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Native American Educational Services College
TypePrivate
Active1974 (1974)–2005 (2005)
Parent institution
Native American Committee
AffiliationAmerican Indian Center
PresidentFaith Smith, Dorene Wiese
Location
Chicago
,
Illinois
,
USA
Campusurban
Websitenaes.info


The Native American Educational Services College (NAES College) was an institution of higher education led by and serving Native Americans. It offered a BA in public policy within a curriculum that combined academic and tribal knowledge from 1974 to 2005. Its main campus was in Chicago, Illinois but also maintained satellite locations in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and on reservations in Montana, Wisconsin, and New Mexico.[1]

Background

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Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Pennsylvania (c. 1900). Writers of the 1928 Meriam Report noted that they were "...obligated to say frankly and unequivocally that the provisions for the care of the Indian children in boarding schools are grossly inadequate."

In 1926, the US Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work commissioned a review of Native American affairs to be conducted by the recently (1916) founded Institute for Government Research (later renamed the Brookings Institute) and financed by the Rockefeller Foundation. The scope of the survey included the “educational, industrial, social, and medical activities of the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs], as well as with Indian property rights and economic conditions" on the majority of reservations in the US.[2] The final document, The Problem of Indian Administration (often referred to as the Meriam Report or Meriam Survey), was delivered in 1928 and painted a highly critical picture of the primary education delivered to Native American children at the time, stating that the survey team was: "obligated to say frankly and unequivocally that the provisions for the care of the Indian children in boarding schools are grossly inadequate." The report stated strongly that progress could not be made until Native American children received both more and better education. It also suggested that teaching goals include further integrating Native American children into mainstream American life.[3]

The 1961 American Indian Chicago Conference (AICC) at the University of Chicago, which brought together members of 90 tribes. Photo by F. Peter Weil, courtesy of the NAES College Collection at the Northwestern University Libraries

From the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, the US government pursued a new general policy toward Native Americans, called the Indian termination policy, the goal of which was to phase out governmental support for Native American tribes, discontinue the protected trust status of Indian-owned land, and merge Native Americans into mainstream American society.[4] Thereafter, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)—from 1950 led by Dillon S. Myer, who had directed the internment of Japanese Americans—initiated a program to encourage and incentivize Native Americans voluntarily to leave their reservations and move to metropolitan areas like Chicago, Denver, and Seattle, which resulted in an accelerating influx of Native Americans in those and other American cities.[5]

Throughout the early twentieth century, women’s philanthropic clubs like the First Daughters of America, founded in 1930 by Native American women, were the primary providers of social services for Native Americans arriving in Chicago.[6] A more comprehensive solution was put in place when a collaboration between Native American leaders and John Willard, executive director of the Quaker-affiliated American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) established Chicago’s American Indian Center (AIC) in 1953.[7] The AIC mission was to be a "multi-tribal community ... searching for a common social and cultural ground."[8] It created an institutional structure within which Native Americans could "build community organizations and support in the city."[9] The AIC’s constitution cited educational advancement as one of the center’s goals.[10]

In 1961, Native American organizers involved in helping Native Americans settle in urban areas, including among others the National Congress of American Indians, D'Arcy McNickle, Willard LaMere, and anthropologists Sol Tax and Nancy Oestreich Lurie, held the American Indian Chicago Conference (AICC). One goal of the landmark meeting was the creation of a Declaration of Indian Purpose, the first major, collective statement on tribal self-determination.[11] On the subject of education, the Declaration noted that situation was hardly better than that discovered by the writers of the 1928 Meriam Report. The Declaration suggested significant interventions to improve the quality and availability of primary, secondary, and adult education open to Native Americans. The survey reported high numbers of Native American students dropping out before secondary education, while many with the potential to succeed at college were channeled into vocational training programs. The Declaration also suggested the Native Americans should have choices in the selection of their education. Cultural assimilation was no longer listed as a goal. Reflecting the confeference’s commitment to self-determination, the declaration’s passages about education emphasized that Native Americans should have educational choices.[12]

Radical Power Groups, the Native American Committee (NAC), and Indian Education

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In the 1960s, numerous advocacy groups were founded to pursue civil rights or social change, among them the Black Panthers, Brown Berets, and New York Radical Feminists. Many of these groups were inspired by or borrowed theories and tactics from the African American civil rights movement. In contrast, while most groups pursued full integration into mainstream American society, many Native American groups, like the American Indian Movement (AIM) founded in Minneapolis in 1968, reflecting the Native American experience of forced assimilation, pursued self-determination and preservation of cultural integrity.[13] The most assertive display of Native American activism in the decade was the Occupation of Alcatraz in San Francisco in from November 1969 to June 1971 by a protest group called "Indians of All Tribes."[citation needed]

