The Payne Family Native American Center is receiving a new facility for students to learn about and work on issues of land and culture on reservations.

The Elouise Cobell Land and Culture Institute will be located in the basement of the Native American Center and construction is said to start in July. Funding for the project came from the University, Terry Payne who is an alumni of the University and some private donors. The idea of the institute is to honor Cobell and her legacy.

Included in the new facility will be two laboratories containing advanced technological tools that will help students build digital maps of reservations with the possibility of showing land ownership, natural resources and even a history of the land.

David Beck, professor and chair of Native American Studies, said the facility will be a place “where our students can help their tribes on how to use their land.”

The lab will also provide students and faculty the opportunity to archive and preserve stories, languages, films and other cultural materials.

One of the hopes for the lab is to train students on “how to make things work better for the Native Communities,” said Christopher Comer, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

There is also a long distance learning element to the institute that will allow students and faculty to work with other students and cultures in different parts of not only the state and the country but the world.

Aaron Brien, a student majoring in Native American studies and anthropology, said “for both fields something like that (the new facility) is extremely useful.”

“Maybe this can bridge something,” he said of Native and non-Native students coming together to use the facility.