Cynthia Chavez Lamar CC ’92 has been nominated to the board of trustees of the Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development by President Barack Obama. She becomes the sixth Colorado College alumni to be selected for a position with the current administration. Chavez Lamar is the director of the Indian Arts Research Center at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, N.M., where she works to foster collaborative relationships and projects among Native peoples, organizations, and institutions. She is the former museum director of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, and the former associate curator of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
Colorado College presented her with an honorary doctorate in 2008 and she received a governor’s appointment to the New Mexico Arts Commission in 2009. Chavez Lamar also was the guest lecturer at the October 2008 Aficionados Luncheon and Lecture, where she discussed “Respecting the Past, Engaging the Present: Pueblo Artists of the 21st Century.”
The other five CC alumni in the current administration are:
- Harris Sherman ’64, agriculture undersecretary for natural resources and environment
- Jane Lubchenco ’69, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- Marcia Kemper McNutt ’74, director of the U.S. Geological Survey
- Ken Salazar ’77, Secretary of the Interior
- Lori Garver ’83, deputy administrator at NASA
