OMAHA, Neb. -- Tribal colleges and universities in Nebraska and across the nation are teaching the next generation of pre-K and elementary-school educators ways to incorporate native language and culture into their lesson plans, and a new grant secured by the American Indian College Fund will help that work expand.

Emily White Hat, vice president for programs at the Fund, said access to an educational pathway including traditional, indigenous knowledge, greatly improves education outcomes for students.

"It really supports their identity," White Hat explained. "It helps them be confident in who they are. It connects them to relatives in the community. It just provides this broader world view."

Nebraska Indian Community College and Little Priest Tribal College both offer early-childhood education courses, and will be eligible to get a slice of a recent $5.3 million grant from the Bezos Family Foundation over the next four years.

White Hat pointed out the program's goal is to revise curriculum to be more culturally relevant and support degree attainment for teachers. For example, students explore native housing structures in their Science, Technology, Engineering and Math classes, in a course now known as "wigwam-etry."

Educators also engage parents in their child's education, through activities such as family nights on campus, where parents also get a taste of the tribal college experience.

"The hope, too, is that we may bring parents who had not thought about college as an option into a place where they may feel like, 'Oh, I could do this. I could attend college, too,'" White Hat emphasized.

White Hat also sees the program as a way for families and entire communities to heal from the ongoing trauma caused when native children were removed from their homes for forced assimilation into white culture at boarding schools.

"Supporting the development of new teachers in the classrooms of our tribal communities is fundamental to the visibility of native people," White Hat contended. "We still exist, in this country and this world."

Indigenous leaders are traveling through the Northwest to highlight the plight of dwindling fish populations in the region.

The All Our Relations Journey is in Lewiston today and Saturday to call for the removal of four lower Snake River dams that are a barrier to salmon migration. Julian Matthews, a coordinator for Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment, will speak at the event and said saving the endangered salmon in Idaho waters is crucial for tribes.

"We don't want to go out and catch a couple of fish, man," he said. "This is a treaty right as per our agreement, and we want the U.S. government to hold up their end of it. And if the salmon go extinct, then they're not."

The journey started in Olympia earlier this week and is at Hells Gate State Park in Lewiston today and Saturday. It will be in Seattle on Sunday.

Matthews said abundant salmon populations also ensure orcas on the West Coast are fed. He explained that the term "journey" refers to humans' shared connection with the environment.

"We're looking at all our relations as the orcas, salmon, people, forests and living things being connected," he said. "So we're all related."

The campaign is traveling with an eight-foot steel sculpture created by the Lummi Nation in Northwest Washington. It's urging the Biden administration and Congress to protect and restore the region's endangered fish populations.


get more stories like this via email

Little Priest Tribal College in Winnebago says its student body and campus are growing - and so are its options for people to study in STEM fields.

Little Priest has always offered some health and science courses, but college Vice President of Finance and Operations Mark Vasina said the two-year school is also creating pathways to higher education for its graduates.

It has transfer agreements with several area colleges - in many cases, with free tuition for getting a bachelor's degree - including Wayne State in Wayne, Nebraska, and Briarcliff University in Sioux City, Iowa.

Vasina said one Briarcliff agreement allows Little Priest health-science grads to earn a nursing degree in two years, tuition free.

"Here on the reservation, we have the Twelve Clans Hospital, and they have a constant need - as all over the country - for nurses," said Vasina. "But they also need other lab technicians, and people who are trained in science and technology applications."

This month, Little Priest broke ground on a 12,000 square foot science building. In addition to government agencies, the reservation is home to Ho-Chunk Farms, which employs some of the school's diversified ag students.

Vasina says Little Priest is helping to build a skilled workforce in an area where employers sometimes struggle to fill positions because of the town's small size and distance from metropolitan areas.

An ongoing issue on the Winnebago reservation is water quality, because of excessive mineral content and other contaminants. Vasina pointed to water monitoring as another local need for STEM-trained individuals.

"We also have our EPA," said Vasina. "We have water testing, we have our Department of Natural Resources - all of these programs are starving for qualified individuals who are trained in modern lab techniques."

And Little Priest offers dual-enrollment courses at three area high schools, which Vasina said is one way they generate interest and promote readiness in potential future students.

"We're reaching backwards into the high school and middle school," said Vasina, "as well as forward to the four-year schools, so that students can recognize that coming here leads them into something even greater and better beyond."

The college celebrated its 25th anniversary this month and is seeing record enrollment. Since summer 2020, tuition has been free for all students.

Today is National Voter Registration Day, and in Montana, Indigenous advocates are working to register people and get out the vote.

As part of its civic engagement initiative, Western Native Voice is encouraging Indigenous Americans to register to vote and cast a ballot in the next election ... and they are doing it via a drive-through voter registration effort in Billings.

Adam Beaves-Fisher, deputy director of government and political relations for Western Native Voice, is strongly encouraging Indigenous people to register, get involved in the democratic process and continue to be engaged, contrary to what has happened in the past.

"Native Americans have been disenfranchised from the process historically, as well as voting in lower rates," Beaves-Fisher explained. "We're really making sure that we're creating that tradition across our communities: not only voting, but being engaged in the civic process."

The event takes place in the Western Native Voice office parking lots on 25th Street West in Billings. It starts at 11 a.m. and runs until 7 p.m.

Beaves-Fisher pointed out staying involved in the process is important for every American voter, but especially so for Indigenous people who face unique barriers when it comes to casting a ballot. He added it has become increasingly important for Native Americans to have a louder voice in the democratic process because of the barriers they have faced in the past.

"Some of the real barriers are just life in rural Montana," Beaves-Fisher observed. "When you have consolidated polling locations, uneven registration hours or voting hours, changing laws about the process creates a lot of confusion for every voter."

Today's drive-through event will feature a variety of voter-related activities, including updating voter registration information, signing up for mail-in voting and first-time voter registration.