At the anniversary celebration in May, Phyllis Howard (3rd from left) was presented a plaque by Fort Berthold Community College President Elizabeth Demaray, Dean Deloris Wilkinson, and board president Mike Cross.

Fort Berthold Community College just passed a significant milestone–25 years as a college. After a celebration and a deep breath, they are ready to tackle the next 25 years. The college is one of the proud accomplishments of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara people of the Three Affiliated Tribes. It is one of the few educational institutions located in this isolated part of the state. Because the closest colleges and universities are 100 to 250 miles away, the tribal college fills an important niche by providing degree programs for the reservation and the rural farming community.

Twenty-five years ago, only a handful of people believed the college would succeed. Even these supporters had some doubt that the new college would be the vision it is today. “We came from very humble beginnings,” says Deloris Wilkinson, dean of students. “Our success is because there was a certain camaraderie. We were almost like a family,” she says. Wilkinson, an Arikara from White Shield, attributes that success and team effort to past president, Phyllis Howard.

The tribal college started as a college center in l973 with Howard as the coordinator. Howard, a Hidatsa tribal member, said the college was part of a Title III higher education institutional development grant of the University of Mary in Bismarck. This grant program began to increase the number of Black colleges in the United States and was expanded to include other minorities.

Fort Berthold was among several colleges organized at that time on reservations throughout North Dakota and the nation. The idea for tribal colleges was a brainstorm of people who worked with student services such as TRIO (Talent Search, Upward Bound, Student Support Services) and other programs, says Carol Davis, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and vice president of the Turtle Mountain Community College (Belcourt, N.D.). They discussed ways to make the colleges become a reality. She met Howard during those meetings, and the two have been friends for some 25 years.

During the first year, Howard tackled very basic tasks, such as finding an office and classrooms for their budding college. The staff included only Howard and a part-time secretary during those early years. “We had to go out and practically pull the students in. In that first year we had only about 20 students,” compared with the current enrollment of 301. Initially, they offered extension courses from the state’s universities and junior colleges. They also offered classes needed by the community, such as tribal government and early childhood education, and culturally appropriate classes, such as Arikara, Hidatsa, and Mandan languages.

Bruce Gillette and his mother, Doris Hoffman, both graduated from FBCC in 1989. He later earned a bachelor of science degree in alcohol addiction studies. “Without college a lot of us would still be wandering around lost,” he said at the celebration.

Wilkinson says the early childhood education classes were needed for the tribal members who were teaching in the Head Start programs. Those classes were important so tribal people could earn degrees and then become qualified staff of the local program. One of the original graduates, Martha Lone Bear, a Hidatsa tribal member, started as a teacher and then became the director. She is still with the Head Start program. Without the college, Head Start would have been administered by non-Indian teachers, she says. The children need Native American teachers because they can relate to them, and these Native American teachers are role models.

By 1983 there were 180 students, but the college was still struggling for funds. “We would wring every dollar dry. There was no waste. We really disciplined ourselves to stay within the budget,” Wilkinson says. Throughout those early years funding was their biggest problem, Howard says. When Congress passed the Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act of 1978, it meant some stable funding for the tribal college.

Then Howard decided to reach for the stars. She began to plan for a new campus to replace the deteriorating one. The college had moved from condemned trailers at the Four Bears village across the Missouri River to several rental buildings in New Town, N.D. Some of the old buildings at Four Bears were so cold during the winter that the students would practically freeze, she says. During those years, they would gather to talk about a new college. They wondered if they could really do it. She asked, “Why not?

“It was a major undertaking,” she says. They had to tap every source possible, including their own pockets and the purses of the community. Today the brand new tribal community college building in New Town overlooks the Missouri River on the western plains of North Dakota. Since accreditation in 1985, the college has graduated over 300 students.

“We want to make classes culturally relevant to the tribe,” says Elizabeth Demaray, Arikara tribal member and current president of the college. The curriculum incorporates the culture of the people and includes language studies of the three tribes. Demaray is putting together an elder advisory committee to work with the college, which will be important in maintaining the culture and promoting the languages. Through the IVAN (Interactive Video Network) system they are able to hook up with all the districts on the reservation as well as other colleges and universities in the state.

The goal for the community college is to become a four-year institution. An innovative elementary teacher education project that is mentored and supported by University of North Dakota (UND) in Grand Forks, N.D., will help the tribal college to graduate their first four-year students. The students will receive their degrees from UND, but they will take their classes and do their student teaching in reservation community schools. The project is managed and taught by Dr. Clarice Big Back, a Hidatsa tribal member and UND professor.

The scene has changed since the years Howard struggled to find Native American professionals to fill the positions at the college. Currently there are many professionals in several different fields on the reservation. Unlike the freezing cold trailers of earlier years, the college enjoys a modern building with  state-of-the-art technology. The mission, however, remains the same: serving the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara people in their own community.

Dorreen Yellow Bird, Sahnish (Arikara) from the Three Affiliated Tribes, White Shield, N.D., is a community journalist and columnist for the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota. She also serves on the editorial board for the Herald. She has her master’s degree in education from Oregon State University and is currently writing a book about the history of the Sahnish. Elizabeth Demaray is her sister.