Born in Wisconsin in 1916 to a Chippewa Algonquin father and an Oneida Iroquois mother, Geraldine Decoteau Harvey MS’50 became the first known Native American student to graduate from the UW when she earned a master’s degree in education in 1950. Before that, she was one of the first Native American women to receive an undergraduate degree anywhere, graduating from Sioux Falls College. (Ada Deer ’57 later became the first Native American woman to earn an undergraduate degree from the UW.) Harvey dedicated her life to teaching Native American children across the country, working in communities of the Menominee, Sioux, Apache, Sac and Fox, Cheyenne, and Pueblo nations. Her teaching methods were considered ahead of their time, as she believed in fully immersing her students in the educational experience. After years of travelling to remote areas, she eventually settled in Taos, New Mexico, where she continued to teach in Native communities until her death in 2006.