15.039 - The College Experience for Indigenous Youth: Facing Roadblocks While Engaging With Cultural Identity and Policy

Session Type: Working Group Roundtable

Abstract

Colleges and universities across the country support commitments to diversity through policy without critical commitment to dialogue surrounding the political identity of Indigenous students, sincere Native Nation building on and off campus, or conversations about cultural capital within organized annual events. The panelist will discuss experiences of Indigenous students, staff, and alumni at two public universities while utilizing narrative research concerned with Indigeneity. The roundtable addresses college choice, “box-checking”, and admission processes through a presentation of evidence that employs theoretical frameworks like TribalCrit and other cultural based practices. Two of the three presentations utilize multimodal narratives to demonstrate the importance of critical dialogue within higher education campus communities regarding the engagement of indigeneity, diversity, and place making.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Indigenous Peoples of the Americas

Chair

• Stephanie J. Waterman, University of Toronto

Papers

• Box-Checking or Documentation: Marking Indigenous in Michigan Universities - Sandi Wemigwase, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto

• Accounting for Culture in Undergraduate Admission: Holistic Review and the Experiences of American Indian Students and Admissions Staff - Renee White Eyes, University of California - Los Angeles

• "Putting on a Powwow Is Easy": A Case Study of the University of California, Los Angeles, Annual Powwow - Clementine Bordeaux, University of California - Los Angeles