Volume XII Spring 2001 Issue #3

It starts with a dream
Road map to initiate a tribal college

By Wayne J. Stein, Ed.D.

(Editor’s note: This excerpt is from Chapter II of a forthcoming book by Stein, Building Tribal/Indigenous Colleges: Philosophical And Developmental Action [working title].)

Introduction

Indigenous leaders around the world are searching for answers to seemingly overwhelming problems. They want to prepare their people to compete, help restore what has been lost culturally, and protect what remains. They want to allow their people to remain true to their basic or central identity as individuals and as an indigenous people.

These leaders usually recognize that as a group, they must learn to protect themselves and what remains of their homelands from the rapacious international business conglomerates and from national governments, which are under tremendous economic pressure to develop natural resources without regard for indigenous cultures and homelands. To this end, there is strong evidence that indigenous leaders of the world are promoting the development of indigenously or tribally controlled colleges in their communities for very compelling reasons. At the World Indigenous People’s Education Conference in Hilo, Hawaii, in 1999, they showed intense interest in exchanging ideas with members of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC).

In his report for the Carnegie Foundation entitled Native American Colleges: Progress and Prospects, author and researcher Paul Boyer said that tribally controlled colleges are crucial to their communities' economic, cultural, and spiritual survival:

1. Tribal colleges establish a learning environment that supports students who have come to view failure as the norm in any non-indigenous educational system.
2. Tribal colleges celebrate and help sustain American Indian traditions.
3. Tribal colleges provide essential services that enrich surrounding communities.
4. The colleges have become centers for research and scholarship that directly benefit their communities’ and tribes’ economic, legal, and environmental interests.

How then do indigenous communities that desire to build an indigenously controlled college emulate the successes of the American Indian tribal college movement? They must start at the very beginning and implement each part of their dream step by step: building community support; getting sanctioned by the local government; writing a charter and shepherding it though the approval process; selecting the governing board; and choosing administration, faculty, and staff. 

Community

The local indigenous community is the most important base and touchstone for any group planning to develop an indigenously controlled college. At the very least, the local community must believe that they need a locally controlled college. Usually a small cadre of tribal activists and supportive educators do the actual work -- planning, lobbying for, and building the college.

The community must answer a number of important questions, such as whether or not it is desirable or necessary to start a locally controlled college. Local meetings are the best vehicles for bringing interested segments of the community together. These early meetings will give a clear picture of whether the action committee should go ahead with its plan. 

During these meetings, the group in favor of a college must not dominate. The action committee must be willing to guide but also to sit quietly while all in attendance have their say. They must not become offended and argumentative when their idea and dream are criticized. They must understand that those in attendance may feel for the first time free enough and safe enough to say what is really on their minds. 

Given time and discussion in an atmosphere where it is safe to air differences, even the most negative community members will usually come around to supporting the idea of an indigenously controlled college. They probably would not have come to the meetings in the first place if, deep down, they really did not want a college. At the community meetings, an advisory board must be formed of community members who can meet periodically with the action committee to review and advise on strategies, local politics, and a host of other issues.

Local leadership/tribal council

Once the community-at-large has had ample opportunity to express its thoughts and support, the advisory board and the action committee must work hard to insure that the local political system supports the idea and is willing to contribute. While it is possible to start the college without the support and consent of the local political machine and leadership, it will prove impossible to sustain one. The enabling charter for the college must come from the local tribal or indigenous government in order to legitimize the school in the eyes of the local community and the outside world-at-large. The local government can often provide some of the necessary resources needed, such as meeting space for the college’s early classes, funds to help defray expenses, and land on which to build. The local government also may need to offer support in dealing with various levels of state and national government, their funding agencies, and grant solicitations from private sources.

The advisory board and action committees must not become discouraged if the local government leaders don’t immediately become wildly enthusiastic. The committee members must remember a number of important facts. First, they are dealing with men and women who have seen many programs come and go that were supposed to help their people overcome years of oppression but didn’t. Second, the governmental, political, and family clan leaders are probably the elite of the homeland and have grown used to making decisions for their people. These leaders will recognize that, at the very least, the new college is going to change the makeup of the homeland in some manner that will upset the status quo. 

