Native Student Success

[Andre Cramblit]

Pathways for Indian Student Success

American Indian students are the least likely of all college-goers to  
earn a degree, and they’re more likely than members of any other  
racial group to drop out, according to federal data. Research to date  
hasn’t been able to explain all of the hows and whys behind this  
phenomenon, but many student affairs professionals say that it’s time  
to tackle the problem.

Leaders of the National Association of Student Personnel  
Administrators, an organization that represents about 11,000 student  
affairs officials in higher education, have taken note of the complex  
issues that face American Indian students. While the organization has  
been holding its annual convention for 88 years, this year, for the  
first time ever, addressing the recruitment and retention of American  
Indian students has played a substantial role at the meeting, due  
largely to the concerns of administrators who serve such students —  
both at mainstream institutions and at tribal colleges and universities.

“We wanted to make sure that there was always a place for indigenous  
peoples in NASPA,” said Gwendolyn Jordan Dungy, executive director of  
the organization, at a special day-long “Summit on Serving Native  
American Students: From Discussion to Action,” which was held on  
Sunday. The forum highlighted the formation of a new NASPA-affiliated  
group called the Indigenous Peoples Knowledge Community, which is  
intended as a network for administrators nationwide to share best  
practices for serving Indian students. A new listserv is also in the  
works.

“We are past the time for talking,” said Henrietta Mann, a professor  
emeritus in Native American Studies at Montana State University at  
Bozeman, during her keynote address. “We need to establish effective  
action plans to maintain our historical cultures and to shape the  
future for Native American students in higher education.”

George S. McClellan, vice president for student development at  
Dickinson State University, in North Dakota, said that Indian  
students tend not to use student services, and that those services  
that they do use tend to be focused on financial aid. His findings  
came as a result of a recent study by researchers at the University  
of Arizona, which has one of the largest Indian populations of all  
mainstream institutions in the country. He said that colleges need to  
incorporate incentives for getting students to seek service. At the  
University of North Dakota, for example, a student must visit the  
Native student affairs at least two times a year in order to be  
eligible for tuition assistance programs

“Both Native and non-Native professionals and professional  
associations must play a role in bringing about the needed changes in  
higher education with respect to better serving Native American  
students,” said McClellan. “A critical component in achieving the  
goal of increasing rates of participation and persistence is to  
recognize and act on the knowledge that building student success  
begins long before Native students arrive on campus.” Based on his  
own observations, he said that having American Indian faculty members  
and staff tends to help Indian students feel more connected to their  
campuses.

Shelly Lowe, a student service provider at the University of Arizona,  
said that higher education professionals need to become aware of and  
make use of indigenous theories, models and practices in seeking to  
support Native American students, staff and faculty. She said that a  
book she co-authored with McClellan and Mary Jo Tippeconic Fox,  
Serving Native American Students, which is available online, provides  
several examples that have been helpful for some Indian students.

“Footnotes indicating that findings on Native Americans are not  
statistically significant and so are omitted from the research are  
too often the only reference to Native Americans in much of the  
literature in higher education,” added Lowe. She suggested that  
although qualitative research is often more time-consuming than  
quantitative research that this methodology could be helpful.

Ruth Harper, a professor of counseling and students affairs at South  
Dakota State University, said that qualitative research is one of the  
best ways to understand Indian students, even though one cannot make  
generalizations from it. She recently used the method to study  
several Lakota male students who attend Sinte Gleska University, in  
South Dakota. For these men, she said integrating aspects of American  
Indian culture with counseling was important to them, as were ways to  
address concrete issues, including travel, costs and child care. One  
man told Harper that the Lakota language courses he has taken at the  
university “mean my life.”

Many administrators at the summit said they weren’t under the  
impression that forming an action-focused committee would be a magic  
bullet. With 562 federally recognized tribes and many state- 
recognized tribes — all with different cultures and languages, Indian  
students are one of the most heterogeneous groups around. Further  
complicating matters is that fact that some students are deeply  
concerned about making Native culture and language an integral part  
of their education, while others don’t hold this as a priority.

Still, most said that focusing on culture is crucial — not only in  
helping Native students succeed, but also in fostering generations of  
students who are connected to their unique histories.

Along these lines, Mann said that indigenous people have a right to  
their own identities, languages and cultures, but that mainstream  
institutions of higher education often have not provided students  
with avenues to achieve these rights. “Language is the lifeblood of  
our cultures and is rooted in the Earth,” she said. She added that no  
matter where an Indian student attends college, administrators have  
the obligation to honor students’ cultural heritage and spirituality,  
especially if they are expressing the desire for this kind of  
support. She said that her own institution has worked diligently to  
strengthen its Native American Studies program, which currently  
offers a minor and master of arts degree.

“Cultural pluralism is a gift,” added Mann. “But too often we are  
left out of programs on campuses. We need to change that.”

Several administrators who have collaborated with tribal colleges,  
said that such institutions are able to infuse language and culture  
into a student’s learning experience in ways that mainstream  
institutions often do not. Research indicates that tribal colleges  
have improved participation and persistence rates of American Indian  
students by creating culturally relevant learning environments.

Still, because many tribal colleges are two-year institutions, there  
was a general concern that the institutions cannot meet the full  
educational needs of many Indian students. Student affairs  
professionals at the summit said that mainstream institutions must  
find ways to collaborate with tribal college officials to learn what  
works for their students, and to determine what actions can be taken  
on campuses nationwide to improve the experience for Indian transfer  
students.

— Rob Capriccioso

The original story and user comments can be viewed online at http:// 
insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/15/indians.
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