“The Spirit of Our People Runs Deep”: How a Program at Blackfeet Community College Offers Students Biomedical Research Experience

Eight BCC undergraduate students are investigating stress and disease susceptibility on the Blackfeet reservation. From left: Megan Gordon, Sequoia Reevis, Wil Horn, Scott Ollinger, Jerry Racine, Davida Grant, Aidan Higgins. Not pictured: Jolynn Running Wolf.

“I’m really excited about this summer,” exclaimed Wil Horn, a second-year liberal arts student at Blackfeet Community College (BCC) in Browning, Montana. He was sitting at a long, rectangular meeting table inside of the college’s main office. The way he emphasized the words really and excited conveyed an obvious sincerity.

At the table, Horn was flanked by seven other undergraduate researchers. This cohort of eight was a part of the Montana IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) program. They had been working together in a research lab for almost a year, and in addition to their regular research duties, they had been planning, at first quietly and then ever more vociferously, something new and altogether unique. After months of lengthy conversations and overcoming obstacles, everything started to coalesce into an actionable plan. Judging by the other looks around the table, Horn’s enthusiasm was catching.

“With this new positive direction,” he continued, “I can’t wait to see how much change is possible, to move a little bit beyond some of the trauma-focused aspects of previous research, and to do a more controlled study focusing on positive, active interventions.” Horn was referencing a subtle but consequential shift in the way that he and the other Montana INBRE students at the tribal college viewed their work—and their roles—as undergraduate researchers.

This past summer, the eight undergraduate researchers—Megan Gordon, Davida Grant, Wil Horn, Aidan Higgins, Scott Ollinger, Jerry Racine, Sequoia Reevis, and Jolynn Running Wolf—took a longstanding research collaboration between Blackfeet Community College and Montana State University a step further than it had ever gone before. Understanding what that means and how the students arrived at that turning point requires a little stepping back and zooming out.

Books and Covers

Just east of the Continental Divide along the Rocky Mountain foothills in northwestern Montana, the Blackfeet Indian Reservation traces some of the most spectacular country in North America. Larger than Delaware, the reservation’s 2,400 square miles are the quintessence of high country shortgrass prairie—an expansive, rolling grassland interspersed with biologically productive rivers, lakes, creeks, and woods. To the west, the high ridgelines of Glacier National Park retain their icy white swatches year-round, feeding a constellation of lakes, creeks, and streams with names like Iceberg, Avalanche, and Two Medicine. To the north, the same 49^th parallel that divides the United States from Canada also splits the reservation from the northern expanses of the Blackfoot Confederacy’s historical territory.

Here, where the grass greets the mountains, stands the small, bucolic town of Browning—Blackfeet reservation headquarters, tourism gateway to Glacier, and home to Blackfeet Community College. BCC is a higher-education, workforce-training institution attended by some 450 students studying fields like business, information technology, education, health, nursing, mathematics, and human services.

Because it’s located in a small, rural town and focuses on two-year programs, BCC perhaps isn’t the first place one might expect to find a thriving metabolic research lab or a group of ultra-dedicated undergraduate students leading a sophisticated biomedical research project. But much like books and covers, one ought not judge a college by its ivy. As BCC health and education student, Jerry Racine, puts it, “This is a community college, but there are things going on here that you wouldn’t expect.”

Since 2012, a Montana INBRE-supported, student-run research collaboration between BCC and Montana State University (MSU) has been investigating the correlation between stress level and disease susceptibility on the reservation. During that time, undergraduate students at the tribal college have established baseline stress biomarker levels and uncovered a network of correlations between stress and other health problems. In addition to those more quantifiable results, the collaboration has enhanced scientific curriculum at the community college, led to infrastructure improvements, and helped build deeper connections between faculty and students at both institutions. Students say that working as undergraduate researchers has been transformative and uplifting, even if the imperative behind the work touches on matters of life and death.

Stress

Looking out across the Blackfeet reservation’s spectacular views of mountains and prairie, a newcomer might be forgiven for at first failing to notice a quiet current of grief and stress running through. For many of the sovereign Blackfeet Nation’s members, the pride, deep familial connections, and strength that accompanies membership in a closely knit community also come with a disproportionate share of heartbreak.

