Blood school hosts Indian College association retreat

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Red Crow College, a post-secondary institution on the Blood Reserve at Standoff, Alta., played host to school presidents and other officials of more than 20 tribally-controlled U.S. Indian colleges recently, at an annual retreat in Waterton Lakes National Park.

Red Crow president, Marie Smallface Marule, said they were the only Canadian Institute in the American Indian Higher Education Consortium but were pleased to host the event.

"Most of the issues we're facing are the same on both sides of the border," she said. "Funding is probably our biggest problem. Our grants are drying up and they're drying up for the American schools, too."

Marule says accreditation and accessibility of educational opportunities are also concerns of her American colleagues, so it was both interesting and informative to discuss those subjects with the other schools.

AIHEC, founded in 1974, is a co-operatively sponsored effort on the part of its 30 member institutions. Twenty two of those schools, with almost 40 delegates, were at the four-day Waterton meeting, held at the Bayshore Inn Aug. 1-4. The retreat offers the schools a chance to get together in an informal setting, to work collectively toward common goals.

Dr. Joseph McDonald, president of the Salish-Kootenai College at Pablo, Montana, said he normally spends most of his time "trying to get federal government appropriations. It's like a different sort of hunting and gathering. But this retreat gives us the opportunity to work together on curriculum development and advocacy campaigns. It's a chance to do some long-range planning and professional development."

It's useful for the American schools to know what's going on across the border in Canada, because it gives them a somewhat different perspective and some new ideas, McDonald said.

"We had a couple of other Canadians members at one time, but I guess the present leaders don't see the benefit of belonging."

AIHEC members together educate more than 20,000 students a year. The schools offer Native students a chance to prove to themselves they can be successful in a post-secondary institution.

"The success rate for students transferring from an Indian College to a mainstream college or university is several times higher than for students going directly into the larger schools,' McDonald noted.

"Partly, this is because they can start in a smaller, more relaxed setting. But I think it mainly has to do with the students feeling more at home in an Indian school, with people and ways they can relate to. Once they gain self-confidence at the Indian college, they can more successfully transfer to a non-Native school."

In fact, gaining accreditation for their schools so students can easily transfer their credits is one of the major joint goals of the AIHEC. But often they'll arrange for access to each other's accredited courses for their students.

"We're working right now on getting access for our students to some of the accredited programs at the Blackfeet Community college, in Browning, Montana," said Marule. "But we're also negotiating with the University of Lethbridge, to have more of our courses be transferable to their programs."

Both Marule and Mcdonald said they also gained much from discussions on new programs, especially those related to job training, "Our students want high-paying jobs that are intense, but temporary, like fire-fighting," McDonald said. "They want to be able to work hard for a while, then walk away and do something else. Many of our students just aren't into nine-to-five jobs."

His school and several others are currently looking into training programs for toxic waste clean-up.

"There's a world-wide need for hazardous waste technicians, so we know there are jobs out there. Training our people to do these jobs would also give them a lot of information about the dangers.""

Right now job training for waste clean-up is usually available only on-site, from the companies which created thepollution in the first place. It's not only site-specific, it's often one-sided, and doesn't give the worker a complete picture of the dangers involved, McDonald said. In both Alberta and Montana for example, oil companies have been hiring Native workers and giving them superficial training to clean up low-level hydrocarbon contamination.

"The governments in both countries are still looking at our reservations as possible hazardous waste dumping sites, so it would be good for us to know more about the subject for this reason as well," he added.

The need for Native colleges is increasing, because the population is increasing, McDonald said.

"There's a huge potential for growth, but no money. We have more and more Native students, and more each year are interested in continuing their education. But having a bunch of educated Indians around probably scares Congress ? and your Parliament ? silly. I think that's one of the reasons they're cutting back on funding."

Marule thinks membership in the AIHEC is valuable, but she isn't recruiting other Canadian schools to join. Instead, she's part of a group spearheading a movement to form a consortium of First Nations Colleges in Canada.

"There are least 16 First Nations colleges in this country, mostly in the west. Alberta has five, and there are 10 or 11 in B.C. It would be extremely useful to have our own western Canadian association."

But for now, at least, Red Crow will continue its relationship with the AIHEC.