At a recent conference of tribal colleges, participants were given a map of a campus parking lot. Not a map of how to get to the parking lot, but rather a map of the parking lot itself, revealing the spots with the strongest Wi-Fi signal.
Students, faculty and staff at Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) across the nation have routinely converged on their local campus parking lots, with the glow of their laptops and cellphones as positive signs of connectivity.
TCUs have become experts at navigating slim resources, but even eighteen months into a pandemic that continues to wreak havoc on higher education, access to internet remain an obstacle for many of these institutions.
According to the Federal Communications Commission and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, 68% of Americans living on rural tribal lands don’t have access to broadband. The average speed of internet at all 35 accredited TCUs is 336 megabytes per second. The average internet speed at a four-year institutions is 3.5 gigabytes per second. The costs of improving internet access or installing broadband at these schools are often higher because of their remoteness and a lack of internet service providers.
Since the CARES Act distributed funding, some TCUs have used the money to beef up their wireless connections. Others have opted instead to use those funds to incentivize vaccinations to allow for in-person instruction.
“On a scale of one to ten, it’s a ten,” said Dr. Cheryl Crazy Bull, president of the American Indian College Fund. “Having reliable access reduces the stress and anxiety that’s associated with being successful with your education. That’s really important. Access to tech is wrapped up in social and economic wellbeing,” she said, adding that a strong digital infrastructure “allows you to participate in society.”
Internet access, said Crazy Bull, could help TCUs in their mission, to not just provide a world-class education, but to actively preserve Native American cultures and traditions. “We’re all concerned about the loss of our tribal languages, and we know tech can be a resource for that restoration,” said Crazy Bull. “We think of it as being tied to tribal sovereignty. Tribal self-determination has to do with what information you have about yourself.”