The literature is clear that American Indian and Alaska Native communities in the United States endure a greater frequency and intensity of infectious and autoimmune diseases, cancers, and other maladies when compared to the general population. These statistics unfortunately hold especially true in Montana, where state reports indicate that on average American Indians live 20 years less than other Montanans. Among closely connected communities like the Blackfeet, the ripple effects from the loss of a loved one or community member—often experienced as grief and stress—travel far and fast.

Wil Horn and Scott Ollinger prep and organize lab equipment at BCC’s metabolic research lab. Once a storage closet, the lab is now used to investigate the correlation between stress and disease susceptibility on the Blackfeet reservation.

Stress, of course, is something that affects everyone to one degree or another. When short-lived and manageable, stress can be relatively benign or even motivating. But over the past two decades, scientists have come to understand that prolonged, unaddressed stress—typically called chronic stress—has toxic effects on the body and is linked with a variety of diseases and disease-related complications. Chronic stress, some researchers hypothesize, may even play a causal role in diseases like diabetes, heart disease, depression, and some autoimmune disorders.

Line the Montana health disparity statistics up against what is now known about chronic stress, and one can’t help but wonder whether the increased disease susceptibility and early mortality among Natives like those living in Montana might somehow be tied to excessive cortisol levels in the body.

That question is precisely what INBRE undergraduate students at BCC have been researching for the past six years on the Blackfeet reservation—with an impressive list of achievements to date. But ask any one of the eight undergraduate researchers working in the BCC lab, and they’ll say that the full scope of what’s possible is only now beginning to emerge.

New Directions

BCC students relay the story about how, over the past year, each of them came to sense that something was missing from the research. Several indicate how they are proud of previous accomplishments, yet also acknowledge a growing desire to contribute something more immediately useful to their community and to move the project forward in more positive ways. “Previous research sometimes focused on the negative too much, and what we really wanted to contribute wasn’t happening,” says pre-engineering student, Scott Ollinger.

Davida Grant, a health science student, adds, “We wanted to bring a better light to research, deemphasize things like trauma, and see things go in a more positive direction. The research needs to give something back more to the community in terms of health.”

Students recall how, during initial conversations last winter, it wasn’t immediately clear what that something would be. Brainstorming sessions revealed new possibilities. Discussing those possibilities revealed new challenges and opportunities. Solving those challenges brought on a lot of extra work—meaningful work, but work nonetheless. For instance, no one predicted that revising the study design would necessitate inventing an entirely new intervention, bringing several new technologies and measures on board, and taking on the daunting task of revising the project’s institutional research ethics review, otherwise known as the IRB.

“[Revising the IRB] turned out to be really challenging, but a very useful and ultimately a collaborative process,” recalls pre-engineering student, Aidan Higgins. “We bounced ideas off one another and it was really a great learning experience.”

Upon hearing this, INBRE project leader and BCC Math and Science Department chair, Betty Henderson-Matthews lets loose a small smile. The grin divulges a sliver of how pleased she is with the level of ownership that students are taking.

“I’ve really been impressed with what the students have accomplished and will accomplish with this research,” she confirms. “They’ve really taken the lead on getting IRB approval, revising the research design, and are sharing responsibilities while still keeping a sense of humor and keeping up with other schoolwork. That’s really a lot, and I couldn’t be more proud.”

As the students continue taking turns explaining the change, the totality of their plan emerges only gradually, as though slowly revealing parts of a mosaic, piece by piece. They describe wanting to improve health on the reservation—not just measure stress. They want to bundle together several well-known stress-busters, including exercise, recreation, meaningful social interaction, time in nature, encounters with beauty. They want to package everything together in a way they hope will be relevant and meaningful for Blackfeet participants.

It’s a big research question with a lot of moving parts, but the center of everything is an experimental participant group that will go on a series of group hikes to culturally important locations in and around Glacier National Park. The guided group hikes will take care of the exercise and social-connection components, while the location will provide the nature, beauty, and cultural relevancy. During those hikes, participants will also undergo planned discussions meant to elicit a sense of belonging and place. “We thought it was important to utilize special places and incorporate the beautiful landscape that surrounds Browning,” says Grant. “Ours is really a beautiful part of the world.”

There are a lot of variables, but students predict that repeated doses of this anti-stress mélange will move the dial on participant wellbeing, which the students plan to track in a variety of ways, including measures for anxiety, depression, salivary cortisol, and C-reactive protein. Students also plan to monitor participant sleep quality and activity levels using wristwatch technology made available through the ongoing collaboration with MSU.

