Hokie Feature: Mae Hey
November marks American Indian Heritage Month and Mae Hey has been a leader in connecting, teaching, and supporting American Indian and Indigenous communities with students at Virginia Tech. As an assistant professor of American Studies, Hey utilizes Virginia Tech’s land to cultivate opportunities for learning. Hey preaches the purpose of education is to become a better being.
“Learning is a change in behavior.”
Hey admired Virginia Tech’s outdoors and the opportunities the land held. Specifically, Hey was drawn by the horses at Tech that she had the ability to work with. Virginia Tech allows for learning outside the classroom. She believes local knowledge is most important and Tech has a large community of young and old that can teach each other.
“Knowledge comes from collecting, gathering, and sharing information that is coming from the land around us.”
To help evoke her best self, Hey follows the medicine wheel balancing physical, social, spiritual, and intellectual wellbeing with the help of air (medium of exchange) and Earth (teachings). A balance leads to an inner fire (motivation) which will lead to vision, goals, and growth.
Movement is important to Hey because it clears her mind and warms her body up to get rid of any iciness. Hey finds movement not only in the gym, but in nature around her. She spends her time training horses, snowboarding, paddleboarding, biking to work, baking, and gardening. A piece of advice given by Hey is to find different ways of moving to not get stuck in a repetitive routine that will eventually slow one down. Try to stay open to everything.
“I think that’s what is important about movement. Looking just for the perfect thing that keeps your body able to move and lubricated.”
A memory Hey has of home back in Canada is a ceremony known as ‘The Walk.’ Hey and her family walked through the woods from their grandma’s house to her sisters house to eat cookies and drink ginger ale. Spending time with elders and enjoying the nature around is an irreplaceable feeling. This year, Hey planned a Tech version of ‘The Walk.’ She loaded a van with students to travel to Pandapas to forage with faculty and elders.
In 2018, Hey started on a path to food security requested by tribes in Southern Virginia. Hey offers many trips for students to build and maintain tribal gardens around the state. There’s additional trips for students to visit Native relatives at powwows. She emphasizes that it’s important to gather and food is a ceremony. Over Thanksgiving break, Hey travels to Richmond with a few students to make and distribute pumpkin pies for Richmond residents to have a nice meal. November is a very busy month for Hey, but she is working year round with tribal communities to harvest food, gather it, and prepare meals.
“As my mom always said, ‘If you’re not giving thanks everyday you’re missing the point.’”
On December 3rd, the American Indian and Indigenous Community Center is hosting David Anderson to talk about the Eastern Band of Cherokee’s agriculture future and food viability.