From the history of Ottawa University:
(
visit link)
"Founded in 1865, Ottawa University has an especially rich heritage and fascinating history. Throughout its 147 years, the University has endeavored to educate its students (many from traditionally underserved student populations) for lifetimes of enlightened faith, exemplary service, inspired leadership and personal growth and significance.
This tradition began with the Ottawa Indian tribe. The University's roots can be found in the work of Baptist missionaries in collaboration with the Tribe then located on the banks of the Marais des Cygnes ("river of swans") in what would become the town of Ottawa, Kansas, located approximately 40 miles southwest of Kansas City. Reverend Jotham Meeker and his wife, Eleanor, labored ceaselessly to improve the lives of the Ottawas, serving as ministers, nurse and doctor, business agents, marriage counselors, teachers, and of course, as spiritual counselors. Their seminal work, the prophetic vision of tribal leaders, and the engagement of others such as John Tecumseh (Tauy) Jones led to an eventual agreement between the Kansas Baptist denomination and the Ottawa Tribe to form a school for the benefit of the children of the Ottawas.
The original intent was to charter a boarding school for "the children of the Tribe between the ages of six and eighteen who shall be entitled to be received at such institution, and to be subsisted, clothed, educated, and attended in sickness...to continue so long as any children of the tribe shall present themselves for their exercise." The Tribe endowed 20,000 acres of its land to be utilized in lieu of a cash endowment to support the fledgling institution, which had no other means of income. Operating funds were to be received through the sale of land subject to various terms and conditions. In exchange, the Baptists agreed to build and operate the school with a promise to provide the free education contemplated in the agreement. A board was formed, operations undertaken, and the idea of the initial school soon extended to the formation of a college-motivated by the desire for higher education for tribal members, the Baptists, and the recognition by townspeople that a college could act as an economic growth engine in a still emerging community with great ambitions. Similar institutions were seeded all over America in the same general timeframe by many different church denominations. This accounts for the relatively large number of smaller private colleges and universities which dot the landscape of our country to this day.
While the purposes and aspirations of the new college were noble, not all of the actions of those initially involved were equally so. Though instructed by a treaty personally signed by President Abraham Lincoln, governance of the new board was at times loose and there were intimations of self-dealing related to some of the land sales. The new school struggled in the general environment of a still settling frontier, the aftermath of the Civil War, ongoing aggrandizement of Indian lands by whites (including some of that of the Ottawas, who later moved to Miami, Oklahoma where tribal headquarters remains today), and roving bands of marauders and partisans (Quantrill's raiders had killed 150 Lawrence citizens just three years earlier in an infamous raid just 20 miles to the north of Ottawa). Poor oversight and accounting practices led to the diminishment of some of the lands originally intended to support the school, but these and other difficulties were eventually overcome as new leadership was interjected into the governance of the institution allowing the nascent college to persevere.
Despite many challenges, Ottawa's Christian heritage and relationship with the Ottawa Indians remain alive and powerful today. In October of 2008, newly installed University President, Kevin C. Eichner, signed a new agreement with Chief John Ballard of the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma through which the historical connection between the University and the Tribe was significantly refreshed and expanded. Under this agreement, any certified tribal member is eligible to attend the residential college in Ottawa free of tuition, board, and room charges and any of the University's adult on-ground or online programs tuition-free. This new agreement, fully and unanimously endorsed by the University's Board of Trustees and the Ottawa Tribal Council, is to be preserved "in perpetuity" and has resulted in a significant increase in the number of Ottawa Indian students enrolling throughout the University and to a re-kindling of an even stronger and more positive relationship with the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma. It has been widely celebrated by faculty, alumni and friends of the University and tribal members as emblematic of the institution's core mission and principles and as an enduring commitment to the mutual purposes of the Tribe and the University."