Racine, who has been working in the lab for several semesters and is also incidentally the head football coach at Browning High School, says that he has seen firsthand how physical activity can be transformative. “Our people were historically very active,” he says. “We’re not a ‘sit-down’ people. I’m really looking forward to being able to say with confidence whether our intervention works.”

Assuming the students’ intervention moved the dial on participant wellbeing, the deeper hope is that the research will reveal more meaningful and perhaps more durable insights into improving health on the reservation in the future. “I hope this research eventually leads to more recreational opportunities, contributes to a healthier community, and ultimately prevents our children and loved ones from needing treatment for diseases in the first place,” says Racine.

Opportunity

Whatever insights the new research might one day uncover, listening to the students’ story makes clear that working in a research lab has already been transformative. “When it comes to jobs and internships, I always [used to think] of working behind a desk, you know, no pay, pushing papers for other people, but this is the opposite,” says health science student, Sequoia Reevis. “Work doesn’t have to be like that. Science can be fun and meaningful and full of opportunity.”

Megan Gordon, who studies math and science, has worked in the lab for several semesters. She credits the undergraduate research experience with helping her refine her future career path. “Originally I took the job because I wanted money for school. But then I fell in love with the microbiology aspect of things, thanks in part to working with [MSU faculty and project mentor] Aga [Apple],” she says. “Now I see myself working in a lab professionally and hopefully in a hospital context close to my family in Browning.”

Inside BCC’s research lab, Davida Grant operates pipetting equipment used to analyze biomarkers for stress on the Blackfeet reservation. Biological samples collected remain at BCC under the college’s control.

Reevis also says the project has shown her that the world isn’t always as it first appears—an insight she hopes to carry forward into a career as a respiratory therapist. “When some of us [students] did a saliva sample on ourselves, I think I had one of the highest stress indicators of all of us,” she recalls. “And I didn’t feel particularly stressed at all, so I can see now how a lot of stress is hidden and people just don’t know about it or think about it.”

Talking with the students, there’s a real sense that opportunities, perhaps once-hidden, are now materializing thanks in part to the INBRE-supported research. “[Undergraduate research] can open more doors, and I can install lessons learned here into future classes,” says Horn. “This expands opportunities, and it’s great that it isn’t just for science majors.”

Research Culture

The thread that ties everything together and the point to which the students repeatedly return is always a sincere desire to help the community. “I really envision this research as bringing a positive light to BCC, giving back to the community, and helping contribute to a healthier community overall,” says Higgins.

“It’s great to know that the community has our back,” adds Grant. “At first, people were surprised that this level of research and academic work was happening at the community college in Browning, but people here are really impressed by what we can do.” Although the students all know intuitively that community support isn’t something to be taken for granted, there remain plenty of academics for whom this bedrock principle requires explanation.

In Indian Country, one doesn’t have to dig too deep to find skepticism towards researchers, academic institutions, and even Western investigative methods. For some American Indians and Alaska Natives, the word research itself is a four-letter expletive eliciting all-too-recent memories of coercive participant recruitment schemes, reckless and unnecessary surgical experimentation on Native people, and even heart-shattering stories of involuntary sterilization. Accounts such as these tragically are not an exhaustive chronicle of research abuses.

More recently, the “paratrooper researcher” phenomenon—oblivious, big-institution academics who quickly jump into Native communities, collect sensitive samples, and then go AWOL—has deepened that skepticism. For starters, this shortsighted approach is problematic because blood, hair, and other samples are sacred to many Natives, and communities often want such samples treated with respect and returned once a study is completed. Related issues—data ownership, publication rights, presenting information with requisite sensitivity and context, and making sure that community members actually benefit from the research—are difficult to navigate without long-term commitments, open dialogue, and the infrastructure to manage processes properly.

Given this history, the fact that a research lab exists at all at Blackfeet Community College is something worth noting. Even so, a casual observer might still wonder why maintaining a lab of this sort is necessary when samples instead could be processed at MSU or even at one of many private, fee-based labs.

The advantage in this case is that virtually everything—from biosamples to data, educational benefits, knowledge gains, and skills—stays on the reservation under Native control and supervision. This small but critical detail is not lost on the study participants. “We had an elderly woman participant,” recalls Reevis. “Her first question was, ‘If I do this, will my samples stay [at BCC]?’ And I told her, ‘They’re not going anywhere—they’re staying right here.’”

