon, I hadn’t been very educated on my own Native heritage, so being able to explore my own background more while connecting with fellow Native American and Indigenous students has been great!” said Midgette. “As NASA, we want other members and students of the Elon community to know that we are here and that we are hopeful about increasing the conversation around Indigenous and Native American voices on Elon’s campus.”

Patch has been the faculty advisor for NASA since its inception. While the club has continued to grow, due to the very small number of Native-identifying students at Elon, it has been hard to keep the organization full over the years. According to Elon’s 2022-23 Fact Book, students who self-identify as American Indian make up 0.1 percent of Elon’s undergraduate population. Luckily, NASA has been able to partner with the Center for Race, Ethnicity, & Diversity Education (CREDE) to expand its influence throughout the campus and connect with a broader audience.

“Our vetting and continuation process for student organizations is dependent in part on membership numbers, leadership positions, and the availability of members to attend mandatory training,” said Patch. “As the adviser for this organization, I wanted to ensure that the organization could exist even if some of these conditions were not able to be met until Elon has more Native-identifying students.”

Midgette is a member of the Lumbee tribe and hopes to use her position as president to create a closer relationship with the Elon community, highlight the need for inclusivity on campus, and increase educational awareness for Native American- and Indigenous-identifying individuals. Another advocacy goal for NASA is to push for more Native and Indigenous content in the curriculum and more Native- and Indigenous-identifying faculty or staff to be hired.

While NASA’s primary focus is on holding a safe space on campus for Native-identifying students at Elon, the group has slowly built up the capacity to host events on Elon’s campus. NASA is currently looking into hosting a pow-wow or another community event on campus that would allow students to learn more about themselves and their own heritage. They are also hoping to work with Native student organizations at other universities, such as UNC-Greensboro and UNC-Chapel Hill.

Throughout Native American Heritage Month in November, there have been a variety of events that enable students to gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their cultural heritage.

The CREDE has hosted a beading workshop with a local member of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, and a virtual art showcase displaying Native American art pieces. NASA is co-hosted an event with the French Club for a film viewing and discussion of the movie, “Kuessipan” on Nov. 15.

With a focus on creating meaningful connections and educational opportunities, NASA continues to empower students to deepen their understanding of their cultural heritage throughout November and beyond.

Travis Carlson, a filmmaker from Gerry and an avid Buffalo Bills fan, created a comic style adventure book, titled, “Mafia: Buffalo vs. The Multiverse.” The book takes a week-by-week journey through the Buffalo Bills season beginning prior to last year, with opponents as fictional characters presenting a challenge to the Buffalo Bills inspired characters, led by “Josh of Allentown.”

A graduate of Cassadaga Valley High School in the Class of 2009, Carlson owns a film company called Pan-American Film Division. From the writing, illustrations, and the promotional trailers for the book, Carlson has been the one steering the ship the whole time. Because of that, this project is one of the most gratifying works of his career.

“It’s incredibly rewarding. This project has been a 15-month labor of love,” Carlson said. Carlson called the completion of the project “a massive relief” because of the amount of work he put into it in all aspects.

Carlson relied on his filmmaking prowess to promote his book, as he organized and directed a video featuring 60 crew members to help his fan fiction vision come to life. The crew composed a four-minute video on May 20 to 21, shot on multiple stories of the Buffalo RiverWorks site. The video was shot on a camera held by a drone, while Carlson directed the action via walkie talkie.

A comic style adventure book, titled, “Mafia: Buffalo vs. The Multiverse,” was created by Gerry native Travis Carlson. The book is now available for purchase.
Photos created by Travis Carlson

Carlson began exploring the concept of his book through writing fan fiction stories in online blogs. Over time, he honed his craft as a writer and began to pursue the idea as a tangible work of art.

“I started this just for my own interest, writing something that I thought would be fun, just for myself,” Carlson said.

His first post had roughly 50 viewers, and even fewer in subsequent posts. “I am now, retrospectively, going to say that proves I was writing it only for myself,” Carlson joked.

Armed with the latest Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, Carlson transformed his stories into a full-length book – well over 200 pages in length – with images he created by using the latest advancements in AI.

“It’s just insane how fast it has moved,” Carlson said of AI advancements in recent years.

Travis Carlson, a Gerry native, directed a Bills Mafia fan fiction video to promote his book, Mafia: Buffalo vs. The Multiverse, back in May. A portion of the book’s proceeds benefit the Pancho Packs initiative to provide school supplies to students in need.
Photo courtesy of Szobski Design

Initially, Carlson asked artists to create the book’s illustrations, but the artists he contacted about contributing to his project all stated they would struggle to produce photographs for use within a week’s timeframe, as Carlson produced the book week by week. That led him to AI, where he created the photos himself with MidJourney, an AI art generator.

“I was able to generate thousands of images,” Carlson said. “It went from being unable to create one image a week, to I was creating 2,000 images a week.”

Producing the images as a work of expression allowed Carlson to use the likeness of athletes and team logos. Carlson compared the use of AI to the development of other technologies over the years, such as the shift from typewriters and traditional portraits to using computers and cameras.

“This book wouldn’t have been possible without the tools that have emerged, literally as we’ve gone through it in the past year,” Carlson said. “I look at it as a tool. The tools aren’t going to replace anybody, it is just changing how much we can do and how fast we can do it.”

As a Gerry native, Carlson feels a strong desire to shine a spotlight on Western New York. That desire was a motivating factor throughout the process of writing and creating the book.

“I would consider Western New York being a little overlooked, especially in the national mindset. Being from here, feeling like an underdog, I have a lot of passion to make great work from here and about western New York,” Carlson said. “This project was one of those endeavors. … It certainly has an incredible amount of tender love and care.”

Carlson has pledged to donate 50% of the revenue to benefit the Pancho Packs initiative, which provides school supplies to students in need. Since the inception of the project and promotional video, more than $20,000 has been raised to benefit the Pancho Packs initiative.

Visit panamericanfilms.com for a link to purchase the book directly, where you can also view a promotional video Carlson created. The book is also available in a few select bookstores across Western New York, including the Good Neighbor Bookstore in Lakewood and Chautauqua Comics in Jamestown.