On June 5, 2025, Pawnee Nation College was honored to cohost the national roundtable on Redesigning the Sexual Assault Kit with the Smithsonian Museum’s Cooper Hewitt Museum of Design and the National Museum of American History, Division of Medicine and Science. Pawnee Nation College Board of Trustees Chairwoman, Cordelia Clapp, RN, BSN, provided the traditional opening blessing in full buckskin signing The Lord’s Prayer at the site of the former Pawnee Boarding School.
Mrs. Clapp, RN, BSN, introduced the national audience to “… the sacred place, Pawnee Nation Boarding School, where our Pawnee children and those of surrounding tribes were taken from their families to civilize us by removing our children from our people and not allowing them to speak their language. They were placed in uniforms, taught our children to march to and from their rooms, and the children’s cries and prayers were heard by the walls of the dining room” from where the national roundtable was broadcast. “The heavens heard their cries and prayers, and we were blessed with this outstanding event of having the Smithsonian asking a Pawnee tribal member to do the opening blessing there at our Pawnee Nation College. This was a deep honor to give to those who were housed at our Pawnee Boarding School.”
Mrs. Clapp is the co-author of SAFESTAR [Sexual Assault Forensic Examination, Safety, Training, and Access to Resources], an indigenous response to sexual violence featured prominently in the roundtable. “Cordelia is a nationally recognized nurse educator with a passionate interest in decreasing violence against women and sexual assault among children as well as in eliminating behavioral health disparities among tribal communities.” said roundtable presenter and SAFESTAR co-author, Hallie Bongar White. “She has built her expertise during more than 35 years of nursing and with decades of work collaborating with the Office on Violence Against Women, United States Department of Justice. Her work redesigning and “indigenizing” the sexual assault forensic examination kit makes our communities safer, healthier, and more just.”
Mrs. Clapp’s decades of public service include serving as a member of the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women under 2 different presidential administrations. She is also the recipient of the National Indian Health Board’s Local Impact Award.
The roundtable was sponsored, in part, by Mariska Hargitay [of Law and Order: Special Victims’ Unit fame] and her Joyful Heart Foundation. Other presenters included New York Times journalist Pagan Kennedy (who provided a short history of Martha “Marty” Goddard’s original Vitullo Evidence Collection Kit for Sexual Assault Examination] Detroit Michigan and Wayne County District Attorney Kym L. Worthy, and Smithsonian curators Alexandra Cunningham Cameron and Dr. Katherine Ott.
