Volume 15 Spring 2004 Issue No. 3

On Campus

Colleges Score Victory In Ongoing Funds Battle

by Meg Goetz

With President George W. Bush's recommended cuts in tribal college funding, a difficult economy, and the expanded war on terrorism, this fiscal year (FY 2004) looked like it might be the worst year in many for tribal colleges.

However, thanks to two of the tribal colleges' most ardent champions, U.S. Sens. Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND), the Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) received their largest increase in institutional operating funds to date when the FY 2004 Interior Appropriations measure was signed into law on Nov. 10, 2003.

The funding provided by Congress through the Tribally Controlled College or University Assistance Act (the Tribal College Act) means the difference between being able to open their doors or not for some of the nation's tribal colleges. While mainstream institutions have a foundation of state support, TCUs must rely on the federal government for their institutional operating funds.

Because TCUs are located on federal trust lands, states have no obligation to fund them and in most cases do not even support the education of non-Indians at the TCUs.

Burns is the chair and Dorgan the ranking member of the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, and together they represent more than one-third of the nation's tribal colleges. At the beginning of the FY 2004 appropriations cycle, they banded together and openly questioned the Department of the Interior's seemingly erratic practices for determining distribution of Tribal College Act funding and historic lackluster support for these proven institutions.

Going into the House-Senate conference, the Senate-passed version of the FY 2004 Interior bill included $10 million more than the version adopted by the House of Representatives, which reflected the president's budget request. Faced with such a wide margin, the Bipartisan Senate Task Force on Tribal Colleges and Universities, established by Sens. Burns and Kent Conrad (D-ND) last year, rallied behind the higher amount.

Their efforts succeeded. The House receded to the Senate position on institutional operations funding for the colleges authorized under the Tribal College Act. The Interior conference committee also reinstated funding for Crownpoint Institute of Technology (Crownpoint, NM) and United Tribes Technical College (Bismarck, ND), which had been eliminated in the President's 2004 budget.

Congress first funded the Tribal College Act in Fiscal Year 1981, providing $2,831 per Indian student toward the day-to-day operations of the colleges funded under the act. In the 22 years since then, the number of colleges eligible for funding under the act has increased to 27, and enrollments have increased by 332%. Yet despite the $10 million increase in FY 2004 appropriations, basic institutional operations funding has increased only $1,399 per Indian student. Factor in inflation, and this level of funding has the buying power equal to about $2,078, a decrease of about $753 per Indian student.

In addition to institutional operating funds, tribal colleges receive program funding through several other federal appropriations measures. However, as usual in recent years, most of the bills that fund these programs were rolled into an Omnibus Appropriations bill that Congress has not enacted yet at press time.

Meg Goetz has been the director of Congressional relations for the American Indian Higher Education Consortium since 1998.

WINHEC Creates Accreditation Plan

Representatives of the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC) established their own accreditation body at a meeting in Honolulu in August 2003. The participants also adopted the WINHEC Accreditation Handbook to guide institutions of higher education as they begin the self-study and review process necessary to become accredited by WINHEC Accreditation Authority.

Educators around the world hailed the actions. The consortium was born in August 2002 at a meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta, of representatives of indigenous higher education institutions, including New Zealand, mainland United States, Hawaii, Alaska, and Canada. (See TCJ, Vol. 14, N.2.)

Although it was only one year old, WINHEC had already achieved one of its most important and challenging goals, creating the accreditation body and adopting the handbook. The WINHEC Accreditation handbook is a historic document that can guide any institution or program striving to implement "cultural standards."

Accreditation performs a number of important functions including validating credibility for the public being served and encouraging maximum education effectiveness. It recognizes educational institutions for performance, integrity, and quality and entitles them to the confidence of the cultural and educational community being served.

The WINHEC accreditation process can apply to either whole institutions or to programs. Accreditation by the WINHEC Accreditation Authority means that an indigenous-serving postsecondary institution/program's goals are soundly conceived, that its educational and cultural programs have been intelligently devised, and that it merits confidence by the indigenous constituencies being served.

Once deemed to have met the criteria established by the WINHEC Accreditation Authority as outlined in the handbook, candidate institutions and programs become full voting members of the WINHEC Accreditation Authority Board.