Locating the lab at BCC doesn’t just improve participant recruitment, retention, and trust, but student success as well, she adds. “Personally, I’d feel like I’d really be stepping outside of my box if I were at a big school like MSU learning doing this type of research, but I just feel more comfortable working here with our community members.”

Comments like these make clear that undergraduate researchers at BCC see this version of community-based research as quite distinct from the more problematic research varieties of the past. Some even suggest it might be part of new, more positive chapter in the history of research involving Native communities. “I want our work here to inspire more BCC students to do research, and that their future research contributes to the foundation of a more positive research culture over time,” says Horn.

Others still see potential for undergraduate research of this sort in communities beyond the Blackfeet reservation. “This type research could also be taken further into different communities and they can tailor it and figure out how it could help their people,” says Gordon. “There’s stress everywhere. It’s not just in Browning or on reservations. It’s everywhere, but so is the potential for change.” And if those other communities don’t happen to have a trusted lab for measuring salivary cortisol, now there’s one in Browning, Montana, managed by tribal college faculty and staffed by Native undergraduate students.

Untapped Potential

On a warm day in April 2017, several BCC students drove 270 miles from Browning to Bozeman to present research findings at MSU’s annual Undergraduate Research Celebration—the largest gathering of undergraduate research of its kind in the state. There, among a swarm of other undergraduate researchers from around the state, Dannette Spotted Horse and fellow BCC students presented posters detailing their research from the previous academic year. Far from playing second fiddle, the research that tribal college and community college students presented that day was on par with, if not a notch above, comparable posters from the state’s flagship research institutions.

High quality research coming from small colleges isn’t an anomaly these days, says Montana INBRE Director of Student Programs, Sarah Codd. “Over the past few years, the level of undergraduate research coming out of Montana-based community colleges, tribal colleges, and primarily undergraduate institutions has been really impressive.” she says.

Codd’s sentiments are shared by INBRE mentor and MSU assistant professor, Aga Apple, who has been mentoring students at BCC for the past five years. “I have never seen undergrads do so well and accomplish so much [as the students at BCC], and that includes my work with students at Dartmouth and Montana State University,” she says. “They’re just so focused on improving their communities and the lives of people there.”

It’s clear that neither Codd nor Apple mean to disparage undergraduate research coming out of Montana’s bigger universities. Rather, it’s a recognition that the state is full of untapped potential—potential that’s being developed, in part, because of Montana INBRE student programs and emerging institutional partnerships like the one between BCC and MSU.

After the poster presentation was over, INBRE student researcher Spotted Horse took a moment to reflect on the mentorship she received as an undergraduate and how mentors can best engage students at tribal colleges. “Above all, they’re encouraging and focus on the positive,” she said. “True mentors realize that [students from tribal colleges like BCC], when we’re encouraged and supported … we can do phenomenal work.”

When asked about what made her mentors special, she said, “Instead of just being like, ‘work, work, work’ or treating this like a regular nine-to-five job, [great mentors] treat it like it’s a family thing, the togetherness, the group, the team.” After a short pause, she added, “In my mind, people like Ann [Harmsen], Allen [Harmsen], Betty [Matthews], and Dee [Hoyt], they fit that bill and then go above and beyond being so encouraging.”

MSU mentors like Apple are well aware of the untapped potential in rural and tribal communities and are 100% invested in helping students succeed. “It was very humbling to see how much these students accomplished with relatively fewer resources,” says Apple, who grew up in Poland. “Being a foreigner myself, seeing their progress helped ground my own sense of belonging and sense of purpose.” She adds, “Looking back, this has been such a joyful part of my working life. Every time the students succeed, I get an adrenaline rush.”

For project leader Henderson-Matthews the focus has always been on transitioning potential into success. “I’ve been trying hard to make sure these students get the full opportunity they deserve,” she says. “Browning can sometimes be easy to overlook, but we’re here and our students are doing exceptional work.”

The story of eight undergraduate researchers at a tribal college working together, taking ownership of their work, revitalizing a research project, and charting a new scientific course is proof enough that overlooking small towns like Browning and community colleges like BCC is a mistake. “There are a lot of talented people in Browning,” says Racine. “We’ve been through a lot as a people, but we’re still fighters. We have a spirit, and the spirit of our people runs deep.”

William Stadwiser, M.A., is the internal evaluation director and program and communications specialist for Montana INBRE.

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P20GM103474. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.