Third, there are already tribally or indigenously controlled colleges throughout the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and other nations that have shown a remarkable ability to improve the lives of their people by giving their students the intellectual tools and cultural strength to improve their homelands. 

Finally, if the local tribal or indigenous community has given clear support to the college idea, then in time, with gentle but constant pressure from the advisory and action committees, this community support will result in stronger support from the local government.

Charter

One of the most important tasks for the advisory board and the action committee is successfully shepherding the college’s enabling charter through the approval process of the tribal council or local indigenous government. This may be easy or difficult, depending upon whether the local governing council requires convincing that the college will benefit the whole community.

If the local governing council is reluctant, the advisory board and the action committee must remember that their primary goal is obtaining an enabling charter, not engaging in any political struggles with the governing council. Their chances of winning a direct political confrontation against an entrenched governing council are almost nil. The first strategy to gain approval of an enabling charter should be gentle political persuasion from the advisory board and supportive community members. The action committee should provide research about all the benefits a locally controlled college will bring to their homeland. 

If that strategy does not work, their next approach should be to use the local equivalent of a public referendum spearheaded by the advisory board and the action committee. Again the advisory board, the action committee, and their community supporters should not directly attack the governing council and make long-lasting powerful enemies at home. Not only will it be unproductive in the present, but it may create long term ill will that can only hurt the college in the future. The referendum will allow the whole community to show direct support for starting a college. A positive vote accomplishes two things. First, it obtains the charter for the college start-up without directly confronting local leaders. Second, it sends a strong message, both within and outside the community, that the local community very much desires a college.

Advisory board

The charter should include articles of incorporation or a very similar set of guidelines that describes how the college will operate as a legal entity of the tribe or community. Then a governing board of trustees for the college must be selected. The board of trustees should undertake numerous responsibilities to insure the success of its locally controlled college. Thus, the way they are selected and the relationship they have with the local governing body are crucial and should be spelled out in the college’s charter. 

For a college to be successful, its board of trustees must act as a buffer between the college and the local governing body and clearly set policy for the college’s administrative practices. By doing this, the board of trustees insures that good educational practices will be maintained rather than policies phasing in and out as the local political scene changes. To be a true institution of higher learning, an indigenously controlled college must be an intimate part of its local community, yet remain politically and administratively separate from the local governing body. Getting too close to the daily business of the tribal government or local governing body is a sure formula for failure.

The board of trustees can be selected in a number of ways, any of which will work if the process is clear and followed faithfully by the local governing body and community. The selection process must be spelled out in the college’s enabling charter and articles, with provision for changes if the community desires. Three examples of selection processes used by American Indian tribally controlled colleges follow.

In one system, the communities of the reservation are divided into districts, and the members of each district elect a representative to the college board for a set term. In addition, the tribal council has the right to select and appoint a certain number, usually one to three, of the board members, also for set terms. Another approach authorizes the tribal council to appoint all the members of the board of trustees but with staggered terms to insure continuity of policy for the college. 

The Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe of Belcourt, N.D., has created one of the most innovative selection and appointment processes for its tribal college board of trustees. Based on the advice of Gerald One Feather (Oglala), Turtle Mountain Community College (TMCC) instituted a system of governance, which is still unique among tribal colleges. Legal control of the college rests with its nine-member board of trustees, which includes a non-voting chairman appointed by the tribal council for life (or until the chairman chooses to resign). The board consists of two tribal council members, two representatives at large from the community, two representatives from local educational agencies, two students, and two representatives of operating tribal programs. The board of trustees, in turn, elects five members of the board of directors who guide the college administration through monthly meetings and act as a business review board. The board of trustees meets on a quarterly basis to review the actions of the board of directors or, when necessary, to handle major policy needs. 

The board of trustees was established to ensure that the college carries out its mission and to serve as a buffer and liaison between the board of directors and the tribal council. The board of directors is in turn expected to give direct attention to operating policies and fiscal oversight of the college. The board of directors also has final say over all staff hired and supervises the president of the college.

