Colleges meet on NMU’s campus to discuss native student needs

MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) - Michigan colleges are working together to support native students.

For the very first time, higher education partners from around Michigan met to discuss how best to serve indigenous students. The meeting on NMU’s campus brought together leaders from tribal and community colleges as well as four-year institutions.

The NMU Center for Native American Studies and the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement and Potential worked together to host this first meeting. NMU Native American Studies Professor April Lindala says even the meeting venue held an important reminder at the back of the room.

“These tribal nation flags for us are that reminder that it’s important for academic sovereignty, the ability for our native people to educate native ways of thinking and knowing and being on native terms,” Lindala said.

Conference attendees say one of the challenges facing native students is school leadership not knowing what tribal resources exist.

Lindala says the goal of this meeting is to increase collaboration and knowledge sharing across school lines.

“So that we can really have that sort of, not only network, but also connection building so that people are exchanging ideas, exchanging resources, exchanging maybe grant opportunities,” Lindala said.

To achieve this goal, she says the first step is forming those connections.

“But to do that well, you want to build those relationships,” Lindala said. “And so, building those relationships is foundational to making those things a success for our tribal nations and our native students in the state. And so that’s why we’re having this kickoff here is to really start with that establishment of building relations.”

While this conversation was the first, Lindala says that many more meetings like this will follow.

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