More than 50 years ago, some idealistic men and women on American Indian reservations had a vision: reservation-based colleges that would prepare students for careers but also give them grounding in their language and culture. For years, they had watched their beloved community members leave for mainstream universities in the fall and return disheartened and dispirited, often by Thanksgiving. In the classroom, their families’ deepest spiritual beliefs were sometimes disparaged as the myths of savages. On campus, other students would harass them or treat them with fascination, trying to touch their hair or calling them “pocahontas.”

Nationwide, only 61 American Indians graduated from a four-year college or university in 1961, according to one study cited by Paul Boyer in his book, Capturing Education: Envisioning and Building the First Tribal Colleges. The visionaries who established the first tribally controlled colleges knew their students should not be asked to choose between education and their heritage as Indian people.

As college leaders began developing their institutions, they realized they should work together through a consortium. They needed three things to reach their goal: money, data, and solidarity. Money was necessary because most tribal colleges are located on reservations (i.e., federal trust territory) where local property taxes cannot be levied for their support. Moreover, states have no obligation to fund them. Data was essential because they had to convince Congress and other potential funders that these special institutions were needed, as well as what they could potentially accomplish. And solidarity was critical because they could not work against each other.

AIHEC’s executive director, David Gipp (far left), opened the organization’s first office in Denver, overseeing a staff of six. From left, bottom row: Toni Snow (Sicangu Lakota), executive secretary; W. Buddine Stewart (Mandan/Hidatsa), curriculum director; Perry G. Horse (Kiowa), research director. Top row: David Gipp; Roberta Wilson (Oglala Lakota), human resources director; Richard Nichols (Santa Clara Pueblo), accreditation director; and David Lee, comptroller.

So, in 1973, six colleges formed the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC). In later years the consortium also brought in non-reservation-based institutions that served American Indian students. The most dramatic demonstration of solidarity came much later. In 1994, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation approached the tribal colleges with an offer they presumably could not refuse. To significantly improve Indian education, Kellogg offered millions of dollars to fund a few of AIHEC’s model institutions. Chronically underfunded, most tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) lived hand to mouth and—one would have assumed—could not afford to balk at any offers of help.

To the foundation’s astonishment, Sinte Gleska University President Lionel Bordeaux (Sicangu Lakota) objected to Kellogg’s plan to fund only “model” institutions. “It’s all of us or none of us,” he said. Everyone was stunned. Valorie Johnson, a Kellogg program director who had put her heart into developing this offer, argued that the colleges should not turn their backs on it. Kellogg was not going to fund all 29 tribal colleges. But the colleges stuck together and persisted. Ultimately, Kellogg provided over $22 million to them all in its landmark Native American higher education initiative.

Since 1973, the colleges have strived to serve not just their students but also to transform their communities, and in many ways, they exceeded expectations. Inevitably there were stumbles along the way, and they didn’t achieve everything they dreamed of—a few of the colleges did not survive, including one of the founding members, D-Q University. But when they faced their biggest existential threat in 2020 with the pandemic, they survived largely because of AIHEC’s futuristic thinking on technology and because of expert advocacy during the crisis.

DOCUMENTING THE NEED

From the beginning, the colleges in AIHEC had to fight ignorance, ridicule, and racism. When Navajo tribal chairman Raymond Nakai met with a group of federal, state, and corporate leaders to announce the tribe’s plans to start the first college, a CEO of a major corporation said, “Good God, Mr. Chairman. You don’t think you Navajos can run a college???” Almost everyone laughed, according to Bob Roessel’s account in Boyer’s Capturing Education.

On another occasion, a member of Congress said, “You Indians are good with your hands. Why don’t you forget about colleges and get into the chicken business?” according to Sinte Gleska University President Lionel Bordeaux. For many years, the tribes’ “guardian,” the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), actually testified against the tribal colleges. It was not until 1986 that Henrietta Mann (Southern Cheyenne) was the first BIA official to testify for the tribal colleges.

Those who didn’t mock tribal colleges wanted lots of information and asked many questions: Why can’t existing state institutions meet the need? Why should we allow segregated colleges? What are the economic conditions? Is there local support?

For many years the presidents themselves had to explain and prepare papers, spending weeks at a time in Washington, according to Dr. Jim Shanley (Assiniboine). Shanley was president of Standing Rock Community College at the time and later of Fort Peck Community College for 28 years. AIHEC had an office in Denver for a few years but not enough staff to meet all the demands for data. That office lost its funding and closed, and for a while they had only a half-time lobbyist.

