And she is starting to see that dream become a reality.
LeBeau-Hein made her way from the reservation of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe to the University of South Dakota in Vermillion in 2001, earned her master’s degree and now helps mentor other Native American students.
She helps them navigate the often overwhelming and confusing environment of college campus life, and overcome cultural issues that can cause Native Americans to skip college or give up too soon.
Her mentoring efforts could be a model for a new program that will soon be launched by the South Dakota Board of Regents to increase the number of Native Americans who attend state colleges and to help them succeed once there, the Rapid City Journal reported.
The regents recently commissioned a study on Native American attitudes toward higher education to pinpoint barriers to college attendance and graduation.
The result was a vote by the Board of Regents at their meeting in Rapid City to create a new position at their office in Pierre for a liaison who will travel to schools and reservations across the state to work with high school faculty, students and their families to encourage Native American college attendance.
