Many tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) have a strong focus on career and technical education (CTE), offering students a plethora of opportunities to develop skillsets that prepare them for the workforce. In today’s job market, there is a dearth of skilled laborers such as hospitality workers, construction managers, dental hygienists, electricians, and plumbers to name just a few. CTE classes, combined with academic knowledge, are intended to prepare students to fill these positions immediately—meaning, in the vernacular of employers, students are able to “hit the ground running.”

It’s worth digging deeper into the assumptions around the impact of CTE. Specifically, are these classes at TCUs leading the students down a well-balanced path to employment? Is there a purpose in CTE at TCUs that speaks to values beyond job-ready skills? How do these courses prepare students to help maintain and build up the communities that sustain the TCUs? Speaking to leaders at American Indian higher education institutions, these and other questions around the way Indigenous culture is incorporated into career and technical programs reveal interesting and dynamic viewpoints.

PRACTICALITY AND PATHWAYS

The pathway to employment outside and even within tribal communities needs to be observed more thoroughly, according to some administrators. Since CTE encompasses nearly every industry, some states, such as Oregon, have started students in CTE as young as middle school. Students at the high school level can receive college credit for CTE classes. This work-based model is more than just hands-on experience. CTE is actually pedagogy that can reassure parents that college is a good bet and that their students will be hireable.

At the same time, CTE does not replace more academically oriented classes, but rather complements them by allowing the students to see how to apply the skills they are learning. This direct application of skills offers students a practical and pragmatic entryway into the complex world of work. It is a well-known fact that college graduates continue to out-earn peers who have only acquired a high school diploma. Moreover, it is important to note that the skillsets one develops are becoming far more valuable than which college or university one attends.

According to the Burning Glass Institute, a data-driven research and analytics firm for labor markets, “Over the past year, sectors such as health, social assistance, leisure and hospitality, personal services, and government have been the major contributors to job growth. . . . Labor markets for manual work occupations are running far tighter than others. These sectors are experiencing unusually high wage growth” (Levanon, 2023). All of this means that through CTE, TCUs are in a remarkable position to surge ahead with educational programs that will benefit and uplift local communities.

In the nation’s labor market, employment opportunities are being rapidly reshaped and reset. Many people continue to work from home because of trends set during the COVID-19 pandemic, or because they prefer a hybrid work situation. Still, there remains a huge segment of the population that has been overlooked. The labor market is in short supply of a diverse workforce, which offers talent pools that have been previously underleveraged and underutilized. TCUs can make a significant impact here. In addition to helping their own communities, TCU graduates can offer a new perspective to mainstream companies.

For Jack Soto (Diné and Cocopah), senior program manager for career readiness and employment for students at the American Indian College Fund, there is a need for greater emphasis on “connecting the dots” to ensure students get a job when they leave their tribal college. This undoubtedly will entail a streamlined effort to help students figure out how to network. Many students look for jobs in their own communities, but that aside, employment should be considered a potential steppingstone—and there should be numerous employment options. “If a TCU graduates a dozen engineering students and there are only a handful of engineering jobs available on a reservation that the student was hoping for, where does that person go?” Soto asks. “There needs to be a clearer and more transparent pathway from tribal colleges to companies. TCUs are still trying to figure out how to connect with their immediate communities, as well as with the broader community. Emerging Native professionals need support in developing their future paths.”

“CTE programs are sometimes not thought of seriously and often are overlooked even though they are training workers in very vital areas and drawing attention to their communities,” says Dr. Martha Parham of the American Association of Community Colleges.

Jim Rains (Muscogee Creek) is the vice president of Blackfeet Community College (BFCC) in Browning, Montana. He notes that within the skilled trades there is often little time given to students growing their “soft skills” and adapting to a work environment. He explains that CTE programs like the kind that BFCC has “will provide students with the hands-on, experiential learning that will satisfy a prospective employer’s expectations for a new hire and allow them to be instant contributors to the organization.” In addition to hard and soft skills, CTE programs often provide students with the necessary certification to enter the workforce at a competitive wage.

Dr. Martha Parham, senior vice president of public relations at the American Association of Community Colleges in Washington, DC, agrees. While companies do look for hard skills like technical know-how, they are also looking for people who can quickly embody soft skills such as work ethic, time management, teamwork, and problem solving. These valuable abilities are often thought of as being singular to graduates of four-year colleges or universities, but certificate classes such as auto mechanics, allied health, and emergency medical services, as well as hundreds of other CTE courses, are being offered with an eye toward local businesses and civic engagement. In each of these areas, hard and soft skills are crucially integrated.

Like many tribal colleges, BFCC’s Workforce Development Program operates in collaboration with tribal and local businesses and employers. “As a learning organization,” Rains explains, “we respond directly to the needs of our community. We have assembled an advisory board composed of Blackfeet professionals, each of whom is qualified to provide us with the kind of guidance and insights that allow us to design effective learning experiences for our students.”

