When Diné College, the higher education institution of the Navajo Nation, opened its doors for students this year, it did so with a strengthened partnership with Northern Arizona University (NAU) that both institutions hope will boost the prospects for more Native Americans in the region to earn four-year baccalaureate degrees.
In a special arrangement, Northern Arizona and Diné have established a joint admissions policy that, from Day One, recognizes students enrolled in either institution.
To boot, NAU established a similar partnership recently with the much smaller Tohono O’odham Community College to offer the same joint admissions policy for students of the Tohono Nation community in Arizona.
The enhanced partnership also allows students at Diné, the first and oldest tribal-controlled college in the United States, and Tohono to transfer to Northern Arizona at any time they feel they are academically ready, eliminating the historic requirement of most major four-year institutions in the United States that transferees earn a minimum number of credit hours before being admitted as a transferee.
“We leave room for flexibility,” says Dr. Chad Hamill, the president’s special assistant on Native American Affairs at NAU, discussing the new approach.
“We have no minimum standards” to transfer, says Hamill.
“That’s an advantage of joint admissions.”