SPIRITUAL FOUNDATION

Explaining the tribal colleges’ dual mission of preparing students for careers while grounding them in tribal language and culture was especially challenging since they wanted to create a brand new form of higher education. Beyond providing job skills, AIHEC wanted to revitalize Native languages and restore cultural norms and practices. The consortium leaders’ own experiences had shown them the transformative power of education. They knew education could bring fundamental social change to their reservation communities. They practiced what they preached: At their meetings with each other, they prayed (sometimes in song) for the sick, for prisoners, and for AIHEC’s success. Gradually they found friends in Washington. In the late 1960s, Congressman Wayne Aspinall reversed his opposition to Navajo Community College based on his spiritual experience holding the prayer stick at the college’s groundbreaking. Aspinall was chairman of the interior and insular affairs committee, a very influential man, and not known for his friendliness to Indian issues.

In the mid-1970s, Sinte Gleska College board chair Stanley Red Bird served as a spiritual leader to the AIHEC delegates. It was his soft-spoken Lakota words that, when translated, convinced New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm and other members of the Black Caucus to support the tribal college legislation, according to David Gipp, the first executive director of AIHEC. As told in Linda Sue Warner and Gerald E. Gipp’s 2001 book, Tradition and Culture in the Millennium, Gipp praised Helen Maynor Scheirbeck at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for her guidance as they learned the ropes in Washington, and in 1974 Scheirbeck wrote part of the authorizing legislation for the tribal colleges.

Janine Pease, pictured here in 1999, is known for her leadership
in AIHEC, her scholarly work, her storytelling, and as the founding president of Little Big Horn College. Photo by Dennis J. Neumann, UTTC Library/Archive.

After more than five years of work, they finally succeeded in getting the votes they needed for the Tribally Controlled Community Colleges Assistance Act, which was signed by President Jimmy Carter in October of 1978. The law promised $2,831 per student. Equally important, it gave the tribal colleges standing in Washington as legitimate institutions. The act expanded the federal trust responsibility, according to Dr. Janine Pease (Apsáalooke/Crow), the first president of Little Big Horn College.

However, the actual appropriations were much lower than what was authorized. In fact, the amount received per college decreased as new colleges were admitted to AIHEC. Nevertheless, that did not deter the consortium from encouraging other tribes to establish institutions. If another tribe expressed interest in starting a college, they went and talked with AIHEC and sent by-laws and policy documents, according to Gerald “Carty” Monette (Anishinaabe), who served as president of Turtle Mountain Community College for 30 years.

At AIHEC board meetings where new members were being considered, someone in attendance would point out that if they approved the new member, each college would get a smaller piece of the pie. This probably frightened some prospective members, but in the end, solidarity prevailed. New colleges were accepted, and the number of colleges continued to increase over the years. By 1978, membership had doubled from six to a dozen, and by 1993, there were 27 members.

In an individualistic society, this attitude might seem impractical and even shockingly shortsighted. But American Indian tribal values focus on generosity and the seventh generation. Mission statements and even architecture demonstrate such cultural values. Not every American Indian individual lives true to those principles, of course, but interviews with and surveys of tribal college students over the years usually demonstrate their commitment to returning to serve their people.

Someone once asked Janine Pease how she would define success for her students. “Would you want them to work for General Electric?” he asked. “Heavens no,” she responded. “We’re building this nation, not someone else’s nation.” Pease repeated the story to illustrate her vision when Boyer interviewed her for his book, Capturing Education. Of course, not every student would return to the reservation. If a student gained pride and self-esteem, she could go on to become a doctor, a computer programmer, a language teacher, or an opera star.

SHARING KNOWLEDGE INTERNALLY AND EXTERNALLY

After getting baseline funding, tribal colleges could focus on broader efforts to increase awareness and understanding of their mission. In 1989, the AIHEC board of trustees created the American Indian College Fund as a separate fundraising entity to raise private money for student scholarships and other initiatives at the tribal colleges and universities. The College Fund, in turn, launched a series of public education campaigns to increase awareness of the tribal colleges and the funding need for Native student scholarships. These campaigns featuring tribal colleges and their students ran nationwide on billboards, television spots, newspapers, and magazines—and even appeared in New York City’s Times Square. Today, the College Fund’s mission has grown to include TCU programming, scholarships for a broader American Indian student population, and Native research. Tribal colleges and Native students are still central to its mission.

