Volume 18 Number 2
January 1979

Brian P. Miller

SEVERAL attempts have been made in the southwestern United States to implement community education projects in Indian communities; however, application of this concept has been elusive. These projects were all too often short-lived and without any real substance or long-range development.

In the fall of 1977, staff from the Rural Education Program of the Northwest Regional Laboratory, Portland, Oregon, the Southwest Regional Center for Community Education Development, and the Center for Indian Education, both at Arizona State University, met to determine how the community education concept might be more effectively introduced into the Indian community. The outcome of this consultation suggested a cooperating center which would provide facilitator-type leadership training to the Native American communities in a field-based mode, with the capacity to link existing service delivery systems to resulting exemplary local projects, in such a way as to provide technical assistance.

A series of planning sessions began in February, 1977, to start the development of the new Indian Community Education Center. It was determined that the center should offer a variety of training programs to foster and support local Native American leadership throughout the Southwest. Financial resources for the planning phase were provided by the C. S. Mott Foundation, of Flint, Michigan. The planning sessions constituted the first major event in a four-month sequence that led to an All-Parties Indian Planning Conference, held in Phoenix in May, 1977.

The All-Parties Conference brought together participants from Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Approximately 45 Indian people, representing 23 tribes, attended this conference. Eighteen persons, representing a cross-section of southwestern tribes, were selected to serve on the client-based planning Task Force, which was to ascertain the best site for the center, the type of training to be offered, and to seek funding for the proposed center.

Subsequently six meetings have been held. Accomplishments made were a center name was determined, functions delineated, scope of work identified, goals and objectives determined, and a mission statement developed. In addition, the Task Force developed and field-tested parent involvement workshops on three separate sites throughout the Southwest. The planners and Task Force members recognized that development of the proposed center would have to consider the uniqueness of the educational system in the Indian culture; that the development of the center would have to reflect the beliefs, values, hopes, and attitudes of the society which it would serve; and that adaption to the uniquenesses of Indian people would have to be considered throughout its implementation.

Indian education is presently undergoing considerable change; therefore the major thrust of the center would be to assist Indian people in moving ahead in the development of their educational systems in the years ahead. It was continually emphasized throughout the planning and development of the project to retain a grass-roots, on-site, nontraditional project that would enhance, rather than undermine, the efforts of Indian people to determine their own needs and educational destinies.

A needs assessment exercise, conducted at the All-Parties Conference, led to the development of a center mission statement. The mission statement reads:

The American Indian Community Education and Leadership Development Center will provide resources and services to Indian tribes, Indian organizations, Indian schools, and other Indian institutions interested in developing and implementing the community education concept at the local level. Resources and services available are: program development, funds identification, personnel training, materials development, facility utilization, coordination of cooperating agencies, dissemination, and evaluation. All activities of the Center will be governed by the philosophy of Indian self-determination, based on local need and local involvement.

Subsequent to the development of this statement, a set of goals and functions was delineated for the proposed center. They are:

Goal 1. To provide leadership development. Functions: Career opportunity awareness and aspirations. Cultural enrichment and awareness. Use of American Indian communities’ resources. Understanding of family, tribal affiliation, and tribal government. Human relations training. Leadership training in Native American communities. Promoting community involvement. Promoting parental involvement in education. Providing information on community education and encouraging development of local models.

Goal 2. To provide training for local community members. Functions: To understand and how to use community resources. How to utilize extensive use of community facilities. Cultural enrichment and awareness. Fundamentals of funds development. Fundamentals of proposal writing. Understanding of how to assess needs. Management training and development. Knowledge of program evaluation and research services. Community relationships. Employment.

Goal 3. To provide technical assistance to local communities. Functions: Employment. How to utilize community facilities and resources. Funds development, proposal writing, needs assessment, evaluation, and research. In-service training, workshops, conferences. Swap consultative services. Management training and development. Career opportunities awareness.

Goal 4. To provide information and dissemination services. Functions: Provide information on community education and encourage development of local models. To serve as a clearinghouse. To serve as an outreach program. To serve as an outlet for news media.

It is recognized that community education in the Native American community will take a different form than it typically does in the Anglo community. The Center will provide an opportunity for Native American leaders to shape their own community education program.

The primary function of the Center is to provide supportive services to the local communities. The Center will be organized around an effort which is directed centrally, conducted in concert with Native American Local Education Agencies, and supported by technical functions within the Center. Within the Center there will be the following supportive personnel:

Central Center Staff. The major functions of the staff are to locate, acquire, evaluate, and adapt elements for use in a refined operational prototype Native American education model for national diffusion.

Resident Center Team. The team will develop, test, and install within Native American LEA’s Community Education programs with the potential to revitalize the total educational program of a school.

Technical Assistance Staff. The staff is a centrally coordinated system of documentation reporting and dissemination of information.

Technical Advisory Committee. The committee’s major function is to provide the Center Central Staff with continuing guidance and counsel.

The American Indian Community Education Leadership Development Center is unique in several ways from other attempts to implement community education in Indian educational systems. Some of those ways follow.

There are several features of the resulting (and as yet incomplete) plan which distinguish it as having potential for a "model" or "exemplary" status with national significance:

Project stages and tentative timelines are:

Planning Phase: January—August, 1977. Identify and secure agreements with participating Native American communities, agencies; establish a planning task force; submit funding proposals.

Implementation (Training Cycle I) Phase: September, 1977—August, 1978. Complete contracted training and guided field experience cycle; provide consultations to cooperating Center staff to initiate resource identification and linking to local projects; select trainer /trainees; complete trainer training.

Assessment and Planning Phase: June, 1977—August, 1978. Complete contracted consultation to project with respect to institutionalization of training capabilities; conduct assessment; assure installation of self-renewal system.

The Task Force, under the leadership of the Southwest Regional Center for Community Education Development and the Center for Indian Education at Arizona State University, has accomplished its objectives. It has identified a center site, obtained external funding, developed goals and objectives, defined the mission of the center, and has, in fact, subsequently dissolved itself. The last act of the Task Force was to name the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, as the sponsoring institution to house the American Indian Community Education Leadership Development Center.

At the time of this publication, the UNM was searching for a project director to fulfill the various needs of the center. It is hoped that the center will have several pilot projects throughout the Southwest by the end of 1979.