This college reaps success

LAPWAI, Idaho – For Indian students who need boosts toward college degrees, it’s time to register, says Justin P. Guillory, 29, distance learning coordinator for the Northwest Indian College in Lapwai.

“Many students have slipped through the cracks of the mainstream school system,” says Guillory.

But Indian students have a haven at the Northwest Indian College branch on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation. Students are more comfortable and confident in classes made up mostly of other Indians, Guillory says.

In this nonthreatening setting, students learn to succeed at the universities, he explained.

The college opened the Nez Perce branch 3 1/2 years ago with classrooms in Lapwai and Kamiah. Since then, four students have graduated with associate degrees in arts and science.

Annual enrollment ranges between 35 and 40 students.

The college has filled a niche teaching Indians who work for the Nez Perce Tribe, says Guillory.

“We found a lot of students who came to the program and said, ‘I want to continue my college journey but I have a family to support.’ “

However, the school is open to anyone who wants to attend.

Because the college gets reimbursed from the Bureau of Indian Affairs for each Indian student, the cost to non-Indian students is much higher.

Resident student rates – for federally recognized Indians, spouses of tribal members and all tribal employees – run $73.50 per credit. Nonresident tuition is $199.50 per credit.

“We’ve only had one student that paid that tuition,” noted Guillory, who advises most who don’t qualify for the lower tuition to go to elsewhere. “You might as well go to Gonzaga University.”

The school has three full-time instructors and hires adjunct faculty.

Last week, 14 students, most of whom were teachers on the Nez Perce Reservation, finished a three-week Nez Perce language class offered through the college. The class taught instructors how to teach basic Nez Perce language.

The college has offered a two-year, general direct transfer program with credits that transfer to numerous universities across the country, including Lewis-Clark State College, Washington State University and the University of Idaho.

However, this year that degree will change to become something distinctly Native American, says Susan Given-Seymour, special assistant to the president for program development.

“We changed our direct transfer degree into a Native Studies degree,” she explains. “We need to do what we do best, and we need to do it well.”

The degree will focus on tribal law and political science from a tribal perspective. The college came to the reservation when the Nez Perce fisheries department became interested in the aqua-culture certification program.

The college is based on the Lummi Reservation near Bellingham, Wash. There were 942 full-time students last year, with 53 percent learning at six branches.

The other five branches are on the Washington coast; however, the Colville Indian Reservation is considering adding a branch, says Given-Seymore, “because they were so impressed with the way the Nez Perce Tribe was able to serve two communities using the video conferencing.”

Classrooms occupy tribal office buildings near the Head Start program in Lapwai and in the Wa Y As building in Kamiah.

Administrative offices are in the Pi Nee Waus building in Lapwai. The two distance learning classrooms are linked with video and audio monitors that allow students to hear and see each other.

“It’s almost like you’re in the same room,” says Given-Seymore.

The Nez Perce branch may consider adding casino management courses in the future. Also, another distance learning center may be added in Orofino, says Guillory.

“Your opportunity to fulfill that dream could be right in your back yard.”

A reminder of that dream is posted on the wall of the Lapwai classroom in the words of famous Nez Perce tribal leader Chief Joseph: “Let me be a free man … free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself.”