Another student initiative is the annual AIHEC student conference. First held in Rapid City, South Dakota, from April 4-7, 1982, the inaugural conference was organized by Cheryl Crazy Bull (Sicangu Lakota) of Sinte Gleska College and Elaine Beaudreau of Oglala Lakota College. The conference included 70 panels and workshops. TCU faculty and staff shared information and learned from each other. They discussed accreditation, student transfers, workforce development, curricula development and teaching methodologies, adult education, student services, financial aid, cultural education, research, and most importantly, federal legislation, according to longtime AIHEC student advisor Phil Baird (Sicangu Lakota) in an unpublished paper titled, “AIHEC Student Congress Chronology.” Over the years, these conferences also included knowledge bowls, traditional hand games, plays, film festivals, poster presentations, art contests, and poetry slams.

TCU presidents mostly attended AIHEC board meetings. While student conferences helped broaden knowledge amongst the colleges, TCU presidents often didn’t know that another tribal college had created a similar program, according to Boyer. He realized this when visiting the colleges for the Carnegie Foundation’s report, Tribal Colleges: Shaping the Future of Native America. Boyer had a passion for journalism and had taught classes at California State University, Sacramento. Recognizing that a magazine could help the colleges learn from each other, he and AIHEC created the Tribal College Journal in 1989.

Other staff and faculty learned through networking, as resources became more available. Tribal college librarians started meeting annually in 1993. In most cases, TCU libraries were the only libraries in their reservation communities. The tribal college librarians came together not only for the cultural, knowledge, and skills programming but also for group problem solving on issues unique to them. For decades, Montana State University hosted these meetings.

Gerald “Carty” Monette served as president of Turtle Mountain Community College, one of the “Original Six,” for 30 years. During that time, he helped build AIHEC into the organization it is today.

Eleven years after Congress recognized tribal colleges and universities as Land-Grant institutions in 1994, they formed a nonprofit, professional association of not only extension agents but also other administrators, faculty, and staff. The First Americans Land-Grant Consortium (FALCON) organization fosters collaborative partnerships, encourages relevant faculty and student research, provides mentorships between colleges, and facilitates professional development, according to AIHEC Land-Grant director John Phillips.

AIHEC board chair, David Yarlott (Crow/Korean), points to such networking as one of the more important advantages of the consortium. His staff at Little Big Horn College attend various meetings, such as the annual event hosted by Salish Kootenai College, where people in various departments such as registrar, financial aid, admissions, and institutional research gather. “They come back and talk to us about what they learned about other colleges’ programs. They ask if we can do this. We’re better for it when others learn new things. As the environment changes, we need to change,” Yarlott told Tribal College Journal in 2022.

MILESTONES ALONG THE ROAD

Gradually AIHEC added staff to advocate for the tribal colleges. In 1994, the consortium was able to buy an office building near Washington, DC, in Alexandria, Virginia, using foundation grants and selling shares to about 15 of the individual colleges, as recalled by longtime AIHEC board president Jim Shanley.

In 1996, AIHEC scored a major victory: U.S. President Bill Clinton issued an executive order directing federal agencies to recognize and engage with the tribal colleges and universities, resulting in millions of additional dollars from at least six different departments. Similar orders were signed by George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. These departments have initiated dozens of new programs and internships for the colleges. The significance of this achievement is underscored by the fact that in the 1970s, nearly every federal agency testified against the tribal college legislation, including the Departments of Health, Education, and Welfare; the U.S. Office of Education; the U.S. Office of Indian Education; the Secretary of the Interior; and the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, according to Janine Pease.

Technology represented one of AIHEC’s most momentous initiatives. In fact, the steps taken back in the 1990s would later help the tribal colleges and universities survive the biggest modern threat to their existence: the COVID-19 pandemic. A forward-thinking group of tribal college faculty and staff, along with a few tribal college presidents, established the AIHEC Technology Committee in the late 1990s. They felt determined to tackle the digital divide, according to Carty Monette, who chaired the committee and wrote about it in a 2004 article in Tribal College Journal.

Pictured here in 2000 are David Gipp, the first executive director of AIHEC and longtime president of United Tribes Technical College; James Shanley, one of the AIHEC founders and longtime president of Fort Peck Community College; Veronica Gonzales, who served as executive director of AIHEC from 1994-2001; Gerald Gipp, AIHEC’s executive director from 2001-2008; Helen Maynor Scheirbeck, who helped write the landmark Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act of 1978 and steer it through Congress; Charles W. Murphy, chair of the Standing Rock Tribe; and Leroy Clifford, AIHEC’s second executive director. Photo courtesy of UTTC.

Carrie Billy (Diné) became AIHEC’s technology director. Prior to that time, consortium members often relied on federal surplus computers, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. Over the years, relationships with federal agencies and with Silicon Valley companies helped AIHEC members learn what they needed and acquire state-of-the-art computer laboratories along with the latest high-tech applications. By 2002, every tribal college had T-1 access, and some had even more advanced D-S3 lines, according to a 2002 article in Tribal College Journal by Carrie Billy. Some were able to tie their campus buildings together via fiber internet connections. Billy now serves as the chief executive officer of AIHEC, a position she has held since 2008. The college presidents set priorities: They wanted not only to improve the technology infrastructure but also to develop tribally and culturally centered applications. For example, they built Star Labs that linked constellations with tribal stories, and they used technology to collect, store, and catalogue elders’ lessons.

 DOCUMENTING SUCCESS

As the colleges’ funding base broadened, the need for data increased, as dependence upon the federal government and foundations means always having to demonstrate progress. How do you convince others of your accomplishments, especially when you have the unique mission of preserving and teaching cultural values and language? To be a full member of AIHEC, a college must be accredited by the same regional accreditation agencies as other colleges and universities. Accreditation is voluntary, but for tribal colleges, it is a vital prerequisite for receiving funding from the federal government and from most public and private sources. Additionally, when a tribal college is accredited, it tells mainstream transfer institutions that the tribal college is offering quality education. From the beginning, tribal colleges had to prove to accreditation boards that they were viable educational institutions. Gradually, the accreditation boards became accustomed to the colleges’ unique mission statements and even sometimes questioned whether a college was living up to its cultural mission.

At the most basic level, funders wanted to know whether the tribal colleges and universities retained students and whether the students graduated. However, AIHEC students’ testimony illustrates that different criteria should be applied. Students join the presidents in Washington each February for Tribal College Week where they visit their states’ congressional offices. Asked about these experiences, students say that while their personal stories lack the trademark glamour of Western success and perfect scores, their congressional members are moved by the hardships they have overcome to stay in school.

This raises the question: Is a tribal college successful if all its graduates move to the city and get good jobs? And should it be judged by the number of students who graduate in a short period of time? The answer to both of these questions is “not necessarily,” according to focus groups held in 2004. TCUs’ raison d’être is transforming their communities. Students sometimes swirl in and out of the college over several years because of financial and family circumstances, but often they persist, returning to take more classes and eventually graduate.

“Tribal colleges would not exist unless they had banded together to create AIHEC. They simply would not exist,” stated Jim Shanley, longtime president of Fort Peck Community College. and former chair of AIHEC’s board of directors.

The focus groups were the first step in developing more appropriate criteria for judging success. AIHEC’s landmark data collection initiative, American Indian Measures of Success (AIMS), was launched in 2004 with funding from the Lumina Foundation for Education. The AIMS initiative defines more relevant, culturally appropriate measures for success, with the objective of providing appropriate standards, not avoiding accountability. Through AIMS, AIHEC published several lengthy reports filled with both numbers and stories (quantitative and qualitative data) and made them available to funders and on the AIHEC website. The AIMS reports also demonstrate how tribal colleges transform communities. TCUs manage Head Start programs, publish books on language and culture, create community gardens, build wellness centers, and originate a myriad of other initiatives.

AIHEC worked with the American Indian College Fund and the Institute for Higher Education policy to publish a series of reports that are available on the AIHEC website. These included one entitled “Tribal College Contributions to Local Economic Development,” published in February of 2000. In 2015, AIHEC published another report titled, “The Economic Value of American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal Colleges and Universities: An Analysis of the Economic Impact and Return on Investment of Education,” which assessed the collective benefits of the colleges on the national economy and the benefits generated for students, tribes, society, and taxpayers. Tribal colleges must devote hundreds of staff hours to compiling all the data for AIMS and other reports. While the college leaders understand the importance of such reports, the institutions are chronically understaffed, and it is a big job for AIHEC staff to coax them to respond.