Indeed, cities, counties, and municipalities across the country are hoping that graduates of CTE programs will fill community needs. This is exactly where TCUs stand in their holistic approach to higher education: a cross-section where everyone has to work together. “Community colleges in general are unique in that they are designed to reflect their communities,” says Parham. “There is an inherent partnership between tribal colleges, local businesses, and four-year colleges. Many CTE courses provide a badge or certificate mapped directly to degree programs. CTE programs are sometimes not thought of seriously and often are overlooked even though they are training workers in very vital areas and drawing attention to their communities.” Further, Parham says that she continually receives calls and messages from major companies including Tesla, General Motors, and Boeing, all of whom want skilled workers who are ready to begin a career immediately.

STAYING HOME

Major national employers can be attractive prospects, but at the nation’s 37 tribal colleges and universities, place and community come first. Carrie Billy (Diné), former president and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, explained, “Tribal colleges were created specifically to preserve a tribe’s language and to build and rebuild strong communities. TCUs are place-based institutions. They graduate nation builders, and that is how they connect with their communities. Place-based institutions are meant to sustain their workforce. So, if a particular job is not within reach of a graduate and he/she does not want to leave their home or matriculate into mainstream society, they have the knowhow to create their own businesses/companies.”

Furthermore, surveys consistently reveal that tribal college students’ foremost goal is getting a TCU education so that they can be nation builders, versus making money or gaining personally. In other words, these students are more interested in honoring their nations, not themselves.

Referring to teaching programs that are prevalent on many TCU campuses as an example, Billy stated, “This is exactly what the education of our teachers is all about. Students are learning from a different ideology than their mainstream counterparts. Students are not graduating with an individualistic perspective, but instead from a place-based valuation. If you attend any of the graduation ceremonies at any of the TCUs, you will see that there is not one degree that is not relevant to sustaining a place or nation.”

Education, environmental science, and economics are just a few of those degree programs designed so that the student will stay and contribute to their community. The vision of most TCUs is focused on the land and the people. To cultivate and to sustain that vision, TCUs are training the entire spectrum of today’s workforce with a sharp eye on the future. “If you look at the future, the fastest growing economy will be alternative sources of energy. We will need hydrologists, range managers, farmers, and ranchers who are open to alternative ways of thinking about sustainability. We will need courageous entrepreneurs,” Billy said. Again, this is an incentive for remaining in one’s community and receiving a tribal college education.

Fred Eningowuk heads NWIC’s Basic Food Employment and Training Program, which enrolls economically challenged students in certificate programs that enable them to quickly enter the job market.

Mainstream two-year community colleges are perceived and sometimes designed as a pipeline to four-year colleges or universities. While this model is familiar to tribal colleges, TCUs share a similar ideology when it comes to how their students connect to their respective communities. Mission statements often use wording such as “sharing wisdom,” “connecting to Indigenous ways of knowing,” “hands-on experience,” “student engagement and support,” “holistic learning,” and “self-determination and sovereignty.”

The clear message here is that not every student wants to leave their community. Most Indigenous students want to stay right at home to help with various issues that affect their tribe, whether that is addressing drug and alcohol abuse, language loss, unemployment, poor nutrition, or chronic health problems that are a direct result of poverty. Tribal college graduates are often acutely aware of these issues. They realize that their education is a way to give back to the communities that helped them obtain the necessary skills to combat these disadvantages.

DISRUPTING POVERTY

Cheryl Madman (Blackfeet) is the director of workforce development at Blackfeet Community College. She uses her college as an example of how important it is to respect the achievements of CTE on tribal college campuses. “Education is one of a few opportunities to break the cycle of poverty and despair for all Native people,” Madman says.

In an area defined by extreme remoteness, health disparity, and poverty, BFCC provides opportunities to escape the path of poverty. “By ensuring access to quality education and training, CTE prepares students for achievement in higher education, meaningful employment, basic skills instruction, and lifelong learning,” Madman explains. On the Blackfeet reservation there are many shortages of skilled workers, including truck drivers, teachers, and nurses. None of these shortages are unique to the Blackfeet people. The dearth of skilled laborers is recognized across the spectrum of Native lands. Madman was hired in March of 2022 to oversee and reorganize the workforce program. “There has been a lot of training offered in areas where we see shortages such as commercial truck driving, certified nursing assistants, water operator certification, industry trades one-year certificate, and alternative renewable energy,” she says.

Another program that characterizes the hopefulness of CTE is the Basic Food Employment and Training Program (BFET) at Northwest Indian College (NWIC) in Bellingham, Washington. As program coordinator Fred Eningowuk (Nome Eskimo Community) explains, “BFET upholds the most economically challenged NWIC students and enrolls them in certificate programs in order to immediately enter into the job market upon completion.” Some of the certificate programs are chemical dependency studies, early childhood education, business and entrepreneurship, and tribal vocational rehabilitation studies. Numerous BFET students move on to bachelor’s programs and even successfully complete master’s degrees.

