Increasing Indigenous Visibility and Indigenizing Higher Education

By Robin Zape-tah-hol-ah Minthorn, Ph.D.

As we consider the re-centering of Indigenous People being visible throughout the world, one must also consider how this visibility has impacted education systems and statistics. In 2020, the article on “Indigenizing the Doctoral Experience to Build Indigenous Community Leaders in Educational Leadership'' in the Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership was published. Since this time there have been even more efforts to Indigenize and include Indigenous narratives in the curriculum. The most recent numbers for American Indian/Alaskan Natives was there were 746 doctoral degrees received in 2016-2017. (U.S. Department of Education, 2018). This is not representative of the full picture as we know the number of Native students in higher education is not accurate because of how institutions of higher education disaggregate their numbers. Oftentimes, they only acknowledge American Indians/Native Americans who are only American Indian/Alaskan Native or if they include students who identify as multi-racial it is not always reported the same across campuses.

There is a resurgence of institutions of higher education to visibilize and acknowledge Tribal Nations and Indigenous people through land acknowledgements that often become critiqued as performative and forced. Whether this is the case, it is a movement of visibility and where Native students on campus and in the classroom feel visible. We also now see a movement for states and higher education institutions to offer tuition free or in-state tuition to all Native Americans or Tribal Nations who are located within that state ancestrally or currently. This is a step in the right direction.

This further calls for institutions to build academic programs not just American Indian Studies or Indigenous Studies programs to be tribally centered and honor Native American perspectives. To further reiterate this from the Cases article, “As we consider how to Indigenize and decolonize our educational leadership programs, we must always consider place and who we are serving within our respective universities and colleges; also, who we are not serving. A part of this is for faculty, administrators, and programs to be intentional to know how we include community as a part of the curriculum, program development, and recruitment of Indigenous students. We are responsible for the genuine efforts to honor Indigenous communities, knowledge and tribal values as equals to the Western educational leadership approaches that have been used for so long” (p. 66). Since this article was published growing Tribal and University partnerships at the University of Washington Tacoma with the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe have grown with offering Indigenous based doctoral and master cohorts being offered on their tribal lands.

There is a call for Indigenization across the curriculum. Another evolution since this article has been released Minthorn has been working at the University of Washington to create an Indigenizing Pedagogy Institute. Not only are institutions building programs that are Indigenous focused but also preparing non-Indigenous faculty to work with Native students and increase their knowledge and connections to local Tribal communities. This calls for preparing them to Indigenize their syllabus, curriculum, or space in ways that honor and center Indigenous knowledges with respect and intentionality. There is a responsibility we all have on International Indigenous Peoples Day to reflect how colonization has impacted Indigenous Peoples and honor the strength and living presence of today’s generation of Indigenous students and scholars.

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Article Details
Indigenizing the Doctoral Experience to Build Indigenous Community Leaders in Educational Leadership
Robin Starr Zape-tah-hol-ah Minthorn
First Published January 10, 2020
DOI: 10.1177/1555458919899446
Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership

About the Author

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Robin Zape-tah-hol-ah Minthorn, Ph.D., (Kiowa, Umatilla, Nez Perce, Apache and Assiniboine). She is an Associate Professor and is the Director of Educational Leadership Doctoral Program and Indigenous Education Initiatives at the University of Washington Tacoma. Her research interests include Indigenous leadership, Native American college students, and Historically Native American Fraternities and Sororities. Dr. Minthorn is also the co-editor of Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education, published by Routledge Educational Leadership Research Series; Reclaiming Indigenous Research in Higher Education and Indigenous Motherhood in the Academy, published by Rutgers University Press; and Unsettling Settler Colonial Education: The Transformational Indigenous Praxis Model published by Teachers College Press.