The first step in Haskell Indian Nations University’s campaign to document its past is complete.

On Saturday, the university’s faculty, staff, students and guests will take part in dedication ceremonies to mark the formal opening of the new Museum and Cultural Center at the corner of Barker and Indian avenues.

“We’re asking everyone to participate,” said Bobbi Rahder, the university’s acting archivist and curator.

Plans call for Casey Douma, student senate president, to lead an 8 a.m. blessing ceremony at the Haskell cemetery. A 9 a.m. reception at Stidham Union will follow.

At 10:30 a.m., the Haskell Color Guard will lead a procession of students, faculty and staff many of whom are expected to wear traditional regalia from the Haskell Arch to the Museum and Cultural Center.

Upon reaching the center, the group will be addressed by Haskell President Karen Swisher, Lawrence City Commissioner David Dunfield and Chief Judge for the 10th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals Deanell Reece Tacha.

Afterward, the New Dawn Native Dancers will perform outside. At the same time, a 17-member delegation representing the Seminole Tribe of Florida will be inside, leading a discussion on Haskell students who served in World War II. The discussion will be repeated at 4 p.m.

Plans call for discussions complementing the center’s first official exhibit: “Honoring Our Children Through Seasons of Sacrifice, Survival, Change and Celebration.”

The ceremonies will coincide with the start of the 14th Annual Haskell Indian Art Market at the powwow grounds on the west edge of campus.

Officials and volunteers will lead tours of the new center from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Eventually, Haskell officials hope, the center will become a national repository for documents on U.S. attempts to assimilate and educate American Indians, with an emphasis on Haskell’s role in those efforts.

“A lot has been written about Haskell and its history,” Rahder said. “But most of it’s been written by somebody who’s either going through the federal archives in Kansas City (Mo.) or the archives at (Kansas University). We’d like them to come to Haskell to do that.”

First known as the U.S. Indian Industrial Training School, Haskell opened its doors in 1884 intent on stripping American Indian students teenagers, mostly of their tribal identities and preparing them for off-reservation jobs.

Over the next 118 years, the training school evolved into a high school, a trade school, a junior college and, in 1993, a four-year college now offering bachelor’s degrees in elementary education, business administration, environmental studies and American Indian studies.

Rahder said efforts to move Haskell-related papers from the federal archives in Kansas City to Haskell had been pushed back for at least a year.

“For that to happen, you have to have a facility that’s environmentally controlled, and you have to have a permanent archivist on staff,” Rahder said. “Our facility is environmentally controlled, but we don’t have a permanent archivist.”

Recent budget cuts, she said, forced the university to postpone making her position permanent.