Contemporary American Indian Studies

In his keynote address to the Fifth Annual American Indian Studies Consortium in 2005 David Wilkins began by commenting on earlier attempts to formally organize such a gathering in ways that might help establish and accredit Indian studies programs. He said he had the sense that the thrust of earlier meetings "was really an opportunity for Native academics, graduate students, and their allies to meet, chat, socialize, and network."¹

As he investigated the possibilities of more fully engaging the many powerful topics confronting Native nations, both within and outside the academy, Wilkins was reassured to discover that the consortium intended to take up Elizabeth Cook-Lynn's provocative essay, "Who Stole Native American Studies?" Both Wilkins's and the consortium's willingness to more carefully consider American Indian higher education signals a major shift in focus, a shift from an attitude that vital issues can most effectively be confronted through the legal system to a realization that legal actions can and should be bolstered by various other means, including aspects of Indian studies. This different approach, broadly based in Indian studies, is more akin to what Vine Deloria Jr. termed a strategy of breaking arguments into morally and religiously sound parts that appeal to those who hold opposing points of view rather than attempting to intimidate them in the winner-take-all atmosphere of the courtroom.²

In my own discussion, "Making Sense of Federal Indian Law," I also asserted that an overdependence on the legal system has proven largely ineffective, particularly given the lack of support by the United States Supreme Court. The conclusions I reached advocate for a broader approach as well, one based in tribal ways of knowing and being.

The kinds of Indian studies that can be of help to such a project, identified by Elizabeth Cook-Lynn as having "as its constituencies the tribal nations of America, and . . . meant to have as its major intent the defense of lands and resources and the sovereign autonomy of nationhood," must also be strongly grounded in tribal ways of knowing and being.³ In order to clarify what it is we talk about when we talk about Indian studies and tribal ways of knowing and being, it may be of help to consider information and practices gathered from both tribal colleges and mainstream universities.

Tribal Colleges, published by the Carnegie Foundation in 1989, has helped illuminate aspects of American Indian higher education.⁴ The creation of Navajo Community College in 1968 is generally recognized as the beginning of the tribal college movement, although tribal colleges were established in California, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin in subsequent years. These tribal colleges all share a common goal of providing education and training grounded in tribal ways of knowing and being, a goal generally organized around four objectives: providing service to existing tribal communities; providing training to develop specific job skills; providing opportunities for cultural enrichment; and facilitating the process of transfer to four-year colleges.

Gaining a more tangible sense of tribal colleges begins with money, one of the most pervasive aspects of the modern world. Funding for tribal colleges, which resemble mainstream community colleges in certain ways, is largely accomplished through Public Law 95-471, the Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act. This congressional funding has steadily shrunk since the original legislation, authorized in 1978, and is far less than funding provided to mainstream institutions with sizeable populations of Indian students and for faculty to teach those students.⁵

Another unique condition related to tribal colleges is the fact that no institutional role models exist, including traditionally black institutions, which differ significantly by virtue of an assimilationist approach that largely replicates mainstream institutions. Probably the closest comparison that can be made is to those women's colleges that are not simply colleges that happen to serve women but are truly women's colleges in structure, pedagogy, and ways of knowing and being.

A third factor, and perhaps the most restrictive, consists of mainstream requirements for accreditation, to which funding is closely linked. The requirement that faculty members...