Who Supports Urban American Indian Students in Public Community Colleges?

In 1977 a group of urban American Indian organizations got together to protest the leveling of rental housing for urban renewal; then they learned that a community college was going up to replace that housing, right in the middle of the Indian community. Realizing the opportunities for jobs, education, and training, the community leaders decided to approach the college with a research proposal. That proposal surveyed the education and employment needs of the surrounding Indian people. In 1977 there were only six Indians with college degrees in that community. There were no lawyers, no doctors, no professors. Over half of the community lacked even a high school diploma. That proposal and the state funding that followed created the first American Indian Support Program (AISP) within a public community college in that state.

The AISP was funded by an Indian manager through grant writing. It was funded by state funding initially and later received some foundation grants and college institutional money. At one point, however, the funding was so low that the director and a work-study student were responsible for the financial aid applications, advising, counseling, tutoring, and so on, of over three hundred students from almost every tribe in the country. In the 1980s all federal money for adult education dried up. While the dropout rate continued to climb, the money was gone. No one wanted to help urban Indians learn to read and write or get a ged. In 1980 very few tribes funded their students living in cities. A few years before, the city did not fund training for Indians. They funded training for any other group, but not Indians. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (bia) would not fund students who applied for training grants while living in the city. At that point, the only thing that kept the program alive was the support of the president of the college. He believed in helping communities, and he believed in education. He wanted to see Indian people be successful. He supported the hiring of secretaries, managers, artists, and so forth, at the college, but he could not get around the faculty union, so no Indian faculty were ever hired. Actually, one was hired to teach a poetry class, but he lied about his master's degree, so he only taught one semester. Twenty-three years later, there are still no Indian faculty at this college. One time the state did a study on the lack of minority faculty in the state, but they forgot to include any data on Indians.

Lest you think all was wonderful at this college, there were daily disagreements over those twenty-three years with the financial aid office, with faculty in the classrooms, with faculty and Indian employees, with other administrators who did not want to do anything different for Indian students, and with the business managers. It was a never-ending tension that was only mediated by the president of the college, one Indian administrator, and one Indian manager. The Indian manager was one brave Indian woman who kept the program alive for over fifteen of those years through her caring and supportive nature. She talked to the students, helped them with carfare, listened when they cried, and joined when they laughed. She believed in the students and never gave up. The students got geds, associate degrees, transferred to four-year colleges, got good jobs, and became Indian community leaders. Some became elementary education teachers, some became auto mechanics, and some became medical transcribers and nurses. Some became grandmothers, and their grandchildren went to the AISP.

Then one day the president retired, and the only Indian administrator in the state was told her job was being eliminated. The Indian administrator got hundreds of support letters, pleaded with the board, and sued the college, but to no avail.

Her fight was over. A few years later the Indian manager was told her job was being eliminated; she could...