A copy of the WINHEC Accreditation Handbook, including sample "cultural standards" that may be considered, can be obtained on the WINHEC web site at www.win-hec.org or on the Alaska Native Knowledge Network website at www.ankn.uaf.edu/ihe.html. Further information may be obtained from Ray Barnhardt by email at ffrjb@uaf.edu or phone at (907) 474-1902.

Wind Turbine Blows Away Turtle Mountain Fuel Cost

When Turtle Mountain Community College (TMCC) installs a 660-kilowatt wind turbine this summer, the tribal college will be completely energy self-sufficient. The 135,000-square-foot college building is designed around the concept of the Four Directions and the Seven Teachings of the Ojibwe. The building's entire heating and cooling system is built on geothermal energy (natural heat from the earth) and uses no fossil fuels.

Located in Belcourt, ND, just south of the Canadian border, the reservation temperatures often fall and stay well below zero in the winter. The wind turbine will eliminate the need to buy electricity from the local utility company, except for a small amount to start the wind turbine, a Vestas V-47.

The college has been working on its self-sufficiency plan for nearly a decade. "Being independent of fossil fuels is a big deal economically and culturally," explains Dr. Carty Monette (Ojibwe), TMCC president. According to the wind data gathered at TMCC, the turbine will produce 1,900,000 kwh of electricity annually, which would be a savings of an estimated $131,100, according to Joseph Brignolo of the Foundation for the American Indian, which became involved at TMCC recently. This might be more electricity than TMCC uses. The balance will be sold to the local electric company.

The U.S. Congress provided $571,000 for the wind turbine. The total cost of the project is estimated to be $750,000. Brignolo of the Foundation for the American Indian has provided pro-bono technical assistance, saving the college over $100,000 already, according to Monette.

This is the first utility-scale wind turbine installation on any college campus in the United States. It may also be the first college campus in the nation that runs completely on renewable energy, according to Monette, who says he is getting calls from all over the country.

The wind turbine manufacturer (Vestas-America) and the Foundation for the American Indian are also collaborating on a wind turbine for Fort Peck Community College in Montana. They have invited other tribal colleges to contact them for technical assistance in getting wind turbines.

For more information, contact Dr. Carty Monette at (701) 477-7862 or Joan Andrews, president, Foundation for the American Indian, at (203) 629-9030.

STANDING TALL. A wind turbine such as this Vestas V-47 will save Turtle Mountain Community College as much as $131,000 on electricity each year.

Reader's Digest Lists Best Education Charity

Reader's Digest named the Denver-based American Indian College Fund as the best charity in education in its November 2003 issue. The article listed the best charity to which to trust donations in 12 different categories, including education.

Tribal colleges, which offer two- and four-year degrees, are the only accredited colleges that integrate traditional Indian culture and language with mainstream curricula. The American Indian College Fund is the largest private provider of funding for scholarships to the 34 tribal colleges in the United States.

"Our inclusion in the Reader's Digest best charity list has the potential to change lives," said Richard B. Williams (Oglala Lakota), president of the organization. "The more people know about and donate, the more we can help American Indian people pursue education as a means to pull themselves out of poverty and give back to their community and society."

In 2002 the National Scholarship Providers Association named the organization as Scholarship Provider of the Year. For more information, see www.collegefund.org.

Eiteljorg Fellowships Showcase Native Artists

The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis, IN, has selected Corwin "Corky" Clairmont (Salish/Kootenai) as one of five fellows for 2003. A printmaker and installation artist, Clairmont is the assistant vice president at Salish Kootenai College (Pablo, MT). He helped to curate many Native American exhibitions, including Treaty Times Past/ Present/ Future.

Clairmont received his Bachelor of Arts from Montana State University in 1970 and his Master of Arts from California State University at Los Angeles in 1971. In the past, he has exhibited his work across the United States and parts of Europe. The museum honored the fellows at an opening Nov. 8, that featured Native author and film producer Sherman Alexie.

Established in 1999, the Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art provides the artists with $20,000 each and adds their work to its permanent collection. The other Eiteljorg fellows are Robert Houle (Saulteaux), Nadia Myre (Algonquin), Nora Naranjo-Morse (Tewa-Santa Clara Pueblo), and Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie (Diné/Seminole/Muskogee). Each cycle of the fellowship also recognizes the contributions made by one artist over the course of his/her lifetime - the distinguished artist. This year's distinguished artist is Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee).

