Volume 6 Number 3
May 1967

Matthew Stark

During the past three years, a group of University of Minnesota students and I have been involved in a summer program with the Chippewa Indians on the White Earth Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota (see Note 1). This summer program is called Project Awareness. The name came from the desire of an earlier group of college students from the University of Minnesota, Mount Holyoke College, and Carleton College to become more aware of their Indian fellow citizens by devoting the summer to providing recreational activities for Indian youngsters. This initial Project Awareness program encountered a number of difficulties in 1962 and was inoperative during the second year (see Note 2).

In the fall of 1963, a few University of Minnesota student leaders and I reorganized the Project Awareness programs (see Note 3). For eight weeks during the summer of 1964, 16 University students lived in two Indian communities on the reservation and conducted recreational and leisure time reading programs for Indian youngsters (see Note 4). As a result of that summer program, extensive modifications were made during the academic year 1964-65 for the 1965 summer program. These included deemphasizing recreational activities and adding new areas of educational emphasis to the summer program.

Eleven University students participated in the eight-week Project Awareness program during the summer of 1965 at Pine Point on the reservation. During that summer, and soon thereafter, minor revisions were made in the goals of the project. The goals established and used during the summers of 1965 and 1966 are:

The methodology of attaining the above goals was by University students:

In close cooperation with the White Earth Indian Reservation Tribal Council, the local public school board at the Pine Point community on the reservation, and with the elementary school principal’s advice and supervision, University students were trained during the spring of 1965 by University faculty members.

These 11 students conducted daily, voluntary review and enrichment classes in arithmetic, English, history, and geography for the 100 Indian elementary school students from June 20 to August 14, 1965, at Pine Point. Special study-help sessions for high school students were conducted on an individual basis between the University students and Indian high school students during this period.

Plans were made, and after extensive consultation with a member of the University Library School, books were collected and brought to Pine Point. A local Indian Library Committee was established by the University students, and working together during the summer a building was purchased and moved onto tribal land and converted into a library. The 2,500 books which had been collected were arranged and cataloged by Indian high school students working with the University students.

A University student skilled in theater arts initiated a children’s summer theater and directed the presentation of several one-act plays. Insufficient funds were available to develop a teen-age center.

The Project Awareness program began educational activities at an additional Indian community on the reservation during the summer of 1966 and supplied library books to a "community hall" in a third Indian center, in addition to a full eight-week program at Pine Point. Eighteen University students participated during the summer of 1966.

In summer 1965, 17 vocational information trips were made with numerous Indian elementary and high school students participating. In 1966, daily vocational field trips were conducted during the eight-week summer period by University students as part of the project. Thirty educational and vocational information films were shown in 1965 and in 1966 two evenings a week were devoted to such films. Packets of occupational information and vocational school and college bulletins were reviewed by Indian teen-agers with help from the University students. During the summer of 1965, trips to such places of business as the following were made: Badoura Pine Seed Extracting plant and nursery, St. Joseph’s Hospital, Chevrolet garage, North Star Dairy, Citizens State Bank, Becker County Courthouse, State Highway Department, Detroit Lakes Tribune newspaper, Becker County Library, Itasca State Park, Fargo-Detroit Bottling Co., KDLM radio station, Tamarac Wildlife Refuge, White Earth Health Clinic, and the Detroit Lakes Animal Hospital.

Films shown in 1965 included those on: health careers, the chocolate industry, choosing a career, the steel industry, airlines stewardess work, and bread baking. Other films were of more general educational interest. The "White Wilderness" was a natural history movie. Of historical interest were films on Sir Winston Churchill and Ghandi. Movies on Minneapolis and St. Paul helped to familiarize the students with these urban centers.

A University student majoring in anthropology conducted a special series of evening programs on Chippewa history and culture in 1965. A similar program was provided as a part of the Project Awareness program this past summer. Films giving the audience an historical perspective on pre- and post-Columbian Indians were shown. A lecture was presented on the Indian’s probable origin in Asia, his migrations to and about this country, and his adaptation to various sections of the United States. Films and talks were given on non-Chippewa Indians and their adaptation and life in an environment different from that of the Chippewa. Movies on the history and migration of the Chippewa, and about wild ricing were shown and discussed. A lecture on the highly organized Red Lake Indian Reservation was the final program.