Administrators

Small cadres of dedicated activists founded all the American Indian tribally controlled colleges. These activists were mostly grassroots tribal members, often referred to as "troublemakers" by federal and tribal government officials. Their ranks sometimes included non-tribal people; young, educated tribal members; and elected tribal officials who wanted change for their people. Often, the new boards of trustees would find administrators from amongst the activists. However, a number of the tribally controlled colleges found experienced college administrators at established institutions, some of whom were American Indian and others Euro-American. The presidents of the new colleges had key characteristics in common. They were leaders, risk takers, and educators with strong character. They all desired to see tribal people regain control of their institutions and lives.

Any new indigenously controlled college must select its founding president with great care, for the tone and character of the new institution will reflect the new president’s personality. If the new president has the above-described characteristics, then the college is well on its way to success. If, however, the board of trustees makes an unwise choice, the college will suffer as long as that individual is at the helm. A poor selection made for the wrong reasons could set a college back several years and inhibit its natural growth.

To select the right president, the board of trustees must take its time and consider only the proper management of the college. Even without experience at filling such a position, trustees can do the necessary research. They must ascertain whether the candidates have leadership skills, demonstrated loyalty to indigenous people and their goals for self-determination, a history of acting with good character, a background in education or a related field, and willingness to take calculated risks in carrying out the necessary tasks.

The board of trustees, the president, and the administrative team will develop a management style tailored to their specific institution. There are good educational, administrative, and management practices to which they must adhere. However, each tribal or indigenous community has a unique culture and set of family-based values that must also be taken into consideration as the college’s management style evolves and strengthens. With 20 years of experience as an administrator and developer of tribally controlled colleges, Schuyler (“Sky”) Houser discussed this in a 1991 article in the Tribal College Journal entitled “Building Institutions Across Cultural Boundaries” (TCJ, Vol. II, N.3). He said that management is not an Euro-American invention. Rather, tribal and indigenous communities have always had ways of accomplishing important community tasks that require well-timed, well-organized collective activity. In many of these communities, traditional ways of organizing and managing important events (such as spiritual and cultural activities) persist into the present, although the outsider may not easily discern them.

Today many tribal and indigenous communities have become hybrid societies, which adds to the challenge of developing the right management style. Communities now reflect their traditional culture and values; pieces of the Western, majority’s culture that has been forced upon them; and the welfare cultural values resulting from the destruction of their traditional economic systems. The new colleges and their administrators will confront all of the above value systems. They are expected to develop an educational institution with the easily recognizable patterns of a European-style college, yet one that is also truly a part of the original community and its cultural management style.

Interestingly, the percentage of Native and non-Native administrators has shifted over the past 30 years. In the early years of the tribal college movement, the ratio was about fifty-fifty, but today more than 90 percent are Natives. A number of women lead their colleges. At any one time, at least a third of the presidents of American Indian tribal colleges have been women, and 50 percent of all other administrators have also been women.

Conclusion

The story of the tribally controlled colleges is a story of significance to all colonized indigenous people. Regardless of who colonized them, aboriginal people have not been well served by their nations’ higher education systems. Now the ideal would be for more indigenous communities to join the American Indians, Canadian Natives, Maori of New Zealand, and Samii of the European Arctic in building higher education institutions for their people.

Wayne J. Stein’s involvement with the tribal college movement began over 23 years ago as an administrator and teacher at Fort Berthold Community College. From 1981 until 1985, he served as president of Sitting Bull College (then called Standing Rock), during which time he also served as the president of AIHEC for one year. For the past 11 years he has been observing, teaching, and writing about the tribally controlled college movement as an associate professor of higher education and director of the Center for Native American Studies at Montana State University. He is the author of Tribally Controlled Colleges: Making Good Medicine, which was published in 1993 by Peter Lang Publishing. He is a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe and earned his doctorate in higher education from Washington State University in 1988.

