Native American Studies in Higher Education: Models for Collaboration between Universities and Indigenous Nations (Contemporary Native American Communities): 7 - Tapa blanda

Native American Studies in Higher Education is a must-read for anyone interested in the evolving discipline of American Indian Studies. The commentary on the organization, staffing and intellectual content of diverse American Indian Studies programs sheds enormous light on the complexity of program development and working with organizational constraints that sometimes undermine new areas of inquiry and study. This book will be an important tool for scholars in American Indian studies and those involved in building programs for years to come. -- George L. Cornell, Director, Native American Institute, Michigan State University

In this collection, Champagne and Stauss demonstrate how the rise of Native studies in American and Canadian universities exists as an extraordinary achievement in higher education. In the face of historically assimilationist agendas, institutional racism, and structural opposition by Western educational institutions, collaborative programs continue to grow and promote the values and goals of sovereign tribal communities. The contributors show how many departments grew significantly following the landmark 1969 Senate report, "Indian Education: A National Tragedy, A National Challenge." They evaluate the university efforts to offer Native students intellectual and technical skills, and the long battle to represent Native cultures and world views in the university curriculum. In twelve case studies, Indian and non-Indian teachers provide rich, contextual histories of their programs through three decades of growth. They frankly discuss successes and failures as innovative strategies and models are tested. Programs from University of California-Davis, Harvard, Saskatchewan, Arizona and others provide detailed analyses of academic battles over curriculum content, the marginalization of indigenous faculty and students, the pedagogical implications of integrating native instructors, the vagaries of administrative support and funding, Native student retention, the vulnerability of native language programs, and community collaborations. A vision of Indian education that emerges from these pages that reveals the university's potential as a vehicle for Indian nation-building, one in which the university curriculum also benefits from sustained contacts with tribal communities.