Mentoring Native American Students for Success in Geoscience Graduate Programs

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

Mentoring Native American Students for Success in Geoscience Graduate Programs This Track 2 project is focused on increasing the number of Native American students pursuing graduate degrees in the geosciences. Working primarily with students from Minnesota's Ojibwe tribe and Bemidji State University (BSU), Purdue University is evaluating a variety of Native American student education models that have been proposed but never implemented, or that have been implemented successfully in one community but never shown to be transferable to other populations. The effectiveness of mentoring, using culturally relevant valuations of geosciences and necessary career paths, and making connections to community and family are among the approaches being evaluated. A model for recruiting, retaining and graduating Native Americans from undergraduate institutions is being developed through collaborations between Purdue, BSU, the Midwest Crossroads Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP), and the American Indian Resource Center. Cross-cultural awareness is being fostered through an annual, week-long Mentoring Native American Students workshop for Purdue geoscience faculty held at BSU and faculty exchanges, visits, and research collaborations. BSU undergraduate students are paired with Purdue geoscience faculty to conduct environmentally oriented research within their local communities, to increase awareness of the relevancy of and career opportunities in the geosciences for Native American students. Each year, these students will present their research at Purdue during the Symposium of the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Native American graduate students at Purdue are also being encouraged to serve as adjunct professors at tribal colleges, where they can serve as role models and ambassadors for the geosciences. This project draws on research from the Indigenous Earth Sciences Project (Riggs and Marsh 1998 and 1999, Riggs and Riggs, 2003) conducted in the Southwestern United States.