And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 02:11:26 EDT

>From Victor's pechanga.net - 

Enrollment growing in tribal colleges
Statewire 
http://www2.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisStory=75835721 
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- The growing appeal of higher education on American 
Indian reservations has helped increase enrollment at more than 30 
tribal colleges in a dozen Western and Midwestern states, including 
Wisconsin.

The movement began in the 1970s. Enrollments nearly tripled between 1989 
and 1999, from 10, 000 to 26, 500, the Lincoln Journal Star reports.

" My enrollment is escalating, skyrocketing, " Verna Fowler, president 
of the Menominee Community College in Wisconsin, told the newspaper.

" Six years ago, we began with 49 students. This past semester we served 
very close to 497 students. I' ve been peddling as fast as I can to keep 
my head above water, " Fowler said.

Blending Indian culture with traditional mainstream academic fare, 
tribal colleges provide crucial support systems to people who might not 
otherwise go to school.

" The movement has to do with self-determination, " said Janine Pease 
Pretty on Top, president of the Little Big Horn College in Crow Agency, 
Mont. " It' s quite a big step to declare your own education system."

American Indians traditionally have been relegated to an education 
system that sought to assimilate them into white society, a system in 
which many Indians failed.

As a result, American Indians saw the need for their own schools. In 
1968, the Navajo Nation chartered the first tribal college. In the 
ensuing decade, 20 more tribal colleges were chartered and enrollment 
numbers have risen sharply since.

As tribal college reputations grow, so do the types of students they 
attract. Traditionally, the schools have been attended by 30-something 
mothers. That trend is changing. Today, students fresh from high school 
are choosing tribal colleges, and a growing number are white.

More than 30 percent of students at the Salish Kootenai College on 
Montana' s Flathead Reservation are white. The school' s president, Joe 
McDonald, attributes the large white enrollment to quality academic and 
vocational programs, geographic location and a goal to become a regional 
college.

Tribal colleges also are becoming rooted as community centers. They 
help, for example, community members cope with welfare reform laws by 
promoting job training and educational opportunities.

Despite impressive academic gains over the last three decades, tribal 
colleges still have a number of obstacles to overcome. They receive half 
the core funding mainstream community colleges receive, leaving scant 
funds for teacher salaries, dining facilities, dormitories, libraries or 
technological development.

The Navajo Nation, the country' s largest tribe, was the first to 
establish education on its own terms. The tribe chartered Dine College 
in Tsaile, Ariz., in 1968. Today, its 1, 800 full-time students make it 
the nation' s largest tribal college.

With 80 students, Little Priest Community College in Winnebago, Neb., is 
among the smallest. Founded three years ago, the college was among the 
quickest to receive accreditation, which was awarded in 1998.

Despite their success, tribal schools often disappear from mainstream 
society' s radar screen.

" We' re so unknown, " said Lionel Bordeaux, president of Sinte Gleska 
University on South Dakota' s Rosebud Sioux Reservation. " When they do 
hear about us, they think we' re a fly-by-night operation. We' ve been 
here 30 years. The gains, though substantial, are still baby steps."


Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
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