“TCUs are helping to infuse a value in education that will be passed down to children and grandchildren with each graduate that we serve,” says Robert DeCoteau, the director of workforce
education at NWIC.

Robert DeCoteau (Jamestown S’Kallam), director of workforce education at NWIC, hopes that raising the mean level of education in the communities that TCUs serve will increase the likelihood that higher paying positions will be filled by community members. “Many Native nations believe we should be looking ahead seven generations,” says DeCoteau, “We believe TCUs are helping to infuse a value in education that will be passed down to children and grandchildren with each graduate that we serve.”

IMMERSING AND SUSTAINING CULTURE

Robert DeCoteau also believes that the cultural relevance of CTE programming needs to be continually upheld. “Our pride in our traditions and cultures is not a sword to be wielded; our pride is a shield used to protect who we are from what others would have us become.”

Integrating and sustaining traditional culture and language is critical for TCUs, and doing so in CTE is no exception. To understand how language acquisition is part of CTE, one can learn from the vital importance of the mentorship of elders who speak the Blackfeet dialect of Piikani. These elders offer support at Blackfeet Community College for activities that integrate Piikani ecological practices, such as traditional harvesting and processing. Strategic partnerships are necessary to retain these cultural practices and beliefs, such as those that occur between elders and Piikani studies faculty. Additionally, by learning to speak the Indigenous languages, students can more readily take on other CTE programs with confidence and skill. The integration of the Piikani culture and energy through language and stories is crucial to Blackfeet ideology.

“Culture and language are very much a part of our curriculums here at Blackfeet Community College. I am in the process of implementing an elder advisory board who are our knowledge keepers in the community. This will be a component of workforce programs. The elders will help in guiding future curriculums and training,” says BFCC’s Cheryl Madman.

Apprenticeship programs offer another type of structured mentorship. With some apprenticeships comes an actual paycheck, while others may help pay for an apprentice’s tuition. But at Salish Kootenai College (SKC) in Pablo, Montana, they offer an opportunity to impart culture and Indigenous knowledge. Dr. Sandra Boham (Salish Kootenai), president of SKC, says, “At the core of everything TCUs are striving to do is to not only look at what students can do technologically but how the values imparted to the students will benefit the whole system of the community. For example, in [SKC’s] language immersion program we have two tiers. One is the general language acquisition and the other is the deep cultural knowledge that is needed to pass on leadership values that are vital to our community. Basically, we have implemented an apprenticeship environment where students are working with elders and others who are involved with the leadership values that are sustaining our communities. We are creating our own skilled workforce through our traditional language.”

The College Fund’s Jack Soto underscores the centrality of such culturally grounded programming. “Indigenous knowledge should inform the way TCUs perform and develop programs,” he says. “By using the imagery and iconography of their people, TCUs can be informed through their services and reciprocity and cultural relevance is developed and nurtured. These are all spaces that still need work and incorporation. Just the act of linking the way the community inherently thinks and talks about work in a culturally grounded sense is lacking in mainstream education, and possibly TCUs.”

INVESTING IN THE FUTURE

It is important to recognize that tribal society is always concerned with how each individual interacts with others in their immediate community. BFCC students must learn, along with any other skillsets, that being a leader, respecting oneself, living in a good and happy way, trying hard, and accepting everyone are all core values. “Faculty are held to the highest standards of student engagement, service, and success. We are fully aware that with each student we are investing in our community and in our tribal future,” says BFCC’s Jim Rains.

“We have implemented an apprenticeship environment where students are working with elders and others who are involved with the leadership values that are sustaining our communities,” states Dr. Sandra Boham, president of SKC.

CTE programs function best when there is tight collaboration between teachers, guidance counselors, high school and college administrators, college faculty, employers, industry associations, and state education and workforce development agencies. In the complex world of work, CTE graduates are prepared to be as flexible and adaptable as possible. Their malleability is a strength that tribal communities need and rely on. Becoming adept at technical skills is essential to every aspect of career preparation. Basic work skills in any job, such as taking measurements, using tools, or handling materials, are key. Learning how to do these things from a book is valuable, but it takes a lot of practice and real-life application to master them.

The requisite goal of CTE programs within the tribal college environment is to uplift and rebuild tribal nations. This is echoed by everyone who has an interest in the resilience of Indigenous wisdom and ways of knowing. CTE programs should be celebrated because they have been upholding and are continuing to uphold what Indigenous nations have known for thousands of years: the future is in the hands of the young people who are always looking forward with open eyes and open hearts.

Barbara Ellen Sorensen is the former senior editor of Winds of Change and a contributing writer for Tribal College Journal.

REFERENCE

Levanon, G. (2023). Surging Ahead: Amidst One of the Tightest Labor Markets on Record, Demand is Thriving. What Lies Ahead? The Burning Glass Institute. Retrieved from https://www.burningglassinstitute.org/research/ us-labor-market-outlook-july-2023