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GETTING THEIR BEARINGS: Students
in this year's summer immersion program tour Green
Library.
Linda Cicero |
bethany shenkle says the
talking circle around the campfire was the best moment.
“Two members of the Muwekma Ohlone tribe came,
and one woman spoke in her native language,” the
Stanford freshman recalls of that summer night in the
Sunol Regional Wilderness, a couple of hours from campus.
“She had to learn it from records, and I was thinking
it would be neat to do the same thing.”
Shenkle is a member of a small East Coast tribe of Native
Americans called the Nanticokes, or “people of
the tidewater,” whose Algonquian language hasn’t
been spoken since the 1800s. The Delaware native was
one of 15 students who spent a week on campus with the
Summer Native Immersion Program. Launched in 1988, the
annual session is part cultural transition and part
Stanford orientation.
“The native community is so diverse, with students
coming from all over the country,” explains Denni
Woodward, a Mescalero Apache who is assistant director
of the Native American Cultural Center. “Some
have more than one tribal background and some are of
mixed ethnicity, so it’s a coming together where
freshmen can meet their peers and the older students
who are resource people on campus.”
Stanford’s Class of ’08 includes 43 Native
Americans, contributing to a total undergraduate and
graduate student population of about 200 from more than
70 tribes. Native Hawaiians, Cherokees and Navajos are
among the most widely reprresented, but there are always
a couple of “firsts.” This year, freshman
Jennifer Phillips is the first Stanford student from
the Kaw people, a 2,500-member tribe from Kansas.
Before Stanford established its Native American Cultural
Center in 1974, Woodward says, the attrition rate for
Native American students was “pretty terrifying.”
Put yourself in the shoes of someone from a small town
adjoining a reservation in the Southwest, she suggests.
“You probably don’t have a lot of money
in your pocket, and you get a form letter from the registrar
saying that if you don’t pay this bill by 5 o’clock
today, you can’t take classes.” What used
to happen? “Students would pack up and leave because
they had no idea where to turn.”
Now, summer immersion program participants spend an
hour with Mary Morrison, director of funds management
in the financial aid office, getting all their financial
aid questions answered and problems resolved before
classes start. Students who depend on Bureau of Indian
Affairs money or tribal scholarships, for example, are
reimbursed after they get their grades. So
Stanford administrators simply shift part of their winter
University-funded financial aid packages to cover fall
quarter expenses.
Students also meet with Julie Lythcott-Haims, dean of
freshmen and transfer students; they tour Green Library,
Vaden Health Center and the dorms where they’ll
be living; and in lunch sessions they can ask the vice
provost for student affairs and dean of students any
lingering questions. One of the most popular sessions
is with Jarrid Whitney, a Six Nations Cayuga and assistant
dean in undergraduate admissions who is charged with
recruiting Native American students.
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GATHERING INFORMATION: Leilani
Metz and Gilbert Ramirez, both ’08, were
among 15 students in this summer's immersion program.
Linda Cicero |
For the Class of 2004, the result of this weeklong
summer immersion program was a retention rate approaching
100 percent. “All of them either graduated or
are still enrolled,” says Greg Graves, a Delaware
Indian who is a grad student recruiter and retention
coordinator for the Native American Cultural Center.
“We haven’t lost any.”
Sophomore Spring Keheleleimomi Golden says she never
might have ventured into the Native American center
if she hadn’t met some friends during the summer
session. Right on, says Jason Foley, a native Hawaiian
who was e-mailing with his new Stanford pal, Nathan
Segal, within days of returning home to Kailua on the
Big Island. “One of the most reassuring things
I learned about academic life,” he says, “is
that fellow students are more than willing to help each
other out.”
As a result of his summer experience, freshman Matt
Ybarra already is considering a major in ethnic studies.
In a research paper he wrote in August, Ybarra looked
at what he knew about his Mexican heritage, and reflected
on “what little” he knew of his Osage lineage.
“I thought how great it will be to come to a community
like Stanford, where I’ll be encouraged to learn
more about who I am.”
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