CONCLUDING SECTIONS OF WAYNE STEIN’S CHAPTER

(Editor’s note: the remaining sections of Wayne Stein’s book chapter did not appear in the Tribal College Journal because of space limitations. We have provided them here, unedited, as a service for readers interested in this more detailed information. To be notified when Stein’s book is published, contact him at inaws@montana.edu.

Faculty

The board of trustees, president, and academic dean or academic vice-president of a new indigenously controlled college will find that another of their most difficult challenges is the recruitment and selection of faculty.  They must keep an open mind and be flexible because there will be numerous ways in which they can meet the needs of their students and their college for classroom instructors.  Early on in the life of the college, the administrators themselves may be a source of instructors, where they are qualified and in their own fields of study.  American Indian tribally controlled colleges, in their formative years, often had their administrators teaching in addition to performing their administrative duties.  Though today in the more established tribally controlled colleges that need isn’t as intense or necessary, many of the smaller or more recently founded American Indian tribally controlled colleges still have administrators teaching as a necessary part of maintaining their course offerings.

A newly founded indigenously controlled college has an important resource in their community that they must not overlook:  the professionals (such as program administrators, lawyers, doctors) and the traditional persons (elders and culture keepers) who live and work in the community.  These professional and traditional persons can become the part-time instructors who will greatly supplement the ranks of the instructor pool for any new or small indigenous college.  Once a college has successfully recruited a cadre of part-time instructors from its community’s professional and traditional ranks, the college should provide an organized effort to help these new part-time instructors develop their course materials and syllabi.  It is unlikely that many, or any, of this group of part-time instructors will have formal training or experience as teachers.  They, and the students they will be teaching, deserve all the help the college can provide for them so that a positive learning experience is accomplished in the classroom.  It is also important that the part-time instructors want to continue teaching for the college after their initial semester or quarter of teaching, as it is likely that the college is going to need them for some time in the future.

Administrators of a new indigenous college will plan for fewer and fewer part-time instructors as their college matures and its financial resources grow, but they should plan to continue to search out and recruit part-time instructors from the ranks of community professional persons.  Part-time instructors will be needed when the college is unable to find a full-time instructor for every course needed by its students.

The traditional persons, those persons best suited to teach the tribe’s or indigenous group’s culture and language, who agree to become part-time instructors will need special attention from the college for three very important reasons.  First, they often come from that part of the community which has chosen to keep the greatest distance between themselves and formalized Western educational institutions, and, being respected elders of the community, they are often, though not always, elderly.  This can mean that their formal Westernized education may not run very deep, and they could initially be uncomfortable in a formal college classroom.  It would be wise to team them up with experienced teachers who can help them prepare for the first couple of semesters or quarters they teach for the college.

Secondly, the college is going to want to retain the traditional instructors who find that they enjoy teaching in a tribal or indigenous college and are good at it.  They will become the backbone of the college’s native studies department as the college grows and matures.  The native studies department is that part of the indigenous college which makes it a truly unique institution of higher education.  No other institution of higher education can or will teach the local culture and language with the love and accuracy that the locally controlled indigenous college’s native studies instructors will offer over time.

Third, a strong native studies department that has respected traditional persons teaching within it, who come directly from the community, should gain the college important support from the traditional segment of the community.  The support of the community’s traditional members can and will bring special rewards to the college and its students in numerous ways over the life of the college.

The full-time faculty and their quality as instructors will, over time, be the true measure of how well the new indigenously controlled college is serving its students.  As its financial position strengthens, the young college must do everything it can to find, recruit, and hire the best possible full-time instructors.  This can be done by making the improvement and growth of its teaching corps a top priority of the college each year as each year’s annual plan and budget are generated.   The college should also cast a wide net when advertising for new teachers, for it will find that there are dedicated teachers of all races, religions, and parts of the country or world who truly want to work and serve in an indigenous community.  Their reasons for wanting to teach in the indigenous community will vary as much as the individuals will, but that should not detract from their abilities as teachers.  The college will find that, as a group, this corps of individuals is in the profession of teaching for all the right reasons.  There may be the rare time when the college’s administration will have to remove a teacher from the college instructors’ ranks for the benefit of the students and the teacher, but that will happen no more often than it does in any mainstream higher educational institution.

