Victoria Shorr

“No one stewards the earth like Native people. Empowering the voice of Lakota girls is empowering a vision of sustainability for all of us. ”

In 2013, Victoria Shorr, co-founder of the Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles, read several statistics about the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  One mentioned that 1-in-4 babies was born with fetal alcohol syndrome, mostly to teen mothers.  The other told of the shocking number of 12-year-old girls who were walking into the woods and hanging themselves. She decided to do the one thing she could— found a college-prep girls' school on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

A critically acclaimed novelist and Girls’ Education activist, Victoria herself is the product of an all-women’s education as an alumna of Wellesley College.

Ethleen Iron Cloud-Two Dogs

“Women are the backbone of the Lakota Nation.”

A Lakota visionary and educator, Ethleen joined Victoria Shorr and Carole Goldberg as PRGS co-founders and worked with other Native educators to define what a truly empowering education would look like for the girls of the Pine Ridge.

Carole Goldberg

“This school is nothing short of a miracle.”

One of UCLA’s first female faculty members in 1972, Carole served as associate dean of the law school, chair of the UCLA Academic Senate, and UCLA vice chancellor for academic personnel. She also founded and ran the university’s joint J.D./M.A. degree in American Indian Studies and the law school’s Native Nations Law and Policy Center.

President Obama appointed her to serve on the Indian Law and Order Commission, created by Congress to investigate and report on tribal community safety and justice. She has also written several books and co-authored Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law, the definitive treatise in the field.

C.J. Dempsey

“I knew the school was on the precipice of something profound.”

Originally from the Flathead Reservation in NW Montana, C.J. has a B.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and an M.S. in Nonprofit Management from The New School. She currently works as an Associate Director at HERS -- an organization dedicated to closing the gender equity gap of leadership within higher education. C.J. helped lead the founding business plan for Pine Ridge Girls’ School, which included a needs assessment of the community and research of comparable school models.