Wednesday, November 30, 2016 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, November 30, 2016 // The Statement
5B
A
ccording to this year’s enrollment
overview from the University of
Michigan’s Office of the Registrar,
there are only 80 Native students at the
University, making up 0.21 percent of those
enrolled as of fall 2016. These students make
up 0.17 percent of enrolled undergraduates
and
0.32
percent
of
graduates
and
professional staff. In contrast, in 2015,
Native Americans made up 2 percent of the
country’s total population and 0.7 percent of
the population in Michigan.
The number of students on campus has
dropped from last year, when 92 students
with Native heritage were listed as enrolled
at the University.
However, students within the Native
community said in interviews that issues
of representation extend past the number
of Native students on campus to visibility
on the campus landscape, an issue they’ve
confronted by building communities.
One
expression
of
this
community
occurred the Sunday before Thanksgiving,
where more than 40 people came to
celebrate their Native identities over Native
inspired food as part of November’s Native
American Heritage Month. The feast was
only one of NASA’s many events organized to
commemorate the month-long celebration. In
addition to several cultural and educational
events, the group capped off the month with
a performance by a Native singer and spoken
word artist.
“Our numbers for enrollment are very,
very low so I think that has a lot to say with
the Native community on campus,” said
NASA co-chair Kaitlin Gant, an LSA senior.
“Since there’s so few of us it sometimes gets
really discouraging, especially when we
know people who are Native who could be
here and they’re not. We would like to do
some recruitment, and we’ve tried some of
that, but we don’t have the resources to do
so.”
Much of the University outreach to
Native students is funneled through NASA,
which organizes Native cultural programs
throughout the year including annual events
for the November heritage month and the
Dance for Mother Earth Powwow in the
spring.
In addition to NASA, the umbrella
organization for Native members of the
University community, there are several
other specialized organizations available
for Native students, including the American
Indian in Science and Engineering Society,
the Latin American and Native American
Medical
Association
and
the
Native
American Law Association.
“What we aim to do on campus is to give
Native American students a community
of support where they can explore their
identities and to just give them a sense of
Native culture,” Gant said.
While membership varies, Gant said NASA
has about 12 core members who help out
and attend every meeting and event, though
turnout tends to be significantly higher at
events, which are open to the public. Still,
spreading the word can be difficult given the
group’s size.
“It’s so hard when there’s not a lot of
Native American students on campus,” Gant
said. “So when so many of us are busy it
really takes a toll.”
Gant said the University also provides
assistance through its support of NASA’s
Powwow, with Assistant Vice Provost Dilip
Das acting as the group’s point person in
helping with funding and administration.
“It’s isolating (being Native on campus),
but we do have a strong community,”
Rackham student Jeremiah Thompson said.
“We come from many different disciplines.
We have to seek that out and create that for
ourselves and I think the University does
support us. I think of course we wouldn’t
mind having more support.”
NASA also receives resources from the
University’s Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs.
However, Jasmine Pawlicki, a University
alum and current library assistant, said
it is easy for Native American students to
sometimes get overlooked because MESA
represents a large number of student groups.
“Native American students are a relatively
small number on campus,” Pawlicki said.
“There’s this issue where the students were
asking for a dedicated person to help support
them and they’ve been asking for it for 10
years but so far it hasn’t come to fruition.”
While appreciative of the University’s
support for NASA and the annual Powwow,
Thompson said he does not feel that Native
students are well represented in the campus
landscape.
“This is my ancestral homeland and I
belong here and we’re not really represented
on campus,” he said. “ … When you look at the
Law School, whose history is represented
there? It’s not mine. When you look at the
buildings and who they’re named for, it’s
not my history, and yet not so long ago this
was tribal land. This is where my people are
from.”
While acknowledging that the University
has become gradually more inclusive in the
most recent chapter of its history, Thompson
said the campus itself continues to ignore the
contributions of women and marginalized
groups.
“We don’t have a statue, we don’t have
something that says ‘in memoriam’ or ‘in
commemoration of the people who gave up
this land and gave this land grant institution,’
” Thompson said. “I would like to see more
things that acknowledge that … to be visible
and to be part of the structuring. That’s not
much to ask I don’t think.”
***
Though the University’s campus is littered
with markers commemorating distinguished
scholars, graduated classes and generous
donors, one stone plaque on the edge of the
Diag is dedicated to the Ojibwa, Odawa and
Bodewadmi tribes who granted land to the
University in 1817.
Twenty years before Michigan became a
state, the United States and several Native
American tribes signed the Treaty of Fort
Meigs, which agreed that the tribes would
cede their land and allow for the foundation
of the University. Though the treaty is as old
as the University, the plaque was erected to
honor the gift in 2002.
