Indigenous land acknowledgement of UTEP campus awaits President Wilson’s approval Share For almost 20 years, Professor Jeffrey Shepherd has been teaching history at the University of Texas at El Paso. As the chairman of the department and a professor with a keen knowledge of Native American studies, he noticed that the school wasn’t recognizing an important part of its identity. The university resides on Indigenous lands. Across the nation, universities have publicly recognized their ties to Native American lands and history. One of those ways of recognition is through a land acknowledgement. “Land acknowledgments are public statements sometimes written and posted on public sites that acknowledge an awareness of and knowledge of Indigenous histories and Indigenous ties and claims to a particular place,” Shepherd said.