COVID

On December 21, 2019, an outbreak of a novel form of pneumonia was first reported in Wuhan, China. By January 8, 2020, Diné College had initiated its response—two weeks before the first case was diagnosed in the United States. The college started requiring masks five months before the official Centers for Disease Control recommendations, and major universities soon began using Diné College as a model, according to an article in Tribal College Journal. As scientists deeply rooted in their community, they knew the coronavirus posed an especially serious threat to Indian people. Indeed, before the vaccine became available, Indian communities suffered terribly. While dealing with their own personal losses, AIHEC leaders had to figure out how to serve their students and communities.

Tribal colleges and universities historically prided themselves on face-to-face education, providing high teacher-to-student ratios, encouragement to struggling students and rides when needed, and dinners for the community. To serve their students while keeping them safe, the colleges had to quickly pivot to online classes. Because of the groundwork that the AIHEC technology team laid more than 20 years earlier, the colleges were better prepared. Many were able to loan laptops, and some had good technology on campus. Nevertheless, 32 of the tribal colleges are located in isolated, rural areas with inadequate infrastructure, meaning the students couldn’t get internet at home for their classes. Students initially squeezed into cars at the colleges’ parking lots to get a wi-fi connection. During subzero weather in the Northern plains, that was not safe.

In February of 2020, AIHEC CEO and president Carrie Billy and Cankdeska Cikana Community College (CCCC) president Cynthia Lindquist outlined the challenges tribal colleges were facing in a podcast for Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. At that time, 16 of the tribal institutions had extremely slow internet speeds—100 megabytes or less—and that students had little or no access except when they were on campus. Billy pointed out that tribal colleges had older equipment and that their average internet speed was lower than that available at other two-year colleges.

As the federal government moved forward with COVID-related initiatives, AIHEC was there to make sure that TCUs were not neglected. With charts and graphs, they pointed out that the disparity could leave Indian Country—and American Indian students— behind the rest of the United States for generations. As a result of AIHEC’s efforts and ongoing relationships with minority-serving institutions, TCUs received $13.5 million in the initial Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, half of which went to students.

David Yarlott Jr. has served as president of Little Big Horn College for over 20 years and as chair of AIHEC’s board of directors for a decade.

In March 2022, Tohono O’odham Community College (TOCC) president Paul Robertson attributed TOCC’s survival during the pandemic to AIHEC’s efforts and to the relief funds they received. He said TOCC could successfully transition to 100% online education in the spring of 2020 thanks to the groundwork laid through pro bono support from AIHEC’s cyber team and the recommendations they made in 2018. The CARES Act and other COVID-19 relief funds were also a lifeline, Robertson was quoted as saying in a Tribal College Journal article from April 2022.

The pandemic deeply undermined cultural continuity since many keepers of knowledge died. CCCC president Cynthia Lindquist told Tribal College Journal in 2022, “I was documenting deaths in a little notebook, but I had to stop.” Because of the loss of cultural instructors, she has had to recruit two men in their eighties to teach classes that were previously covered, and the board of regents temporarily had to suspend the requirement for Dakota culture. Lindquist described the pandemic as a mixed blessing. Because of the online access they have, she now can call on Dakota language instructors at other tribal colleges. Enrollment has also jumped to 310, the highest ever, which might be because of the COVID relief funds available to students.

FIFTY YEARS OVER A ROCKY ROAD

Some tribal college visionaries imagined there would be many more tribal colleges by now. At least four TCUs were forced to close their doors along the road during the past 50 years, including one of the founding members, D-Q University, which was officially incorporated in July 1970. The name Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl embodied a unification of two struggles—that of the Red Power and the Chicano movements, according to a 2019 article by Joshua Frank-Cardenas published in Tribal College Journal. Inspired by the Red Power movement, its founders occupied the land and thus their institution was even more controversial than the others. D-Q lost its accreditation in early 2005 and shortly thereafter its AIHEC membership.

In the same year, Si Tanka College filed for bankruptcy. The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe chartered its tribal college in 1973 shortly after AIHEC was established. Many students graduated with associate’s degrees in the ensuing decades, but in 2001 Si Tanka purchased a private university, Huron, which is apparently what led to the bankruptcy.

After working for 14 years and investing nearly $40 million in Comanche Nation College (CNC) in Lawton, Oklahoma, the tribe closed the college’s doors in 2016 because it had not been able to earn accreditation. CNC’s enrollment typically fell below 100, according to a 2017 article in Tribal College Journal by Patty Talahongva. Wind River Tribal College in Ethete, Wyoming, was once an associate member of AIHEC, but because of accreditation issues, it withdrew its application. As mentioned earlier, accreditation is a long and slow-moving but necessary process for higher education institutions.