For more information, see www.eiteljorg.org, or call (800) 878-7978.

D-QU Students to Learn Planning Skills with GIS

By Juan A. Avila Hernandez

To help train Native American students in the latest geospatial technology, D-Q University (D-QU) recently received an $118,000 grant from the Department of Defense. This will be D-Q's first venture into this technology. The tribal college in Davis, CA, is purchasing computer hardware and software and Geographic Information System (GIS) tracking devices.

With a GIS system, students and faculty can integrate and analyze information from several computer databases to create an information portrait of a specific geographical location. The end products are usually maps that contain important data such as the migration of wildlife in a certain region, the growth rate of trees, or the swelling or shrinking of rivers.

The practical applications will attract D-Q students, according to Chris Babcock, environmental science instructor and director of the new GIS program at the college. Road departments, timber companies, and wildlife managers can use it. Social scientists use it for demographics.

The GIS classes will begin after instructors complete their GIS training. The college plans to form a partnership with the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, NM.

The new GIS training boosts D-Q University's strong science and mathematics program, according to Babcock, and will be a critical complement to environmental science and computer science courses.

Graduates could use their skills in federal, state, and federal positions. "There are a lot of lucrative jobs out there," Babcock says. Most Indian tribes currently hire outside contractors to conduct GIS surveys to track reservation boundaries, plan roads, and manage resources within reservation boundaries. "I envision that our students can return to their reservations or rancherias and work for their tribes," Babcock says.

Juan A. Avila Hernandez (Yoeme-Yoi) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California-Davis.

NCA Gives CIT Status of Higher Learning Candidate

Crownpoint Institute of Technology (CIT) has been awarded candidacy for higher-education accreditation with the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association. The school on the Navajo Reservation in Crownpoint, NM, has been accredited with NCA's Commission on Schools since 1989, but this major step toward full higher-learning status with the Higher Learning Commission became official October 20 in Chicago, where CIT President James Tutt and Vice President Elmer Guy met with commission representatives.

"Our college has progressed a very long way from its modest trade-school beginnings in 1979," President Tutt says. The NCA team report praised faculty for providing a nurturing learning environment and commended the school's learning-centered focus, singling out the Culinary Arts and Veterinary Technology programs for having achieved national recognition. The report also noted CIT's history of attracting strong funding.

In addition, the report mentioned several challenges: clarification and implementation of the Diné philosophy of education, expansion of the General Education curriculum, progress toward school-wide assessment, greater consistency in CIT's public documents, and efforts to stabilize funding.

"We are meeting all those challenges," says Guy. "Our General Education committee is working with the Navajo Nation Office of Language and Culture to incorporate their cultural and educational standards into our curriculum. Since May, we have added faculty in mathematics, the sciences, and Diné Studies. Our assessment committee is examining course objectives and strategies for achieving them, and we've hired a director of institutional research to collect and evaluate data from all elements of the college."

In addition to these improvements, Guy says, the institute is working with the Navajo Nation's Education Committee and Intergovernmental Relations Committee to ensure that CIT becomes a line item in the federal budget under the Interior Department's Tribal Priority Education System.

United Tribes Exhibit Promotes Human Rights

Armed guards and a 10-foot tall chain link fence topped with strands of barbed wire kept certain people locked inside. It was 1941, and the U.S. Justice Department had converted Fort Lincoln near Bismarck, ND, from a surplus military post into an internment camp to detain people arrested in the United States as enemy aliens. During its five-year operation as a camp, the Bismarck, ND, facility housed about 1,500 men of German nationality and over 1,800 of Japanese ancestry.

Now Fort Lincoln serves as a college campus with stately buildings, American elm trees, and paved parking lots - home to United Tribes Technical College (UTTC). In keeping with the tribal college's educational mission, UTTC hosted a major exhibition and public programs about the internment experience of German and Japanese nationals and Japanese American citizens at the camp.