At the AIC in Chicago, a committee called the Native American Committee (NAC), including many members of its educational program, took shape, both inspired by and to support the Occupation of Alcatraz. NAC shared AIM's concerns with education and a commitment to confrontational, direct-action tactics, and NAC served as a functional equivalent of AIM in Chicago.[11] Founding members included Dennis Harper, Robert V. Dumont, William Whitehead, Nancy Dumont, Verdaine Farmilant, and Faith Smith, an assistant to long-time AIC director Robert Rietz.[10] The AIC's educational program already provided a variety of adult education services, but the NAC envisioned expanding their educational range. In a 1991 interview, Faith Smith observed that she and others at AIC wanted the organization to work on "poverty and the problems of Indians on the streets," but that there was a lack of interest among "a strong contingent of people who felt that the center ought to be more of a middle-classy sort of thing, a social center or that sort of stuff."[14] NAC member Helen Whitehead (Ho-Chunk-Ojibwe) described NAC thus: "Our main thrust is to start at the time they’re very young and to build a positive self-image."[15]

Zena Reeves, director of O-Wai-Ya Wa Resource Center, with student, 1982. NAES College Collection, Northwestern University Library

The poor state of Native American education was confirmed in the 1969 US Senate-commissioned survey, Indian Education: A National Tragedy—A National Challenge named for its sponsoring senator, Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated before its publication in 1969.[16] In Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, home to the largest number of Native Americans in the region, public schools were particularly bleak. Facilities were in poor condition, and the classrooms crowded. Rates of truancy among Native American students was high by the age of 14, and many dropped out by 16. One estimate of Native American dropouts rates in the early 1970s cited dropout rates of 90%.[17] NAC’s mission was to improve educational outcomes for Native Americans of all ages in Chicago.

That was the state of affairs when, in May 1971, Robert Rietz, the 57-year-old anthropologist who had served as AIC executive director since 1958, died unexpectedly and without a clear successor, triggering a period of fissiparous instability over the AIC's direction.[18] Faith Smith briefly served as interim director, was fired some months later, and was re-hired after a shake-up in the board of directors[citation needed] (lukaitis){{citation needed]]. The Chicago Indian Village was the last unified action of a community with increasingly diverse ideologies, goals, and tactics. After the CIV, the AIC maintaining its broad community-building agenda and collaborative culture, while the two radical organizations, NAC and CIV, differed in their commitments to educational instituion building (NAC) and housing and land demands (CIV).[citation needed]

Now independent, NAC founded Little Big Horn School in 1971 to address the needs of Native American high school students in Uptown. Successful and then in 1973 O-Wai-Ya-Wa for elementary level students. {{citation needed} [THIS IS FROM THE NAES WEBSITE] In 1973, emboldened by the success of Little Big Horn School O-Wai-Ya-Wa conceived of the first American Indian-controlled institution of higher education in Chicago. NAC members William Whitehead, Dennis Harper, and Robert V. Dumont wrote the first proposals detailing a systematic and sustained method by which Native students could receive a baccalaureate degree in both academic and tribal knowledge while also being trained for a variety of professions as they continued on to leadership roles in Native communities.[citation needed] to NAES website. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam nec maximus erat, id pulvinar magna. Nullam id dapibus nisi, sed venenatis neque. Integer scelerisque, felis at porta efficitur, est metus tempor ex, et convallis enim ipsum eu erat. Phasellus consequat auctor eros. Maecenas ipsum enim, faucibus vel felis sed, tincidunt bibendum justo. Duis laoreet porta est, quis elementum tellus efficitur sed. Aliquam id ipsum a nibh sagittis consectetur placerat sodales sem.

Active Period

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File:FaithSmith.png
Faith Smith, president of the Native American Educational Services (NAES) College, 1974–2004. NAES College Collection, Northwestern University Library

The NAES College opened its doors in 1974. (location) It offered one degree, public policy. It employed Native American faculty. community-based. Tribal, urban, academic. Student-directed. Spirit of Self-determination. Indigenous languages used and taught when possible. NAC members of NAC, including William Crazy Thunder, Dennis Harper and Nancy Dumont, served as the founding board. NAES was established in Chicago in 1974 as an independent nonprofit organization.[19] ● Library, bookstore, press ● NAES graduated 280 students with Bachelor’s degrees (in public policy?) and included a college library, bookstore, and press. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam nec maximus erat, id pulvinar magna. Nullam id dapibus nisi, sed venenatis neque. Integer scelerisque, felis at porta efficitur, est metus tempor ex, et convallis enim ipsum eu erat. Phasellus consequat auctor eros. Maecenas ipsum enim, faucibus vel felis sed, tincidunt bibendum justo. Duis laoreet porta est, quis elementum tellus efficitur sed. Aliquam id ipsum a nibh sagittis consectetur placerat sodales sem.

