Biography

William (Willy) Bauer is a professor of history and program director for the American Indian and Indigenous Studies minor. Bauer (Wailacki and Concow of the Round Valley Indian Tribes) grew up on the Round Valley Reservation in northern California. He received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Bauer offers classes on California Indian, American Indian, and American West history. He is also UNLV's faculty liaison to the Newberry Library's Consortium on American Indian Studies.

Bauer is the author of "We Were All Like Migrant Workers Here": Work, Community and Memory on California's Round Valley Reservation, 1850-1941 (University of North Carolina Press, 2009). He has also published an introduction to a revised edition of John W. Caughey's McGillivray of the Creeks (University of South Carolina Press), and essays on California Indian history in the Western Historical Quarterly, Native Pathways; American Indian Culture and Economic Change in the Twentieth Century (University of Colorado Press), and A Companion to California History (Wiley-Blackwell).

Bauer's current research focuses on the ways in which California Indians used oral traditions to offer an alternative telling of 19th and early 20th century California history. He is also working on a family biography, based on the life of his great-grandfather.