Infrared photograph by Jason S. Ordaz

As chair of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) board of trustees, I have had the honor to be part of a pivotal moment in the institute’s history. Last year, IAIA faced one of the most challenging hurdles in its 60-plus years. Our esteemed president, Dr. Robert Martin (Cherokee Nation), entered a well-deserved and long-planned retirement in July 2025, shortly before the current administration proposed to zero out IAIA’s funding.

At the same time, in a move that brought hope and confidence in a strong future, Dr. Martin, myself, and the board of trustees onboarded our new president, Dr. Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo), former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). At the NEH, Dr. Lowe managed a federal agency with a $207 million annual budget and spearheaded initiatives that significantly advanced Indigenous education and representation at the national level.

Prior to his departure in July, Dr. Martin shared the good news that, after initially being zeroed out of future funding completely, the Senate had approved near full-level funding in a proposed Department of the Interior appropriations bill. “There is a way to go before we get a full budget approved by Congress,” Dr. Martin said at the time. “but we are optimistic that we will be successful and supported at current levels.”

He was right. Early this year, both the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of an appropri­ations act that maintained IAIA’s funding at current levels, ensuring stable support for the institute’s programs, student services, and general operations throughout the fiscal year.

TAKING UP THE CHALLENGE

The moment when a stalwart guardian of our school passed the mantle of leadership to a new president, just as IAIA’s future was at risk, was a critical time for our media outreach. It was managed by IAIA’s Office of Institutional Communications under the lead­ership of Jason S. Ordaz, the chief communications officer. Ordaz had earned the Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in the category of arts education for “his impact across Santa Fe—in stunning photographs that capture our cultural heritage with precision, patience, and thoughtfulness, in the successes of the stu­dents he has mentored, and in the strengthened identity of one of our premier higher education institutions in Santa Fe.”

This moment, however, entailed crafting critical messaging (there’s a reason they call this “crisis communications”) and then delivering that message to local and national media. “We found out that Dr. Martin was going to retire in late 2024, so we had several months to prepare for that messaging before we heard that the current administration had zeroed us out for the next fiscal year,” Ordaz remembers.

Ordaz and his communications team spent several weeks devel­oping a campaign to announce Dr. Martin’s retirement, which included creating press releases, contacting the media, and securing media buy-in to run stories. They secured a feature on Dr. Martin in the Pasatiempo and in the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Then, at the close of the spring semester, we discovered that IAIA had been zeroed out of funding. Ordaz worked closely with Dr. Martin and selected cabinet members to discuss what the campaign about that critical issue would entail and what the messaging would be. He had to carefully curate how this message would be disseminated to our constituents, as it was a sensitive issue. Many people, including students and parents, contacted IAIA, wondering if the school would close and what this would mean for its legacy.

At the time, we had no idea, but we felt confident that with our friends, partners, supporters, and the people in our congressional delegation, we would be able to make a compelling case and put it in front of the right people. Through Dr. Martin’s leadership and his connections, we believed that IAIA would be included in the funding going forward for that fiscal year. The campaign was developed over a period of two to three weeks before Ordaz and his team actually rolled it out.

What this moment made clear is that strategic communications are not ancillary to resource development; they are foundational, especially for tribal colleges and universities navigating moments of institutional vulnerability.

A MESSAGE OF HOPE

Ordaz remembers that the time between discovering the zeroed-out funding and Dr. Lowe’s onboarding was only a few months, but “felt like a year with all the media we had to contact and the messaging we had to create.”

Ordaz says that hope was the key to IAIA’s messaging. “Hope was the message that we put forward. We received daily updates from our congressional delegation and supporters in Washington, and at the same time, we also had new hope for a president,” he recalls. “We had a president who was on a timetable to leave just a month later, and now we have a new president who has already been in Washington, DC, and knows some of the inner workings of what’s required in order to advocate for our funding to be returned from zero to at least level funding.”

Ordaz remembers that shortly after Dr. Lowe was onboarded, IAIA received the message that the school had gone from zero to near-level funding. “Once we found that out, the messaging changed to resiliency. Look at what happened . . . all the advocacy from students, staff, and faculty reaching out to leaders in Washington about why it was critical that IAIA should be included in the federal budget,” he recalls.

Ordaz relied heavily on Dr. Lowe’s background in the corridors of government. “Just like Dr. Martin, she’s very informed on how policies work around this, and the people involved in making these policies. We discussed the issues we’re facing—not only us, but also other tribal colleges. Dr. Lowe is very calm and collected, knowledgeable, and open to many pathways possible to achieve the ultimate goal of having us restored to level funding on an ongoing basis,” Ordaz says.

At this time, Ordaz directed his office’s efforts to capitalize on the excitement created by the arrival of a new president to expand the message of IAIA’s resiliency. “It’s the excitement that there’s hope and that we have somebody to be able to continue the advo­cacy that Dr. Martin had put into place, and really to strengthen our message about why IAIA exists, the new programs that we offer, the great work that our alums are doing,” he says, adding, “Not only do we get to be excited about the announcement of Dr. Lowe in this new role, but also the exciting work that we do every day at IAIA.”

LOOK TO THE WISDOM-KEEPERS

As chair of IAIA’s board of trustees, I was also witness to trustees’ deep involvement in these campaigns every step of the way, some­thing that Ordaz says was an important component of his office’s outreach.

“You have to seek the input of elders, and of those with deep experience who are guiding your institution,” he says. “You must be humble and ask for that knowledge that your wisdom keepers have learned from years of guiding the institution. That is a major factor in our success in these critical campaigns over the past year and a half. And it’s a deeply important component of success for any tribal college or university.”

At IAIA, this period reaffirmed that when leadership, institu­tional communications, and cultural values move in alignment, even moments of uncertainty can become pathways toward renewed strength and long-term sustainability.

Beverly Wright-Morris (Unangax̂) is chair of the Institute of American Indian Arts’ board of trustees and the owner of Chain Reaction Productions.