College of Arts and Sciences Newsroom

By Dave Larsen

At Standing Rock Indian Reservation, U.S. Army veteran Kurtis Neiman retired flags from veterans’ graves, a solemn honor typically reserved for tribal members. In Atlanta, he captured activists' stories on the Stop Cop City and Defend the Atlanta Forest movements. Now the communication major has woven these powerful experiences into a documentary promoting the value of experiential learning.

Neiman, a 30-year-old University of Dayton junior, produced a short video highlighting his experiences through another such opportunity, the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Summer Fellowship program. His goal is to promote experiential learning to current and prospective students.

“I think experiential learning is a very powerful tool that helps you put what you learn in the classroom into perspective in real-life situations,” he said.

A Dayton-area native, Neiman joined the Army in 2011 at age 17 and served for eight years, becoming an E-4 corporal, before being injured while on orders. After finishing his military contract, he worked for the Postal Service, but handling packages aggravated his injuries, which required three shoulder surgeries.

He is attending UD through the Veteran Readiness and Employment program, also known as Chapter 31, which helps people with a service-connected disability explore employment options and address education or training needs.

Neiman is pursuing bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communication with a media production concentration and plans to graduate with both in May 2026. He hopes to work in the film and television industry but would like to stay in the Dayton area to avoid relocating with his wife and two children, ages 6 and 3.

Neiman selected the University of Dayton in part because of the strength of its alumni network and its support for military veterans. “They have a really good outreach program,” he said.

Neiman discovered experiential learning through a May 2023 trip to Standing Rock, which straddles the North and South Dakota borders, led by Tom Morgan, associate professor of English and director of UD’s Race and Ethnic Studies program. The trip was part of an eight-week mini course about the reservation and the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota people of the Sioux Tribe.

Morgan said Neiman was initially skeptical about the trip and experiential learning in general but was transformed by his experiences at Standing Rock.

“Kurtis found validation for who he was on the trip, more so than in any of his other experiences to that point at UD,” Morgan said. “I’ve really admired Kurtis’ willingness to lean into new experiences, meeting new people and hearing their experiences, and learning to apply that knowledge in his thoughts and actions moving forward.”

Neiman said it was fulfilling to connect with Native Americans on the reservation. As a military veteran, he was able to help retire flags from the graves of fellow veterans at Standing Rock’s cemeteries, which most others aren’t allowed to touch. “It was a pretty unreal experience,” he said.

In May, Neiman traveled to Atlanta with the Moral Courage Project, an initiative of the UD Human Rights Center that works to tell the stories of individuals who stand up in their communities during moments of crisis. During the spring semester, students are trained to take testimony and engage in human rights storytelling. They conduct fieldwork during the summer and then develop multimedia products for various platforms during the fall semester.

Neiman said that 11-day experience put his classroom training to the test.

“During the Moral Courage Project, all the stuff from my photo classes kicked in because we were taking photos and videoing,” he said. “My journalism classes kicked in because I knew what questions to ask and how to ask them.”

Inspired by these experiences, Neiman worked with Morgan to create a five-minute video promoting experiential learning at UD through the Dean’s Summer Fellowship program, which allows undergraduate students to conduct summer research in any academic discipline under the guidance of a faculty mentor with funding through the College Dean’s Fund for Excellence.

Much of the video is set to an “ancestor song” sung by Leon Sam Briggs, an enrolled Tonawanda Seneca artisan of the Hawk Clan, who has welcomed UD students to Standing Rock since 1998. It includes photos of buffalo, people and scenery taken by Neiman at the reservation. In addition, there are images of students participating in this summer’s Moral Courage Project trip to Atlanta.

Neiman said the fellowship provided him with professional development in media production, resulting in a tangible product for his portfolio.

“Working with Kurtis on his Dean’s Summer Fellowship project was an enjoyable collaboration,” Morgan said. “His short documentary highlighting his experiences at Standing Rock and as part of the Moral Courage Project underscores the value of experiential learning as an integral part of his education.”