HOPE FOR HEALING. Former Fort Lincoln internees cut a ribbon to open the Snow Country Prison Exhibit (left to right): Max Ebel, Tad Yakakido, Robert Nebel, and Hank Natio. Photo by David M. Gipp

The exhibition, "Snow Country Prison: Interned in North Dakota," teaches about the government's use of isolation and imprisonment against certain groups of people. Organized by the North Dakota Museum of Art and UTTC, the exhibition is sponsored by the Otto Bremer Foundation and the North Dakota Humanities Council. UTTC's involvement stemmed from concern with the human rights issues. "There's a low level of awareness these days about what went on here during the war," says UTTC President David M. Gipp.

The exhibit features historic photos and murals of the camp, floor-to-ceiling cloth banners imprinted with images of people interned there, and wall text drawn from the haiku poems of one of the Japanese internees. It runs through November at UTTC and then will be exhibited at Grand Forks, ND, Moorhead, MN, and Minot, ND, in 2004.

For more information, contact the curator, Laurel Reuter, North Dakota Museum of Art, (701) 777-4195 or email ljreuter@ndmoa.com.

LLTC Faculty Brought Language from Canada

Leech Lake Tribal College works to preserve and promote the use of the area's first language at the campus in Cass Lake, MN. The instructors - Wilfred Cyr, Helen Waasegiizhig, and Bob Jourdain - each grew up in Canada speaking the Anishinaabe language and therefore recognize the importance of keeping and sharing language. They have shifted the teaching focus to speaking through language immersion rather than on studying grammar and structure.

Wilfred Cyr was born at Nagaajiiwanaang First Nation in Canada. He is of the muskrat clan, the animal that saved humanity from the great flood, according to the Anishinaabe creation narrative. Cyr was captured at age 10 and placed with a white family and grew up mostly independently. He was first from his reserve to graduate from high school at Fort Frances, to graduate from Rainy River Community College, and to graduate from Bemidji State University. Cyr has a Master's Degree in Algonquin Linguistics from the University of Manitoba.

Helen Waasegiizhig (Bright Sky/Bright Day) is from Manitoulin Island, Ontario, the Wiikwemikong First Nation. She is a teacher, linguist, art historian, poet, art curator, and visual artist. Presently, she is involved in curriculum writing, teaching methods using the arts, environmental activities, practicum teaching for teachers, and orthography at Leech Lake Tribal College.

Bob Jourdain is originally from Rainy Lake, Ontario, and grew up on Red Gut Bay, Nickickousiminicaning First Nation. Jourdain has lived on the Leech Lake Reservation for almost 30 years. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Indian Studies and English from Bemidji State University and is currently working on a master's degree and on a collection of stories he would like to see published.

D'Arcy McNickle Center Reaches Out to Faculty

One participant commented, "Although I earned a Ph.D. from an interdisciplinary program, I don't think my graduate study ever afforded conversations that were as richly multifaceted as those that I engaged in during this summer."

"The institute began what I believe will be a long series of conversations among an ever-widening group of people about what American Indian Studies is, who it is responsible to, and how we can work across all sorts of boundaries and borders to achieve it," said another.

Frederick E. Hoxie, Swanlund Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, led the 2003 seminar. Noted Native scholars Jean O'Brien (Ojibwa) and Kathryn Shanley (Assiniboine/Nakota) led the 2001 and 2002 institutes.

Dr. Brian C. Hosmer, director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center, says, "The center aspires to forge closer working relationships with tribal colleges that will in turn contribute to curriculum and professional development, cultivate a community of scholars, and translate into positive tangible benefits for everyone involved."

OLC Receives 10-Year Accreditation from NCA

Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota announced it has received 10 years of accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association.

An NCA evaluation team visited in March, recommended the accreditation, and identified the college's strengths. The team commended the "exceptionally strong commitment to the college and its success by the Pine Ridge Reservation and its community."

It said the college mission "is a living statement of the Lakota way of life and, closely tied to the mission, is the Lakota Studies Program, which serves to assist in the preservation of the Lakota way of life."

The team commended the college's decentralized model, which serves needs of the population centers of the reservation, and the Bison Research Project, which creates "national distinction" for the college.

"The employees are committed to the mission of the college and quality of service to their students," according to the report. It also mentioned the improvements to the physical facilities and commended the college for its fiscal stability and success in private fundraising.

"Receiving ten years of NCA accreditation is a major accomplishment for Oglala Lakota College, and it validates the hard work of our faculty and staff on behalf of our institution," says OLC President Thomas Shortbull.