Teaching science and engineering at a tribal college

Salish Kootenai College (SKC) is a four-year college located on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana. It is one of 32 fully-accredited US colleges and universities in which at least 51% of students are enrolled in federally recognized tribes.

The US Department of Education classifies these higher education institutions as TCUs (tribal colleges and universities). Most of the TCUs are chartered and controlled by tribal governments. Three are controlled by the US Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes govern SKC.

The first TCUs were established in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and initially these institutions focused on vocational education programs. Although vocational training remains an important part of their mission, TCUs also offer a growing number of two- and four-year science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees.

SKC awarded its first four-year STEM degree, in environmental science, in 1997. Since then, SKC has added baccalaureate programs in computer engineering, forestry, hydrology, information technology, life science, and secondary science education. The programs aim to provide additional career opportunities, and to promote long-term economic development of reservation communities. Today’s STEM graduates will be tomorrow’s entrepreneurs who provide economic opportunities for tribal members. Economically-strong tribal communities help preserve the cultures, languages, histories, and natural environment of their constituents.

In many ways, SKU’s programs mirror the curricula one finds at non-TCUs. But they also incorporate traditional indigenous knowledge of the natural world and pedagogical approaches that reflect tribal cultural norms. They emphasize a teamwork approach, and they focus on strategies to improve quality of life and preserve natural environments. SKC STEM faculty members generally view traditional indigenous worldviews to be complementary to, rather than in conflict with, Western science.

Each year I teach a calculus-based introductory physics sequence, an astronomy class for non-science majors, and several computer engineering classes. In computer engineering there is little relevant traditional knowledge from the local Bitteroot Salish, Pend d’Oreille, or Kootenai tribal cultures that I can introduce to the curriculum. But astronomy and physics offer rich opportunities to compare and contrast traditional knowledge with Western scientific practices.

Are TCUs needed? Speaking from my 18 years of experience as a teacher and administrator at SKC, the answer is yes. I have had the pleasure of teaching many talented STEM students during this time. Despite their talents, however, some students would likely not have been as successful had they started their college education at a state university or non-tribal private college.

Many SKC students are first-generation college students from low-income families, and are graduates from one of the six rural public high schools on the reservation or from the one tribally controlled high school. In either case, they did not have the opportunity to take a full range of college-preparatory science and math classes.

Moving to an off-reservation urban area for their college education, away from their extended family and the tribal culture they grew up with, can be a challenging adjustment. But SKC can offer cultural support, a strong program for bringing underprepared students up to a college-ready level in science and math, generally small class sizes, and individual attention from their instructors. Those factors can help students mature academically and reach their career goals, either with a terminal degree from SKC or as a first step toward a baccalaureate or graduate degree from a non-tribal university.

Participation in STEM degree programs averages around 200 students out of the 1000 enrolled at SKC. About 75% are Native American students, either people enrolled in federally-recognized tribes or first-generation descendants of tribal members. Enrollment in individual STEM programs ranges from 12 in computer engineering to 45 in forestry, so class sizes are generally small.

Life-changing internships

SKC STEM emphasizes internships, and many of our students work with faculty on externally-funded research. Some of these research projects focus on local issues, such as invasive species management, or impacts of climate change on tribal forest land.

Currently, I supervise eight students on two NASA-funded projects. I am a member of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) science team, and a co-investigator for the MAHLI, Mastcam, and MARDI science cameras on the MSL Curiosity rover. For the first three months after Curiosity‘s landing in August 2012, SKC computer engineering student Judy Hudgins and hydrology student Noel Stewart worked with me at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Judy worked those three months at JPL and an additional three months from Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego as a Payload Downlink Lead for the MAHLI, Mastcam, and MARDI camera team. Noel worked as a Payload Uplink Lead for these cameras, sometimes assisting me or other camera team members in this role, and sometimes performing the role independently.

I also lead the SKC student-faculty team developing a small Earth-observing satellite funded by NASA and scheduled for launch in November 2014 through the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative program. The project gives students experience in the design, build, test, and operation of space hardware.

Student participation in these internships is often life-changing: Students emerge motivated to complete their degrees and focus their career goals. The experience of a recent SKC computer engineering graduate, Kody Ensley, provides evidence for the effectiveness of TCUs in graduating talented students who thrive in the tribal college environment and go on to successful STEM careers.

Kody completed a series of NASA-funded internships, first at SKC, and then three internship and cooperative education experiences at Johnson Space Center. Kody clearly showed strong potential for a career in engineering when he enrolled at SKC, but like many students he was not fully prepared for calculus. His internship experiences helped him determine his career interests, and motivated his hard work to complete the SKC BS in Computer Engineering program. He now is employed by Johnson Space Center in the software, robotics, and simulation division.

Tim Olson is chairman of the Division of Sciences at Salish Kootenai College on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Pablo, Montana. He holds a PhD in physics from Montana State University. He is a science team member on the NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission, and leads the SKC student-faculty team developing a CubeSat selected for launch in November 2014 through the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative program.