Native American leaders and organizations point out that there is high demand for educators at Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) as the institutions seek to prepare their students to become nationbuilders and sustain the history and vibrancy of Native cultures and languages.
Efforts to increase the number of Native educators over the last few years have largely been in place at TCUs, many of which recruit from within their tribal nation or tap into a population of educators who are passionate about upholding the cultural mission of TCUs, says Dr. Cheryl Crazy Bull, president and chief executive officer of the American Indian College Fund.
“There’s always a real commitment at that level to ‘grow our own,’” she says. This means “identifying people and putting them through the system in order to teach for us.”
The College Fund was founded in 1989 and serves as an advocacy and charity organization for the nation’s nearly three dozen tribal colleges and their students. The organization also supports Native students and educators at predominantly White institutions.
While Crazy Bull – who is a former president of Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, Washington – is an advocate of all Native educators working at TCUs, she acknowledges that that is not always the case. Some of the challenges that TCUs face in recruiting faculty include attracting potential candidates to their remote locations as well as competition for Native faculty among larger Research 1 institutions.
“You have to be really interested in working in a rural, remote location [or] working with a variety of students,” Crazy Bull says. “You might be a faculty member who has to teach five different kinds of classes per semester.”
“It’s very much an environment that’s very rewarding and very demanding,” she adds.
