Nakum tu Kuanitap: Influences on Indigenous Men's Resource Seeking at Tribal Community Colleges
Date
2023-12
Authors
Alejandro, Adam J.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Understanding the experiences of Indigenous students, especially Indigenous men is crucial to their academic journeys within higher education. Indigenous men walk similar journeys to other students when we arrive on college campuses, choosing to pursue higher learning and reimagine new futures for ourselves and to help our families, communities, and the world. However, one major difference is that the education that we received heavily conveyed the message of “killing the Indian and saving the man” implying we were deficient and inhuman. Today that history is still embedded in policies and practices that can only be described by other Indigenous scholars as harmful and a battle for power. Thus, I sought to examine the influences of Indigenous men’s resource seeking at Tribal Community Colleges and Universities (TCUs). I asked the following question: To what extent are Tribal Community College Indigenous men's personal and academic background, family and friend support, and Indigenous cultural belonging associated with academic campus resources (i.e., advising, tutoring, skill labs, and career services)? With a secondary data sample of 479 self-identifying Indigenous men across 22 institutions from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement as part of the Tribal Student Success and Completion Project, I situated my study in tribal community colleges, which by design, prioritize the preservation, elevation, and illumination of Indigenous culture and can provide valuable lessons of how Non-Native institutions could better communicate, care, and serve our peoples. My logistic regression models suggested that there were different salient predictors for each targeted campus academic resource, shedding light on the complexities of factors associated with Indigenous men’s resource seeking at TCUs. Implications for higher education and efforts to forefront Indigenous culture are discussed.
Description
Keywords
indigenous, indigenous students, Native Americans, indigenous men, tribal community college and university, higher education, belonging, resource seeking
Citation
Alejandro, A. J. (2023). Nakum tu Kuānitāp: Influences on indigenous men's resource seeking at tribal community colleges (Unpublished dissertation). Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas.