Regents Professor
History, College of Liberal Arts, 2023
Distinguished McKnight Professor Jean O’Brien, Department of History, joined the University of Minnesota in 1989. She is an award-winning historian and scholar, an intellectual leader who has helped to transform the field of Indigenous Studies, a prodigious and acclaimed author, the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, a nationally-recognized teacher and graduate mentor, a dynamic institution builder who has helped the University of Minnesota achieve its highest academic goals and social ideals, an active public historian, and a generous professional citizen. In short, O’Brien epitomizes the highest standard of excellence the Regents Professorship seeks to recognize.
O’Brien is an historian of Indigenous peoples within the long history of colonialism in what became the United States and in dialogue with the experience of Indigenous peoples globally. She has written three books, co-edited four anthologies, and published more than twenty articles and essays. Her research and publications are reshaping the fields of Native American and Indigenous history. As a scholar working initially in eighteenth and more recently nineteenth century Native New England, O'Brien has systematically and persuasively forced historians to reconsider the nature of Indigenous survival in the region, rewriting our understanding of the Indigenous experience in colonial North America. These achievements have earned her the highest accolades from the most established historical organizations, including the American Antiquarian Association (2000), the Society of American Historians (2016), and, most recently, elected membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2022). Among her many honors, perhaps none speaks more clearly of her extraordinary stature than her American Indian History Lifetime Achievement Award from an organization that brings together older and newer strands of scholarship: the Western History Association (2014). The impact of O’Brien’s scholarship has profoundly re-shaped the field. In 2013, she also co-founded (and co-edited until 2019) a journal published at the University of Minnesota that has gained an international reputation. Native American and Indigenous Studies promotes exciting new scholarship from around the world. The journal enjoys a stellar reputation that supports the work of students, professors, and Indigenous intellectuals. O’Brien has also created opportunities for new scholarship and consciously rejects barriers to inclusion based on rank, prestige, or disciplinary background.
O'Brien is a superb teacher who has taught hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students in core courses in the Departments of History, American Studies, and American Indian Studies. She won the Graduate Teaching Award, Outstanding Contributions to Postbaccalaureate, Graduate, and Professional Education Award from the University of Minnesota (2006), the Richard A. Yarborough Mentoring Award from the American Studies Association (2022), and she is a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers (2006). She has advised or co-advised 31 PhD students (fourteen of whom are Indigenous) who have gone on to successful careers, with another thirteen (nine of whom are Indigenous) currently being advised or co-advised. Previous students include Lisa Blee, associate professor of history, Wake Forest University; Boyd Cothran, associate professor of history and director of Graduate Studies at York University; and Tiya Miles, Michael Garvey Professor of History and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor, Harvard University. O’Brien’s graduate mentorship is admired nationally, as her recent award from the American Studies Association makes clear.
O’Brien’s service, both to the University and within her field, has also made enormous impact. She has been an exemplary member of the Department of History, has chaired two other departments, and has even served on search committees in the School of Music and the Chicano Studies and Afro-American and African Studies departments. She was also a member of the organizing committee for the Keeping Our Faculty of Color symposium in multiple years, serving on the advisory committees for the Bush Faculty Development Program and also the Committee for Mentoring Women Faculty. O’Brien was also instrumental in the formation of the Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender, and Sexuality (RIDGS) Center, and was the driving force in building the Ojibwe language program into a full-fledged major that has become a model for other universities in North America. Within the broader academic community, O’Brien has made numerous contributions to such organizations as the American Historical Association, the American Studies Association, the American Society for Ethnohistory (of which she served as president), the Organization of American Historians, and the Newberry Consortium. O’Brien’s dedicated and transformative work helped to create the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA), which brings U.S.-based scholars together with Indigenous scholars from around the globe and which expanded the research and institutional space allowing Indigenous Studies to thrive. As a White Earth Band of Ojibwe tribal member and as one of the preeminent Indigenous academic leaders globally, O’Brien has also dedicated significant efforts to building an institution that is more responsive and responsible to the Native community on varied issues, including wild rice research in Minnesota and sports mascots.
O’Brien’s institution-building efforts have enabled the University of Minnesota to be the leader it is in American Indian and Indigenous studies. She has shaped the institution for the better by working tirelessly to recruit, promote, and retain a diverse faculty, and mentoring young faculty to success. She has similarly taken on important work in hiring senior administrators who are committed to this work. She is one of the great ambassadors of the University of Minnesota and a true giant in her discipline.