The administrators of the indigenous college, whether a new or an established college, should make a special effort whenever possible to find indigenous instructors.  Indigenous instructors can, in addition to being good teachers, be wonderful role models for the local indigenous students.  They are a living testimony that an indigenous person can succeed in the majority society and yet remain true to themselves as an indigenous person.  And if they have the added quality of being originally from the local community, so much the better.

Support Staff

The support staff of an indigenous college should be a vital link directly into the indigenous community being served by the locally controlled college.  The support staff positions (secretaries, para-professionals, custodial staff, technical staff, and other positions) are those most likely to be filled by local community members.  For the new indigenous college, the persons selected to fill these behind-the-scenes but important positions will send a direct message to the community about the college’s willingness to reach out to the community and be a part of it.

The new college must take special care in hiring individuals for these positions that a fair and honest process is in place to hire the best qualified person, regardless of family connections, political contacts, or personal friendships.  In offering these positions that local community members can compete for, the new college can show that it is a fair and impartial community institution most concerned with getting the best possible people working to serve its students.   Every one of the persons selected to be support staff will become an unofficial ambassador for the college in all of its relationships with students, with the community-at-large, and with the local governing body.  Thus (like new faculty, administrators, and board members) each must be a person of good character and have a talent for working with others.  The old cliche that an institution and its administrators can work only as well as their support staff is true in this case, and the builders of the new indigenous college must understand the principle and ensure that the best support staff possible are in place at their college.  An added benefit to being a locally controlled educational institution is that the college can began educating and training its own support staff as the college matures, and put those graduated students in place as support staff as positions open up within the college.

Students (and Student Services)

Every action taken to start a new indigenous college, and every action taken to continue to develop an established indigenous college, has the primary goal of serving the indigenous student to the best of everyone’s ability--the board of trustees, administrators, faculty, and support staff.  Established American Indian and other indigenous colleges have found that their students enroll at an indigenously controlled college for many of the same reasons that majority/non-indigenous students attend college.  Newly founded indigenous colleges will most likely find that their students desire to better themselves intellectually, hope to improve their chances of securing satisfying and financially rewarding employment, seek the skills to manage their own futures, and want the opportunity to provide a better life for their families.

A newly founded indigenous college will most likely see initial student demographics that reflect the experience of the American Indian tribally controlled colleges.  Many students will be older (over thirty); the majority will be single, female heads of households with extended family obligations; some will have failed at non-indigenous higher education institutions and find college an unusually heavy burden; and virtually all will be the first in their families to attend college.  Indigenous students attending a tribal or indigenous college present their instructors and counselors with many challenging cultural, linguistic, and personal characteristics and situations. 

Most indigenous people around the world have existed for the past century in abject poverty, and this will generally be true of the indigenous students who attend indigenous colleges.  It must be remembered that indigenous students will bring with them to college a value system that is a hybrid of native culture, mainstream culture, and welfare culture.  Instructors and students often have to sort through this cultural mix in order to create for each student a productive and healthy plan to get through the program of the college.  Staff members at all levels of a new indigenous college need to recognize that nearly ninety percent of the students attending their college are first-generation students.  Programs especially tailored to enhance the chances that these students will stay in school will need to be developed (Stein, p. 90, 1992).

The new indigenous college’s mission statement should clearly state that it will help preserve, promote, and teach its tribal or indigenous culture and language.  This important goal of the college will provide the students with the opportunity to learn more about their indigenous culture, which in turn will build a sense of identity and pride in the students.  These qualities are important to indigenous students as they struggle to overcome poverty, lack of positive self-esteem, and poor educational preparation in their quest for a higher education.  Students will actively seek proficiency in their own languages and cultures because traditional spiritual ceremonies and arts remain an integral part of most indigenous communities that the students come from.  Indigenous colleges have generated great pride in their communities’ indigenous heritages ( Boyer, 1990).

