Indigenous people have always created what colonial language labels art. Yet there is no Native word for "art" as defined in a Euro-American sense. Art, as the dominant culture envisions, is mostly ornamental. This is in sharp juxtaposition to a Native perspective, which sees art as integrative, inclusive, practical, and constantly…

According to Simon Ortiz (Acoma Pueblo), storytelling is as much about education as entertainment. It is through storytelling that each tribe's history, moral precepts, and spirituality are passed down from one generation to the next. This attention to the holistic value of storytelling and its link to community is understood by Kevin "Hoch"…

Wild Food Summits is a program initiated by Steve Dahlberg, the White Earth Tribal & Community College Extension director. Dahlberg began Wild Food Summits to teach people about identifying and gathering wild greens, mushrooms, and other edible plant life. The whole community comes together to cook and eat the foods. The tribal college has…

Across the United States, tribal people are noticing adverse changes in the natural world due to climate change--and these changes affect their cultures. Today, tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) are developing and delivering the education and research opportunities needed to produce the next generation of American Indian science,…

Traveling outside one's comfort zone can plant the seeds for a collaborative, positive exchange of ideas, information, and perspectives. And that's just what happened when two groups of tribal college students, representing many nations, embraced traveling far from their families and communities. These two groups of students and faculty--one from…