FROM WEBSITE. Needs rewriting, citations, paraphrasing. NAES also collaborated and affiliated with many universities and other organizations. In the beginning, in order to help grant bachelor degrees, NAES partnered with Antioch University. NAES College served students and communities in a number of ways beyond the classroom, including the NAES College Library & Archives, NAES College Bookstore, and NAES Press, a publisher of unique and original Native-authored publications. NAES College was the steward of the archives of Native American activists, artists, and educators such as Ladonna Harris, Susan Power, David Beaulieu, and many others. The college also made major contributions to the profession of librarianship, most notably with the creation of a Native-centered classification system used to describe and organize the books and other works in its collection.

Student Projects

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Photo of Robert V. Dumont, an archivist for the Native American Education Services (NAES) College, taken at the NAES satellite location on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana USA. NAES College Collection, Northwestern University Library

Smith had remarked that "because of affirmative action, colleges were vacuuming Indian communities across the country, finding the brightest Indians, but after college, a lot of them couldn't make the transition back home. They had changed. Their communities had changed."[20] When in 1974, the Chicago Native American Committee established the Native American Educational Services College, (NAES College) Tax served on the original Academic Review Committee. As the college grew, the Academic Review Committee was converted into a Board of Directors in 1978. Tax accepted an invitation to join, and he served on the committee until 1993, not long before his death. NAES credited Tax with playing a "key role in helping define a vision of Indian higher education as the basis for community development in culturally relevant terms." Tax's particular contribution was the core idea of field projects in the NAES curriculum.[21] All students at NEAS performed a student project, which infused the undergraduate work with the spirit of anthropological field work.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam nec maximus erat, id pulvinar magna. Nullam id dapibus nisi, sed venenatis neque. Integer scelerisque, felis at porta efficitur, est metus tempor ex, et convallis enim ipsum eu erat. Phasellus consequat auctor eros.

Expansion

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Quisque vehicula eu magna non efficitur. Maecenas semper egestas urna, vel tristique tellus finibus commodo. Fusce massa augue, efficitur sit amet ipsum eget, fermentum rhoncus velit. Nunc ullamcorper augue a justo luctus fermentum. Duis at ultrices ex. Quisque iaculis mollis dui ut lacinia. Nam vel congue magna. Vivamus mollis tellus nisi, sed dapibus nisi maximus sed. Duis sodales, nisi sed suscipit hendrerit, ipsum arcu ullamcorper diam, nec euismod felis neque ut ligula. Quisque sollicitudin nunc nibh, et tincidunt diam ultricies nec. Quisque vehicula eu magna non efficitur. Maecenas semper egestas urna, vel tristique tellus finibus commodo. Fusce massa augue, efficitur sit amet ipsum eget, fermentum rhoncus velit. Nunc ullamcorper augue a justo luctus fermentum. Duis at ultrices ex. Quisque iaculis mollis dui ut lacinia. Nam vel congue magna. Vivamus mollis tellus nisi, sed dapibus nisi maximus sed. Duis sodales, nisi sed suscipit hendrerit, ipsum arcu ullamcorper diam, nec euismod felis neque ut ligula. Quisque sollicitudin nunc nibh, et tincidunt diam ultricies nec.

Accreditation Issues

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On probably in 19??. Off probably in 20??. (Same action. Smith out. Weise in). Loss of accreditation in 2005.[1]

NAES College Today

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After the college lost its accreditation, the American Indian Association of Illinois facilitated an affiliation between NAES and Northeastern Illinois University under the name Medicine Shield College Program. Continuing to address many of the concerns and goals identified in the 1961 Declaration of Indian Purpose, the program provides "advising, financial aid assistance, college planning, tutoring, and many other services" for Native American students.[22] The NAES library and archives continue as the NAES College Digital Library Project, which is a collaborative initiative including NAES, the American Indian Association of Illinois, Northwestern University Library, and Northwestern University’s Center for Native American and Indigenous Research.[23]