The newly founded indigenous college should develop special support programs for students as college resources grow.  College staff will need to examine programs constantly to ensure that the programs that have been developed are the best to assist students through the college experience.  The special challenges facing students will reflect the demanding environment from which indigenous students come.  Several examples of special programs developed by American Indian tribally controlled colleges include transportation programs, child care programs, and student peer support groups, which have greatly enhanced their students’ success rates in completion of college programs of study.

Existing American Indian tribal colleges are often located (as most new indigenous colleges will be) in some of the most isolated rural parts of their respective nations.  In addition, most American Indian reservations and indigenous homelands have poor road systems with few paved highways, as well as severe weather conditions and long distances between the small communities of the reservation or homeland.  Many students will have unreliable vehicles (if they have any vehicle at all), and thus may need the college’s transportation system even in the best of weather.  An added benefit of having a college bus system, once it is in place, is that all community members can use it and help defray its cost by paying a small fee when using it.

Child-care assists those students who have demands on their time and resources from children, grandchildren, or younger siblings.  Indigenous students reflect their culture at its best when they take on the responsibility of child care.  Unfortunately, this responsibility can lead to absenteeism, insufficient financial aid to cover the needs of an extended family, and a lack of time to study and prepare for class.  Those indigenous colleges that have developed child-care programs for their students have gone a long way toward helping students at a basic and necessary level.

An example of a successful student support program is the Blackfeet Community College’s Women’s Support Group.  The group meets regularly after classes to discuss and develop strategies to help members cope with burdens of filling so many demanding roles at once: student, mother, wife or single head of household, and often major economic provider.  The Women ‘s Support Group program became so visibly successful for the women participating that several Blackfeet Community College male students requested that the college sponsor a similar program for them (President Murray, personal interview, January 8, 1991).

New indigenous colleges should also look closely at some of the more traditional student service programs because of their potential contribution to the success of students at indigenous colleges.  These programs illustrate how important a wide variety of counseling and service programs is to these students.  For example, most established tribally controlled colleges place importance on adult basic education (ABE) programs (also known as graduate equivalency degree, or GED programs) because of the substantial number of their student recruits who lack a high school or secondary school diploma.  Tribal colleges’ ABE programs have become a significant part of reservation or homeland educational scenes because of the alarmingly high percentage of indigenous students who drop out of junior and senior high school.  It should be noted that on the American Indian reservations where tribally controlled colleges have taken over the responsibility for ABE programs from the state education systems, GED rates have increased by as much as 1000% (Bordeaux Keynote Speech, Pipeline Conference, May, 1990).

Financial aid programs are also a must for over 90% of indigenous students.  The new indigenous college needs to establish some mechanism by which its students can receive some measure of financial aid, whether that aid comes directly from the tribe or indigenous community’s governing body; from state, provincial, or national governments’ educational financial aid programs; from private foundations; or some combination of all of these sources.   Indigenous students will be hard pressed to attend college even with this aid, and it will be almost impossible for them to do so without it, unless the college charges no tuition and fees.

Facilities

Founders of a new indigenous college need to understand that while bricks and mortar are important to a school, they need not wait for substantial buildings to start their community college.  The most important ingredients for starting a community controlled college are its people (especially its students and instructors) and not its buildings.  However, if the founders of new college have the good fortune of owning or having access to adequate facilities, they will have a strong start on developing their college and can turn their attention to other important matters affecting the college’s future.

Those new indigenous colleges that don’t have access to their own classrooms and office space should follow the example of the many American Indian tribally controlled colleges that also didn’t have facilities when founded, but made do with whatever space they could beg, scrounge, borrow, or share in their communities.  Tribal college founders understood that learning could take place almost anywhere if the instructors and students were truly motivated to have class, and weren’t hung up on where that class was being held physically.  It is the sincere effort of the participating teacher and students that really creates a quality teaching and learning experience in the classroom, not whether the classroom is pretty.