There were other early unsuccessful efforts to establish locally controlled colleges in the 1960s and 1970s, including some attempts in Alaska. After watching those endeavors unfold over the years, Paul Boyer told Tribal College Journal in 2022: “Amid the various approaches to Indian higher education being explored in that era, the tribal college model is the one that proved the most successful and the most durable, because it was practical and because it emerged from within reservations.”

LOOKING FORWARD

Today there are 35 fully accredited member colleges in 14 states, and students in Oklahoma, California, and Alaska—the states that lost institutions—now have new tribal colleges. The Cheyenne River reservation is served by Oglala Lakota College. Dozens more reservation communities are served by AIHEC members through online education. For example, TOCC provides classes to O’odham speakers in the Gila, Salt River, and Maricopa communities and to a total of more than 55 tribal nations.

A graduate of Salish Kootenai College and Georgetown University Law Center, Carrie Billy served as executive director of the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education before taking the helm as AIHEC’s president and CEO in 2008.

While some hoped there would be many more colleges by now, a handful of TCUs have become universities, 18 offer bachelor’s degrees, and eight offer master’s degrees. Students at the two-year colleges can earn advanced degrees from other tribal colleges without leaving their families and jobs. For example, Bay Mills Community College (BMCC) offers a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, and students at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College and Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College can earn that degree from their home reservations, which helps not only the students but also their communities. This distance degree program started as a far-fetched dream back in 1996 when Congress first considered requiring degrees for Head Start teachers. At a time when the web browser Netscape and Java chat represented avant-garde technology, Helen Scheirbeck at the U.S. Department of Education funded the project envisaged by Tom Davis and then BMCC president Martha McLeod.

Many tribal colleges and universities now boast beautiful, culturally appropriate facilities rather than the Quonset huts, condemned buildings, trailers, and even a repurposed sewage treatment plant where classes once were held. High school graduates now often enroll in their local tribal college as their first choice instead of their last resort. Children and grandchildren of previous graduates are attending and sometimes taking over tribal college leadership.

The tribal colleges and their consortium, AIHEC, continue to mentor new colleges and share resources. Colleges once depended exclusively on mainstream universities for student credits while they awaited accreditation. Now they sometimes turn to sister colleges. For example, TOCC serves students on the San Carlos Apache reservation while that college submits its accreditation application to the Higher Learning Commission. Dr. Martín Ahumada, founding president of San Carlos Apache College, told Tribal College Journal in 2022, “I cannot say enough about the outstanding mentoring and unlimited support my colleagues and I have consistently received over the past five years from AIHEC, especially from Carrie Billy and Patrese Atine…. In my 44 years of professional experience in U.S. higher education, I find AIHEC to be the best in the national stewardship it provides for its member institutions.”

“New presidents bring in fresh ideas that benefit everyone,” according to Yarlott, who has been president of the AIHEC board through the pandemic and continues today. He says the consortium board meetings are invaluable, and he is relieved they can meet in person again. “College presidents discuss issues that only another president would understand.” The pandemic reminded everyone of the value of AIHEC, he says. Zoom and telephone calls did not cut it.

Despite the progress, the road will never be a paved interstate. Needless to say, TCUs have not eliminated poverty and unemployment in their communities. They often deal with multigenerational trauma, which impairs learning and intrapersonal relationships within college communities. Suspicion of education persists because of boarding schools and other assimilation efforts. They have never reached parity in educational funding when compared with other institutions.

Cynthia Lindquist, president of Cankdeska Cikana Community College and a longtime AIHEC leader, says she kept a little notebook of all the COVID deaths in her Spirit Lake Dakota community until she had to stop; there were too many.

Despite these obstacles and the crisis posed by COVID, the tribal colleges and universities have persisted. Many of their leaders have devoted their lives to their colleges. The late Lionel Bordeaux led his university for 50 years; Lindquist and Yarlott have both been presidents of their institutions for over 20 years; Monette was president of Turtle Mountain Community College for 30 years; and Shanley served at Fort Peck Community College for 28 years.

When the college presidents were able to get together for the first time in spring 2022, Yarlott suggested they stop and take a breath to prevent their own burnout. The presidents smudged and prayed together, acknowledging their many losses and gaining strength for the coming challenges. After completing a self-assessment, they brainstormed about how to assure their students and employees were in good places.

And so with the help of prayer, persistence, and solidarity, they keep the dream alive.

Marjane Ambler is editor emeritus of Tribal College Journal.