Instructor
(719) 502-3200 | nawana.salimbeni@pikespeak.edu
Box C16, Centennial | F-200
Nawana Salimbeni
M.A., University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
I've lived in Europe and Mexico and traveled to many different parts of the world.
Doing so gave me a keen appreciation for tradition and culture and the diversity people
are capable of incorporating into their daily lives. I've been teaching history in
Colorado since my graduation from the University of Colorado and I truly learn something
new each year from my students. I also spent three years at the University of New
Mexico in Albuquerque, studying Indigenous and Latin American history. Pueblo culture
fascinates me as it has similarities to my own Indigenous ancestors; the Cherokee
and Choctaw of Oklahoma. In the southwestern United States it's fascinating to see
the agricultural traditions that have sustained Indigenous people for generations,
melded with Spanish, Italian, and Irish settler cultures. I believe that history teaches
us to understand and appreciate the successes and failures of our past and to move
forward with purpose and that is the vision I bring to my teaching and to the way
in which I continue to live my life. For me, the study of history is a way to organize
and think about the great arc of time that affects each of us.
I have taught history at the University of Colorado, the University of New Mexico. Central New Mexico Community College, and Pikes Peak State College, since my graduation from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. At UCCS my history professors urged me to explore US, European, Latin American, Asian, and Eurasian history so that I would have a broad base for teaching about the past. That has proved valuable. I have taught World History, US history, European history, Colorado history, New Mexico history, Western Civilization history, Women's history, and Indigenous history. In each I learned more and more about the past and its relevance for understanding the issues of the present.
US history, Native America and American Indian history, Women's history, World history, Western Civilization, Latin American history, New Mexico history, Colorado history.
What She Made: A Brief Family History (in progress)
American Historical Society, Pacific Coast Historical Society, Western History Association
Indigenous history and connections with Euro-Anglo and Latin American history