“D-Q University–Davis” Encyclopedia Entry

“D-Q University–Davis” Encyclopedia Entry

Oboler, Suzanne and Deena J. González, Editors-in-Chief.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States, Vol. 1, (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2005).

The D-Q University, whose initials stand for the Great Peacemaker (D), of the Iroquois Confederacy, and Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec spirit embodiment, was established in 1971 outside Davis, California, on land once home to the Wintun Peoples (Poowin and Patwin). Site of a former U.S. Army communications relay station, the 643 acres that make up the main campus were awarded to D-Q University in title under provision of the federal surplus property laws. In 1978 the university fell completely under American Indian control, a first. The university enrolled mostly indigenous and Chicano and Chicana students. In 2001 it came under the governance of a board of trustees.