A group of Indian youngsters who needed assistance were invited to participate in a public-speaking group conducted by two University students last summer.

During 1965-66, a beginning was made on another dimension of Project Awareness. Six Indian elementary and high school students from the Pine Point community were participants in a Project Awareness urban-tour program to Minneapolis and St. Paul during the four-day Thanksgiving vacation period. The specific goals and methods of this program are listed below.

Eleven Indian elementary school students spent four days in Minneapolis and St. Paul in company with half a dozen University students in a second urban-tour program during the Spring vacation period. The Indian youngsters visited the following places during the two trips: the University of Minnesota, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Bell Telephone Company, the Minneapolis City Hall, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune newspaper offices and plant, B’nai Abraham Synagogue, Donaldson’s Department Store, the Minneapolis Public Library and planetarium, the International Airport, a production at the Theater St. Paul, the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, Dunwoody Vocational Institute, St. Mary’s Hospital and Junior College, General Mills administrative and research facilities, the Ford Motor Company’s St. Paul assembly plant, University of Minnesota School of Forestry, Dayton’s (department store) personnel and training department, Paper-Calmenson steel mill, Rasmussen School of Business, St. Paul Post Office, St. Paul Train Depot, St. Paul City Hall, the Arts and Science Museum of St. Paul, and the Minneapolis-Mississippi river locks.

Early plans to carry out research projects to determine the effectiveness of Project Awareness in the following had to be dropped because of lack of adequate funds:

During the past three summers, University of Minnesota students have been participating in a special program on the White Earth Indian Reservation (see Note 6). This program, the American Indian Educational and Cultural Enrichment and Vocational Motivation Project of the University has involved about 15 University students each summer. These students live in teacherages at Pine Point (see Note 7) and work in the local elementary school and conduct voluntary classes in the basic educational skills for American Indian youngsters. Vocational: field trips--designed to stimulate occupational interest and motivation to complete high school are part of the eight-week program. Use of a library and leisure-time reading are stressed. Public speaking sessions are held to assist Indian youngsters. On a one-to-one basis, Indian high school students have University students available to help them go over subjects in which they did not do well during the past year. Special sessions on Indian history and culture involving movies and talks are conducted by the University students to give the Indian youngsters a firmer understanding and appreciation of their background. During the school year, Indian youngsters from Pine Point Visit in the Twin Cities as a part of the Project Awareness vocational motivation emphasis.

During the school year, those University students who have participated in the summer program show slides and give talks on their summer work and on the Indian in Minnesota to students and community audiences. These programs help in the education of the non-Indian community to their fellow Minnesotans: American Indians. All of these programs have had the full support and encouragement of the Tribal Council, the Indian parents and youngsters, the local school board (composed of Indians elected to the boards), the elementary school principals, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Minnesota State Department of Education. The University, through the Office of the Dean of Students, plans to continue Project Awareness: Indian Educational and Cultural Enrichment and Vocational Motivation program.

1. Although a vast majority of the adults and youngsters were of Indian ancestry, non-Indians in the communities involved were full participants in these programs, too.

2. Orfield, Gary and Omvedt, Gail. Project Awareness, Summer Recreation Program, 1962. Mimeographed, 1962, 22 pp.

3. Stark, Matthew. First Annual Report, 1963-64, Human Relations Programs. ODS Staff Paper #15, Office of the Dean of Students, University of Minnesota, November, 1964, 16 pp.

4. Stark, Matthew; Falk, Marvin; and Raynolds, Virginia.. Project Awareness. Minnesota Student Association--Office of the Dean of Students, University of Minnesota, March 3, 1965, Mimeographed, 22 pp.

5. Stark, Matthew and Paskewitz, Daniel. Project Awareness, 1965: University-American Indian Educational & Cultural Enrichment Vocational Motivation Project. Minnesota Student Association, Office of the Dean of Students, University of Minnesota, November, 1965, Mimeographed, 24 pp.

6. Approximately 2,500 Indians live on this reservation.

7. Approximately 500 Indians live in Pine Point.