Strategies used by American Indian tribally controlled colleges that didn’t have any facilities when they started included the following.  Some tribal colleges shared office space with other tribal programs, brought in used (often condemned) mobile homes for office space and classrooms, or borrowed classrooms from the local K-12 school system and held night classes.   Others moved into condemned and abandoned federal and tribal buildings and renovated them into office space and classrooms, or they borrowed enough funds from their tribe to purchase old and empty privately owned buildings in the community and renovated them into offices, classrooms, and libraries.  Some shared space in their local community library and added higher education materials to its collection (often donated materials from more prosperous, longer-established institutions).  Eventually, the tribal college would run the library for the community and add to it a tribal archive.  Others borrowed funds from their tribal government for materials and had their vo-tech building and carpentry students and instructors build college office buildings and classrooms as a part of their curriculum.  And in one instance, college founders borrowed a jail cell from the local police department to hold a class in one of their outlying communities.  The above examples clearly illustrate that there are many options open in indigenous communities for creative indigenous college administrators to find or create office space and classrooms.

The board of trustees and administrators of a new college, who must improvise when it comes to office space and classrooms, should develop for their college, as soon as possible, a  long-range plan that includes a provision and a designated committee focused on securing a permanent home for the college.  This will mean developing a financial plan which outlines specific options to raise the necessary funds that can lead to the renovation of an already existing facility, or to build a new facility that meets the college’s office space and classroom needs.  The already well-established indigenous college’s administrators and board members can be of valuable assistance to newer colleges by sharing successful strategies they were able to bring into play that led to the realization of their facility and college campus building plans.  Facilities planning committees for new indigenous colleges should work hard to develop good relationships with their local governing bodies, their state or provincial legislators, and their national government legislators and committees that pass judgement on the funding of these types of community projects.  They should also contact private philanthropic foundations for project funds and explore borrowing the necessary funds from the tribal or local governing body or a local lending agency/bank to build or renovate, using as collateral the future revenues the college will bring in from its funding sources.

Finances

Securing finances for the start-up and continuance of a new indigenous college is a serious challenge that does not get any easier as time goes by and the institution matures.  Most indigenous peoples live on the margins of the majority society, which means that poverty is a general community problem and that the indigenous community’s political power is not usually a factor on the national scene.  Hard work, creativity, and accountability must be the creed of the new college’s fund raisers as they go about the business of securing the funds necessary to establish their college and insure its financial security in the future.

The resources to start a college can come from any legitimate source, whether tribal funds, state or provincial funds, national funds, or private philanthropic funds.  To secure start-up funds, the college founders will have to be astute and tenacious politicians and grant proposal writers.   Each of the potential contributors to the college’s creation will need to be approached with that contributor’s special characteristics in mind.  There are a number of tasks that college fund raisers need to carry out.  

1. Do the necessary research on a potential contributor--this will be necessary whether they are public or private--and tailor the college’s funding appeal to meet the potential contributor’s specified areas of giving.
2. Understand that the burden of proof of need is with the college and not the potential contributor when making the case for funds or resources to be granted to the college.
3. When possible, attend conferences and meetings that staff members of the funding source frequent so college personnel can develop personal relationships with staff and decision makers of potential contributors.
4. Send at least two college representatives when meeting with potential contributors, which allows for mutual support and flexibility in the funding request presentation.
5. Develop the best possible written materials and visual aids the college can afford to share with potential contributors and continually update them as the college matures.
6. Send materials to potential contributors whenever some interesting event takes place within the college or with its students.  Materials telling the story of the tribe or indigenous group and individual student stories are very effective in reaching contributors.
7. Invite potential contributors’ representatives to the college campus and community.  This is especially effective during a pow wow or other community or college ceremony that is open to the public.
8. Make sure the prospectus is well written when soliciting a grant or program funds.
9. Be courteous but proud of what the college is doing when sharing information about the college and its mission, while also making the contributor feel important, trusted, and needed ( OSU Development Office, July, 1993)
10. And finally, don’t chase contributors just to obtain general operating funds; have a very specific goal in mind for those resources if the college is successful in gaining them.  Funds gained that don’t really fit the college’s needs can become a burden and lead to financial and legal problems if the college tries to use them for other college needs for which they weren’t specifically granted.