Legacy

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[This is a quote from laukaitis]This movement spoke to the growing and collective awareness among diverse groups that American higher education offered few opportunities for historically marginalized populations. Indeed, higher education held a select position in American society. The exclusion of minority populations from mainstream higher education denied access to an essential basis of social mobility and consequently maintained long-existent structures of advantage mostly for Americans of European descent, with the noteworthy exception of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).1 Community-based and tribal colleges both established an alternative to traditional institutions of higher learning and put forward new ways of envisioning the structure, role, and curricula of higher education. This movement presented a shift in higher education as those underrepresented in universities and colleges called for unique institutions designed specifically for their particular needs. The emergence of community-based colleges, such as Sojourner-Douglass College (founded in 1972) for African Americans in Baltimore and Boricua College (founded in 1973) for Puerto Ricans in New York City, and tribal colleges such as Navajo Community College (founded in 1968) in Arizona and Oglala Lakota College (founded in 1970) in South Dakota added to earlier changes in higher education. Community-based colleges and tribal colleges testified to a transition for minorities on the periphery of higher education’s borders.[24]

Through a combination of influences and a unique institutional design and mission, NAES College sought to fill a critical gap as the first Indian-controlled private college to offer a four-year degree.4 NAES College established itself as an institution based on a principle of community self-determination. NAES College’s mission remained one rooted in the core belief that an Indian-controlled, community-based institution could enable its students to connect their learning experiences with their positions in American Indian organizations, empower them to influence the growth and efficacy of those organizations, and thus increase the social, cultural, and economic livelihood of the American Indian community in Chicago.5 To position the history of NAES College as solely a community-based college serving an urban minority or to position the history of NAES College as solely an Indian-controlled college within the American Indian self-determination movement would minimize the importance of NAES College in the history of American Indian education, for the history of NAES College speaks to the dynamic relationship between American Indians in a particular urban context and a vision for higher education particular to community development. [25]

It, however, remained distinct in being the only American Indian–controlled institution of higher education in an urban area. Through a number of crises throughout the years—many external, many internal—NAES College struggled to maintain its baccalaureate program and financially sustain itself as an institution. Ultimately, NAES College designed its curriculum to fulfill a critical gap in higher education and sought to promote a sense of agency in the community through an academic program designed by and for those committed to improving the livelihood of American Indians living in Chicago through community self-determination. As it drifted from its original mission of education for a credentialed leadership, however, the institution declined and eventually lost its accreditation. A lack of board oversight and fiscal mismanagement led to problems that were too vast and deep to repair. [26]


Notes

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  1. ^ a b Cohen 2005.
  2. ^ Parman, Donald L. and Lewis Meriam. "Lewis Meriam's Letters during the Survey of Indian Affairs 1926-1927 (Part 1)." Arizona and the West 24, 3 (Autumn, 1992), 253-280
  3. ^ Meriam, et al. 1928.
  4. ^ Getches, David H.; Wilkinson, Charles F.; Williams, Robert L. (2005). Cases and Materials on Federal Indian Law. St. Paul, MN: Thomson/West. pp. 199–216. ISBN 978-0-314-14422-5.
  5. ^ "American Indian Urban Relocation". Archives.gov. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
  6. ^ Suzukovich 2011.
  7. ^ Mucha.
  8. ^ "AIC - History". American Indian Center of Chicago. Retrieved 2 July 2013.
  9. ^ Lobo 2000, p. 91–93.
  10. ^ a b LaGrand & 2005 228.
  11. ^ a b Laukaitis 2009.
  12. ^ American Indian Chicago Conference 1961, p. 11–13.
  13. ^ Langston 2003, p. 114–115.
  14. ^ Stevenson 1991.
  15. ^ LaGrand 2002, p. 233.
  16. ^ St. Germaine 1978, p. 3.
  17. ^ Laukaitis 2015, p. 64.
  18. ^ LaGrand 2002, p. 203.
  19. ^ St. Germaine 1978, p. 10.
  20. ^ Katz 1995.
  21. ^ Laukaitis 2015, p. 123-124.
  22. ^ "Medicine Shield Indian School and College Program". Chicago-American-Indian-Edu.org. American Indian Association of Illinois. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
  23. ^ Cloud, Melanie; Conner, Allison; Honn, Josh; Wiese, Dorene; Wisecup, Kelly; Dorr, John. "Native American Educational Services College Digital Library Project" (PDF). collectionsasdata.github.io. Northwestern University. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
  24. ^ Laukaitis 2015, p. 103.
  25. ^ Laukaitis 2015, p. 104.
  26. ^ Laukaitis 2015, p. 136.


References

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Category:Native American history of Illinois Category:Native American organizations Category:History of Chicago Category:1974 establishments in Illinois Category:Non-profit organizations based in Chicago

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