Title: Serving Native American Students/The American Indian and Alaska Native Student's Guide to College Success
Abstract: Serving Native American Students Mary Jo Tippeconnic Fox, Shelly C. Lowe and George S. McClellan, Editors San Francisco: Jossey-Bass (2005)The American Indian and Alaska Native Student's Guide to Success D. Michael Pavel (CHiXapkaid) and Ella Inglebret Westport, CT: Greenwood Press (2007)In order for Native Americans to attain a full measure of social and economic success they need to have access to high quality educational experiences and must be able to succeed in their academic endeavors. Unfortunately, very few Native students attend college and Native Americans may have the poorest retention rate of any minority group in the United States (Larimore and McClellan 17). Currently, fewer than half of all Native American youth who graduate from high school go on to college and only a small proportion of those go on to graduate (Larimore and McClellan 18).On the other hand, Native American enrollment has been increasing (McClellan, G. S. 96) (McClellan, Fox, and Lowe 13) and there are important resources available to the collegebound and those who work with them. These resources include financial support from the American Indian Fund, the approximately forty tribal colleges and universities in the United States, professional publications such the Journal of American Indian Education and the Tribal Journal of American Indian Higher Education, college prep programs for Native students such as College Horizons, and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. Nevertheless, Native American college students remain relatively few in number and those that do enter college continue to face significant obstacles such as economic disadvantage, racism, cultural islocation, and social isolation.It has been noted that Native college students are more likely to remain in school if they come into contact with faculty and staff who are themselves Native Americans (Fox 50). Regrettably, however, less than one-half of one percent of all staff in higher education is Native American (Fox 51). Furthermore, most non- Native faculty, student affairs professionals, and administrators who work with these students have little real understanding of Native American culture or the hurdles that these students must clear in order to succeed (Austin 41, Fox 52). Finally, although there is a more general literature to assist professionals in their work with Native Americans (e.g., Mental Health Care for Urban Indians: Clinical Insights for Native Practitioners edited by Witko; Counseling the Culturally Different authored by Sue and Sue), relatively little has been written about the Native American college student specifically.As a European-American psychologist who has worked for years with college students, this author can clearly recall counseling sessions with a young man, a member of one of the tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy, as he struggled to make the transition from the reservation to a university populated largely by students, faculty, and staff of European descent. I watched this soft-spoken youth struggle to adapt to a culture he did not understand and grapple with the feelings of anxiety, shame, sadness, and anger evoked by this new experience. I listened as he described his attempts to participate in a European art history class while lacking the Judeo-Christian cultural background taken for granted by his classmates, his attempts to leave behind the drug and alcohol abuse of the reservation, his attempts to block out the voices of his peers at home who accused him of trying to be White, and his attempts to balance the responsibilities of a college student with his concern for his elderly grandmother and younger brother at home. I tried to understand his experience and to support him. However, while we did find some common ground, it was not enough, and he eventually dropped out. I often think of that bright, sensitive, and athletically talented young man and wonder what has become of him. …
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-10-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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