Rebuilding trust: UW working to found center for Native American students

With a new center for Native Americans slated to move into the UW Honors Program Red House, Trosper, a former member of the UW Board of Trustees, said the university could take important steps reshaping young Native Americans opinions of higher education.

“I think it sends a real powerful message that UW is able to support having a center,” he said.

UW Vice President of Student Affairs Sara Axelson told the UW Board of Trustees on Friday retention of Native American students from fall 2015-2016 was about 50 percent.

“We’ve had a lot of stops and starts on our road to American Indian enrollment,” Axelson said. “We know we’re not making nearly enough progress in attracting Native American students from in-state and out-of-state, and we know we’re not doing a good enough job retaining them.”

The university currently has 82 students who self-indentify Native American as their only race and about 300 students who self-identify more than one race with one of those being Native American, Axelson said.

Responding to a trustee’s question about graduation rates for Wyoming’s Native American high school students, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow said Native American schools graduation rates soared in 2016.

“Let me preface this by saying it’s been in the last decade that one of our high schools on the reservation had a zero percent graduation rate,” Balow said. “This year, the Native American schools saw the greatest gain in high school graduation rates of any other student body and of most of our high schools.”

She said the 2015-2016 graduation rate for Native American students was about 45 percent. The statewide average for graduation rates was about 80 percent, she added.

Trosper said Native Americans’ community-centered culture also put students at a disadvantage once they reach higher education institutions.

“The Native American community comes from a collectivistic world view,” Trosper said.

“Giving back is encouraged not only inside the family but also within the community … which often conflicts with the mainstream values of prestige, independence and competition.”

Having worked with Native American students at UW since the ’90s, he said one of the primary concerns he’s heard students voice is a feeling of isolation.

“When they come to a place where the emphasis is really placed on the individual, it’s really foreign to them,” Trosper said. “Having a place where the sense of community can be emphasized is going to be really important to helping retain these students.”

While the center does not yet have an official name, he said UW President Laurie Nichols was forming a committee to determine the name and guide the move-in process.

“Working with Dr. Nichols has been great,” Trosper said. “Because of her previous work with tribes in South Dakota, she doesn’t need to be convinced it’s important.”

The center is slated to house the High Plains American Indian Research Institute, American Indian Studies program and an office for Native American student recruitment and retention efforts, he said.

“A center is going to be a way for us all to collaborate and to really work toward all these goals we have in common,” Trosper said.

As the Honors Program moves out of the Red House and into Guthrie House, Trosper said the move could be a lengthy and fluid process, but an opening ceremony is scheduled for September.

“Through this center, we’re hoping to demonstrate respect for native people’s culture, traditions, laws and diverse expressions of sovereignty,” Trosper said. “We’re hoping this will be a place where we can promote Native American research.”