After serving more than 20 years as president of Aaniiih Nakoda College (ANC) in Montana, President Carole Falcon-Chandler leaves behind a long list of accomplishments, a legacy of compassionate and visionary leadership. This article examines President Falcon-Chandler's life and contributions to the college and that of her successor, Dr. Sean…

In September 1975, the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council chartered the Northern Cheyenne Indian Action Program, Inc., the organization that became Dull Knife Memorial College. It was funded by the Indian Technical Assistance Center of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and directed by six appointed Northern Cheyenne representatives. Dull Knife Memorial…

For over thirty years, a political and social battle over bilingual education raged in the U.S. and in and around the Crow Indian Reservation of Montana. This book, a period piece rich in political, historical, and local western context, is the story of language, education, inequality and power clashes between the dominant society and the Indian…

The American Indian presence in Montana enriches the state's culture. Educationally, however, there are gross disparities between academic performance of American Indian students when compared with the student population as a whole and with various ethnic/cultural subgroups. Montana's educational data mirror the Bureau of Indian Education national…

This brief provides contextual information and descriptions of select programs and practices serving Native students, regarding state identification and support, representation of Native student interest, and locally created examples. The National Comprehensive Center's American Indian and Alaska Native Education Project developed this brief to…

Native Science Field Centers (NSFCs) were created to engage youth and adults in environmental science activities through the integration of traditional Native ways of knowing (understanding about the natural world based on centuries of observation including philosophy, worldview, cosmology, and belief systems of Indigenous peoples), Native…

In this article, the author discusses the history and practice of "star quilt" making. The star quilt has become synonymous with the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, home to the Assiniboine and several bands of Lakota and Dakota. Receiving a quilt is considered a great honor and often takes place at powwows, funerals, memorials, and even…

The Montana Indian Education for All (IEFA) Act is an unprecedented reform effort 40 years in the making. In this paper we summarize the IEFA professional development opportunities provided to faculty at a land grant university in the western United States while highlighting a faculty member's personal efforts to integrate IEFA in a culturally…

With the tremendous job growth and economic boom on the Northern Plains, tribal colleges in Montana and North Dakota are initiating new innovative programs to address the region's workforce necessities. United Tribes Technical College (UTTC), Fort Peck Community College (FPCC), Aaniiih Nakoda College (ANC), and Cankdeska Cikana Community College…

Twelve universities and one American Indian (AI) tribal college were selected for the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute's 5-year stipend traineeship program. These tribal traineeships were designed to provide social work child welfare education for tribal and nontribal students. Twenty-two AI students and 58 nontribal students completed a…

Hopa Mountain is a nonprofit organization committed to developing citizen leaders in rural and tribal communities in the Northern Rockies. The mission of Hopa Mountain is rooted in the principle that the local people have within themselves the strength and wisdom to bring about community change. This mission was inspired by the broader philosophy…

Darrell Robes Kipp was a Blackfeet elder who was a national leader in the language immersion movement. He co-founded the Piegan Institute, and its schools have become a model for those seeking to preserve and promote their native language. In addition, he served as a Visiting Native American Scholar at Oklahoma State University. In that role, he…

The heart of Little Big Horn College (LBHC) is wrapped in the passion of Joseph Medicine Crow. Medicine Crow, 96, a nationally renowned tribal elder and historian, has been influencing education on the Crow Reservation in Montana for decades. As one of the founding members of the Crow Education Commission, he helped start LBHC in 1980. Medicine…

With local lumber mills shutting down, Robert Kenning, an instructor at Salish Kootenai College in western Montana, and the tribe's forestry director, came up with an idea. Kenning landed a $200,000 Department of Agriculture grant in 2010 to explore the possibility of turning logging scraps and smaller trees into chips or pellets that could be…

This article focuses on how three dimensions of critical democracy preparation (place-based geographical knowledge, social and political awareness of American Indian history and culture, and orientations conducive to the development of personal connections with American Indians) were impacted by different instructional approaches introduced when…