Welcome! The Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) online minor systemwide initiative was launched to connect NAIS programs and departments throughout the UCs by developing a common pool of online courses to help working students complete their degrees, and make NAIS courses from programs throughout the system more accessible to community members and the public through open campus enrollment programs.

This initiative began five years ago (2020-2021) when Provost Mary Croughan invited the the Department of Native American Studies (NAS) at UC Davis to develop a “systemwide online minor in Native American Studies” for the UC system. This logo for this Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) online minor initiative was designed intentionally to represent our respect for and solidarity with all Native American Studies (NAS), American Indian Studies (AIS), and those scholars on campuses where there are no such programs who engage in research and teaching in some area of Indigenous Studies (IS).

Our hope is to build relations among NAIS faculty and affiliates to better serve students throughout the system with more online course offerings. Our intention as a Department of Native American Studies is to pursue this initiative as a way to collaborate and mutually support our respective programs throughout the system. Some UC campuses have a robust number of faculty and courses, with majors and minors in place, while some campuses do not have anything in the way of NAS or AIS, or even Ethnic Studies (ETS) programs, where courses focusing on Indigenous peoples might exist. 

The UC Davis online NAIS minor was launched in winter of 2026, and accepts online courses created for this minor by faculty from campuses other than UC Davis towards our own minor and major.