Native student enrollment at the University of Idaho has been inconsistent in the last 10 years, but recent recruitment efforts and the creation of staff positions may bolster Native numbers.
Steven Martin, director of UI’s Native American Student Center, is constantly on the lookout for donors and grants to support Native programming. The most recent boost in fundraising is in pursuit of $10,000 that will be matched by the American Indian Education Foundation. The English department is also collecting funds to support a Native American Fellowship in Creative Writing.
Martin said 100-percent retention isn’t a reality, and one or two students leave every year. But he advises and engages with the 12 to 15 students that come to the center regularly.
Ricardo Buenrostro said his position as UI’s multicultural recruiter may expand to encompass retention efforts, but all Native faculty and staff form a web of academic and cultural support for Native students at UI. Five members of UI’s faculty are Native, and they all act as resources to students who are struggling with the same issues they faced in higher education.
Arthur Taylor, UI’s tribal liaison, said interaction with recruited students is the key to retention, and support has to come from university staff and tribal leaders. Native faculty and staff often understand Native students and contribute to their success, he said.
The center, Taylor said, encourages students to express their culture and maintain a connection to their Native identity during college. Community dinners, Native films, guest speakers and the annual Tutxinmepu Pow-Wow are hosted by NASC. The center’s large couches, long tables and computers are available to students daily.
He and Martin agree that the center and its programs are under-funded and under-staffed. Martin said he is the face of the center and Native programming when he recruits, and Taylor said students perceive the outdated, overcrowded structure as representative of their value on campus.
Formerly the purchasing building, NASC is housed in one of the oldest structures on campus. Yolanda Bisbee, director of the College Assistance Migrant Program, helped establish the center in 2006 and said the building stands only because there’s no money for demolition.
Taylor said a new facility, like a long house, would be ideal. Solid infrastructure and meaningful scholarship money, he said, will boost Native student enrollment. More Native faculty would encourage students and parents from Native communities feel comfortable and supported, Taylor said.
Native Americans with doctoral degrees, he said, can command a salary because they are a rarity. Since UI can’t always offer the same benefits as larger institutions, Taylor said it’s important to “grow our own” Native faculty through graduate programs.
Native graduate student enrollment has more than doubled since 2007, and accounts for a little more than 1 percent of graduate and professional students in Moscow. Angelique EagleWoman, associate professor of law and coordinator of the Native Law Program, teaches American Indian Studies and in UI’s College of Law. She established a chapter of the Native American Law Student Association at UI, and an emphasis within the law school on Native issues.
“There’s a huge unmet legal need in Native law,” EagleWoman said.
About seven students in the program are Native, and graduating class sizes have increased since its inception in 2009. EagleWoman, a citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota of the Lake Traverse Reservation, also works with Taylor and others to uphold promises made in two Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) that the university is a party to.
The first is between UI and four regional colleges. Taylor said the agreement calls for UI to work collaboratively with NIC and LCSC to cross-list courses in American Indian Studies. He said the schools would rather work together than compete for Native students.
The second MOU is between UI and 10 tribes. It requires the university to establish a Native American Advisory Council that consists of President M. Duane Nellis, Taylor and a representative from each tribe.
“The president informs tribal leaders what we’re doing here at the university,” Taylor said. “And it allows tribal leaders to bring concerns to the president.”
Taylor chairs the Native American Advisory Board, a mid-level group that works with UI faculty and tribal education directors to address “ground-level” issues. If necessary, Taylor said issues raised by the board can be elevated to a policy level for review by the council and president.
The President’s Diversity Council, established in 2009, interacts with the board and council but is not directly related to either, Taylor said. The university has a commitment to Native students, Eaglewoman said, and committees provide resources and support services to students and faculty who need them.
“A lot of issues that affect students affect staff and faculty too,” she said.
UI professor Ed Galindo has been on both sides of the fence and maintains a positive attitude about Native enrollment despite wavering enrollment. After graduating from UI in 1979, Galindo earned a doctorate from Utah State University and taught science in the Shoshone-Bannock tribal school for 20 years. He arrived at UI in 2005 and chaired Taylor’s hiring committee.
Galindo produces prototypes for NASA, and meets with about 10 Native graduate students once a month as part of the Indigenous Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (ISTEM) program. The number of Native graduate students has grown, but Galindo said he doesn’t like that 0.01 percent of scientists nationwide are Native.
“That’s why I’m here,” Galindo said. “I don’t think that’s acceptable.”
Galindo said he values education above everything but people. A welcoming environment, Galindo said, is the best way to recruit students of any background.
“It doesn’t take money — a federal grant — to make people feel welcome,” Galindo said. “How much does a smile cost? What’s the price tag on a relationship?”
Dollars provide opportunities for students, he said, but environment plays a major role in Native students’ chance at higher education. Parental support, sibling role models and compassionate teachers influence Native high school students the most, he said.
Galindo said Native students bring “the great gift” of a unique outlook specific to each tribe that enriches the university community.
He said he imagines the Native community at UI as a flowering plant with ISTEM as the stalk, leafy appendages of other Native academic programs and faculty, and administrators like Taylor and Martin blooming in the center. He said the plant is rooted in UI soil, watered by “pennies from heaven” and fed by the sunlight of compassion.
“You plant a seed, you hope it grows,” Galindo said. “Don’t give up hope.”