Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa

Executive Director of the State of Rhode Island’s Tomaquag Museum, Spears has accomplished a great deal throughout her career. She has worked to preserve the history, experience and culture of the local Native American people and leads this state’s only American Indian museum.

Earlier this year, the museum received the National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries for service to the community. Also this year, Spears received the Tom Roberts Prize for Creative Achievement in the Humanities from the Rhode Island Council on the Humanities. She was honored for her “compelling work as an advocate of Indigenous People’s history and cultural heritage in preservation, the arts, and education.” In 2010, Spears was named as one of 11 Extraordinary Women honorees for teaching and education.

Spears received her undergraduate degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1989 and master’s degree from the University of New England with a focus on elementary education. She founded the Nuweetooun School affiliated with the Tomaquag Museum and was a teacher in Newport public schools for 12 years. Spears is well known as an activist, essayist, artist, and two-term Tribal Councilwoman of the Narragansett Tribe.