Reposted from the J. Willard Marriott Library blog.

Every year for the past 10 years, junior high and high school students with Indigenous backgrounds have come to the University of Utah for a week-long storytelling camp.

The popularity of the camp has grown dramatically—what started as a group of 27 students now totals nearly 100. This year, students came from the Uintah Ouray Reservation, Monument Valley and White Mesa and from schools across the Wasatch Front.

While they’re here on campus, the students’ assignment is to create a story through the mediums of podcasting, photography, mural making or animation. Returning campers and new ones alike can be seen all week at home in the podcast booths, painting in ProtoSpace and roaming campus with cameras and lighting in hand.

The idea is to give these students a glimpse of what college looks like. Martha Macumber, director of Native outreach and college access, explained, “In addition to this camp being fun and enriching to the students, the U gets much more than we give. We are a much better university when we have an authentic relationship with the Native Tribes of Utah. A week with these students is a gift that all of us who are involved with the camp cherish."

The library’s role, with its wide array of makerspace equipment and the staffing to teach students how to use it, makes for the right environment for the camp. The library is a second home for students across campus, so it's also the natural starting place for Native students to come and orient themselves to campus life. This is where students come to find resources, connection, relaxation and the space to lock in and get things done. This camp is a gateway to college, and the library is where participants first find comfort and belonging; they then launch into further campus exploration.

Yellow Moon Vanderhoop isn’t a stranger to the Indigenous Storytelling Camp. She first attended the camp in middle school. Now she is involved in the camp as a teacher-student, assisting the students throughout the four days of their work during the camp. Yellow (as she’s known by) enrolled at the U in 2024 and is working on a bachelor’s degree in art education. She wants to teach art to indigenous and other minority students.

“I think the camp really helps open kids up to education, because they come away feeling included,” Vanderhoop explained. “When I came to the camp when I was in middle school, the lightbulb came on and a whole new world came into view. Now I’m on the road to a bachelor’s degree and so excited to be working with Indigenous students and to have a future with them.”

There is a blend of people, space and resources that all combine to create opportunities for teaching and practicing storytelling. “The storytelling camp is a community. The kids who attend, the chaperones who put in extra hours, the families who place their trust in us, the educators from campus and participating schools that build and deliver workshops and those who come just to listen... all of this creates a fabric of connection for these kids,” said TJ Ferrill, assistant head of creative spaces. “Woven into that fabric is the message that they are valued, their stories are cherished and their futures are worth investment. The kids learn skills that carry them forward, and the rest of us get full hearts and goosebumps and a lingering sense that there is more we can do still.”

The camp is initiated out of the Native Outreach and College Access Program in the U’s Office of Undergraduate Studies. Other partners include the Center for Native Excellence and Tribal Engagement, College of Fine Arts, the College of Education, Housing and Dining Programs, Campus Recreation Services, University Information Technologies, Red Butte Garden and Arboretum, the Student Union, U Career Success, the Office of Sustainability and the College of Architecture and Planning.