Native students statewide also have the
Michigan Indian Tuition Waiver, which
allows students to apply to have their
tuition waived for enrollment at a state
public college or university. To be eligible
for the waiver, which is processed by the
Department of Civil Rights, students must
be a legal resident of the state for at least
12 consecutive months, certified at least
25-percent Native American and enrolled in
a U.S. federally recognized tribe.
The Waiver of Tuition for North American
Indians Act was first passed in the Michigan
Legislature in 1976 — culminating from early
20th-century laws and agreements that the
state would assume responsibility from the
federal government for the education of
Native students. The tuition waiver gained
support in Michigan after a failed 1971
lawsuit claimed the University had violated
the Treaty at Fort Meigs by using the land
without providing education guarantees to
Native students.
The act has been amended several times
since it was first passed, mainly to loosen
eligibility restrictions and allow universities
to be reimbursed by the state for the cost of
the waiver.
However, there have also been legislative
attempts to dissolve the program. The most
recent effort was in 1996, when Gov. John
Engler said he would veto the next higher
education budget if it included funding for
the MITW program. Rallies were held in
protest around the state and, though the
program was removed from the budget,
it was saved when funding was instead
reallocated into the base per pupil funding
of each university and college.
Thompson, who is an enrolled member
of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa
Indians, is a recipient of the tuition waiver
and said it’s partly why he goes to the
University.
“The tuition waiver program is kind of
always under constant threat and I need to
utilize it,” he said. “It’s something that is a
benefit that may not last forever. I certainly
hope it does.”
According
to
Vicki
Levengood,
the
communications director at the Michigan
Department of Civil Rights, 1,093 waivers
were
granted
at
Michigan’s
four-year
universities for 2014-2015. As of January
2016, 4 percent of program applications are
for enrollment at the University.
“It’s a really hard process to get approved
for the tuition waiver,” Gant said.
Though a native of Michigan, Gant said
she is not eligible for the waiver because
she is a member of the Oneida tribe, which
is based out of Canada and not federally
recognized by the United States.
As an unrecognized Native student,
Engineering junior Gabrielle May doesn’t
have access to resources like the MITW
program. Though many of her relatives are
registered in tribes, she said her parents
encountered trouble trying to enroll.
“There’s not really any resources for me,”
she said. “I am doing OK otherwise. I think I
probably would have done OK or better with
the resources but they’re unreliable. Good
for some but not for all.”
Higher education assistance programs for
Native students are offered in other states as
well, with varying access and administration
challenges. Though in some states, tuition
waivers and scholarships are operated only
by individual colleges.
***
With Heritage Month coming to a close,
NASA will soon be turning the bulk of its
efforts to planning its biggest cultural event:
the annual spring Powwow.
The organization prides itself on hosting
the largest student-run Powwow in the
country, featuring on average more than
50 Native vendors, feasting, singing and
dancing. This will be NASA’s 45th year
organizing the two-day event, which sees
hundreds of visitors from around the
country.
“It’s a huge Powwow,” said Law student
Jason Searle, a non-Native student who
helped organize last year’s event. “A lot of
tribes know about it and they all come to sell
food and items as well as perform dances and
cultural performances, which were great.”
Held at Skyline High School, the Powwow
is painstakingly organized by members of
NASA in collaboration with the University’s
MESA and Eastern Michigan University’s
Native American Student Organization. The
event moved from its usual spot at the Crisler
Center two years ago, but the organization
hopes to eventually bring it back to campus.
“It’s great to be involved in a student
organization that’s helping highlight and
keep alive these cultural practices, and
Powwow being a big one,” Searle said. “... It’s
a big endeavor for students to take on but it’s
really rewarding.”
Social Work student Shandiin Church said
she has been attending powwows since she
could walk and that dancing is a tradition in
her family.
“Powwows are open to the public. It’s a
celebration,” she said. “Some people think
it’s a ritual and there’s something spooky
about it … but it’s very celebratory. It’s
a celebration, it’s a social gathering. It’s
nothing tribal specific like just to one tribe.
There’s 566 tribes in the United States and
this is just something common that we all
share.”
Gant said there is a lack of information
in history books about Native Americans
and encourages non-Native students to ask
questions and try to learn more about Native
culture.
“Being Native is something a lot of people
don’t understand because they haven’t had
the chance to learn about it yet,” Gant said.
“A lot of people see being Native American
as something of the past that doesn’t really
exist anymore.”
Echoes from a letterpress:
EMILIE FARRUGIA/Daily
At a Native American Student Association event on November 20th, three women perform a song in Anishinaabemowin.
EMILIE FARRUGIA/Daily
Second-year law student Jason Searle watches a performance during the Nov. 20 event.
EMILIE FARRUGIA/Daily
First-year law student Jonny Petoskey and Ann Arbor resident Joanna Connelly talk during the Nov. 20 event.
two
centuries
later:
native american
representation
on campus