The Road to Success – The Value of Tribal Colleges – American Indian teacher training center opens

Selena Hill of the University of Montana: "It’s convenient to stay in your community."

MISSOULA, Mont.—Native American students are better prepared for the academic rigors of a four-year university after spending time at tribal colleges, according to an adviser at the University of Montana.

By Adelle Watts

http://www.reznetnews.org/student/041021_transfer/

(Many thanks to Headwaters News http://www.headwatersnews.org for passing this along.- Russ)

“It’s convenient to stay in your (tribal) community,” said Selena Hill, the adviser and coordinator of American Indian Student Services at the University of Montana. “Community is really important to us (Natives). Not everyone is comfortable leaving that kind of system.”

According to Hill, of the 462 Native American students who attended the University of Montana during the last school year, roughly half were tribal transfer students.

They came mainly from two tribal colleges in Montana: Blackfeet Community College on the Blackfeet Reservation and Salish Kootenai College on the Flathead Reservation. Fort Peck Community College—on the Fort Peck Reservation—sent a smaller number of students.

“Tribal transfer students are most likely to succeed in college,” said Hill, compared to students who enroll as incoming freshmen right out of high school.

This school year, about 490 Native American students have enrolled at the University of Montana, according to American Indian Student Services. The new students among them are still in the process of adjusting to campus life, their classes and scheduling.

Hill meets most of the Native students on campus at an orientation gathering as well as through her own outreach. One of her duties is to be aware of all the campus services and sources of help for Native students.

Success in College

Mandi Henderson, a new student fresh from high school graduation, agrees with Hill’s assessment, but only to an extent.

Success in college “depends on the person,” said the 18-year-old freshman studying psychology. “I had the Upward Bound program and I don’t need that little start-out because I had it throughout high school.”

High school students in the Upward Bound program, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, spend summers on college campuses taking classes aimed at helping them to be successful in college.

Henderson, like other incoming freshmen straight out of high school, feels confident about her future at the University of Montana, mostly because of her Upward Bound experience.

Not all Upward Bound graduates go on to big state or private colleges after high school. Some attend their tribal or community college because it is "convenient,” as Hill mentioned.

Henderson’s sister, Eileen, is a junior who transferred to the University of Montana from Blackfeet Community College (BCC) and is studying elementary education.

“It was easier at BCC,” said Eileen Henderson, playing with her 19-month-old son. “I was pregnant and I didn’t want to set myself up for failure. It was hard enough going to BCC and being pregnant and I had my family.” Another student mother left her son at home so she could do better at the university.

Arlinda Edwards, a 24-year-old junior here, did not originally plan to transfer from Blackfeet Community College to the University of Montana.

“It’s hard living away from my son,” said Edwards. “Sometimes I think and feel that I should’ve just waited because I’m here and he’s there.”

However, Edwards does not plan to go home any time soon. She is determined to graduate from the University of Montana, she said, after she saw her brother march down the aisle at his graduation last May.

Adelle Watts, Blackfeet, attends the University of Montana in Missoula. She is a 2004 graduate of the Freedom Forum’s American Indian Journalism Institute. Photographer Yogesh Simpson is a student at the University of Montana.

Copyright © 2004 Reznet.

Reznet is a project of The University of Montana School of Journalism
and the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.

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American Indian teacher training center opens

By The Associated Press

http://helenair.com/articles/2004/10/22/montana/c04102204_03.txt

SHERIDAN, Wyo. (AP) — Northern Wyoming is a good place to train teachers for working in American Indian, Eskimo and Hawaiian-native schools because many important events in American Indian history have happened there, the school’s director says.

Craig Dougherty is both superintendent of Sheridan County’s rural schools and executive director of the Native American Indian, Alaskan and Hawaiian Educational Development Center in Sheridan. More than 100 people attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the center Wednesday.

‘‘This is the epicenter. This is the place this needs to happen in,” Dougherty said before the ceremony began.

The ceremony included a ribbon-cutting and blessings by the Rev. Newton and Amelia Old Crow of First Crow Indian Baptist Church in Lodge Grass, Mont.

Dougherty said he is directing the center free of charge.

The center’s name, he said, reflects the fact that it will train not only teachers of American Indian children in the lower 48 states, but also teachers of Eskimo (who do not consider themselves American Indian) and native Hawaiian children.

He said that even though a lot of reservations are isolated, it has been shown that children on them can learn from well-trained teachers.

At the St. Labre school on Montana’s Cheyenne Reservation, 83 percent of students taught by professionally trained teachers last year were reading above the national average for their grades, he said.

Those attending the ceremony included Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., a Sheridan native who sponsored an appropriations request that secured $500,000 for the center. Enzi submitted a bill this year that would appropriate $4.5 million for the center, Dougherty said.

Information from: (Sheridan) Press, http://www.thesheridanpress.com