Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Capturing Education
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http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Capturing-Education,677232.aspx * http://nativesciencereport.org/2016/01/new-book-examines-the-early-history-of-tribal-colleges/ * http://tribalcollegejournal.org/capturing-education-envisioning-and-building-the-first-tribal-colleges/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born August 5, 1964; son of Ernest Boyer (a nonprofit executive); married Hillary; children: Sophie, Mathew, Avery.
EDUCATION:Empire State College (NY), bachelor’s degree; California State University, Chico, master’s degree; Pennsylvania State University, Ph.D., 2001.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and editor. California State University, Sacramento, instructor; Tribal College: Journal of American Indian Higher Education, founding editor, 1989–, editor and publisher, 1989-1995. Has also worked as an educational consultant.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Paul Boyer is a writer and editor. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Empire State College and went on to obtain his master’s degree from California State University, Chico. In 2001, he received a Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University. In 1989, Boyer founded Tribal College: Journal of American Indian Higher Education. He served as the publication’s editor and publisher from 1989 to 1995. Boyer has also worked as an educational consultant.
In an interview with Juan Avila Hernandez, contributor to the Tribal College Web site, Boyer explained how he came to learn about Native American institutions of higher education. He stated: “I was just finishing up a master’s (degree), and around a dinner table my father said: ‘Would you be interested in getting some information on these (American Indian) colleges,’ and I said sure.” Boyer’s father, Ernest, was the head of the Carnegie Foundation at the time. Discussing his line of thinking, he told Hernandez: “You are so young, and you have no responsibilities, and you’re sort of used to living like an undergraduate student still. You know, hey kids, let’s put on a play, my dad’s got a barn. You can make the costumes. It was just sort of like that. I had no big expectations for it to be a career; I don’t know what I was thinking.” Boyer compiled the information he gathered in a report. In the same interview with Hernandez, he explained: “It was the first report to give visibility and credibility to the movement. … So it got major stories in the New York Times, the Washington Post. It was used by congressmen, and federal funding (for tribal colleges) actually went up for a couple of years.”
In an article he wrote on the Tribal College Web site, Boyer explained that his research project for the Carnegie Foundation inspired him to launch his publication. He stated: “I was twenty-four years old when I started Tribal College Journal. From the vantage point of middle age, that seems shockingly young, and, I must now confess, my qualifications for the job were proportionately thin. I had recently completed a master’s degree in journalism and had briefly worked as a reporter and freelance writer. But my experience as an editor was limited to running a small college newspaper and starting a tiny environmental newsletter.” Regarding his research project, Boyer stated: “I threw myself into the task and travelled to a half-dozen colleges, filing dispatches to my father as I traveled. ‘Why don’t you write a report about the movement?,’ he asked. So I did, which was published by the foundation in 1989. But while I was still making my campus visits, I was formulating another project.” The other project was Tribal College. The debut issue of the publication was just twenty-four pages and was funded by Boyer himself. It was well received. Eventually, Boyer received financial support for Tribal College from the Lannan Foundation and the American Indian College Fund. After Boyer left the publication, he released several books on higher education and Native American beliefs.
Capturing Education: Envisioning and Building the First Tribal College finds Boyer chronicling the history of Native American institutions of higher education. He profiles thirty-six colleges in places, including Little Big Horn, Pine Ridge, and Turtle Mountain. D. Steeples, reviewer in Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, asserted: “His book’s brevity belies its value.” Steeples added: “Readers will find clear (though too often passive) prose, photos, and notes.” Steeples categorized the book as “highly recommended.” Writing on the Tribal College Web site, Marjane Ambler commented: “Although several books have been written about the tribal colleges, at least three of them by Boyer himself, this is a unique contribution. It provides an opportunity for these luminaries to share not only the creation stories but also their evolving philosophy and vision for the movement’s future.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, April, 2016, D. Steeples, review of Capturing Education: Envisioning and Building the First Tribal Colleges, p. 1209.
ONLINE
Native Science Report, http://nativesciencereport.org/ (January 1, 2016), review of Capturing Education.
Tribal College Online, http://tribalcollegejournal.org/ (August 15, 2009), Juan Avila Hernandez, author interview; (August 6, 2014), Joe McDonald, author interview; (August 14, 2014), article by author; (November 13, 2016), Marjane Ambler, review of Capturing Education.
LC control no.: n 96063886
Personal name heading:
Boyer, Paul, 1964-
Variant(s): Boyer, Stephen Paul, 1964-
Found in: Smart parents guide to college, c1996: CIP t.p. (Paul
Boyer)
Phone call to pubr., June 28, 1996 (Stephen Paul Boyer; b.
Aug. 5, 1964)
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Paul Boyer is founding editor of Tribal College: Journal of American Indian Higher Education and the author of two reports about the tribal college movement for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He holds a PhD in educational theory and policy from Pennsylvania State University.
QUOTED: "I was just finishing up a master’s (degree), and around a dinner table my father said: 'Would you be interested in getting some information on these (American Indian) colleges,' and I said sure."
"You are so young, and you have no responsibilities, and you’re sort of used to living like an undergraduate student still. You know, hey kids, let’s put on a play, my dad’s got a barn. You can make the costumes. It was just sort of like that. I had no big expectations for it to be a career; I don’t know what I was thinking."
"It was the first report to give visibility and credibility to the movement. ... So it got major stories in the New York Times, the Washington Post. It was used by congressmen, and federal funding (for tribal colleges) actually went up for a couple of years."
"I was 24 years old when I started Tribal College Journal. From the vantage point of middle age, that seems shockingly young, and, I must now confess, my qualifications for the job were proportionately thin.
I had recently completed a master’s degree in journalism and had briefly worked as a reporter and freelance writer. But my experience as an editor was limited to running a small college newspaper and starting a tiny environmental newsletter."
"I threw myself into the task and travelled to a half-dozen colleges, filing dispatches to my father as I traveled. 'Why don’t you write a report about the movement?,' he asked. So I did, which was published by the foundation in 1989. But while I was still making my campus visits, I was formulating another project."
A Tribute to Paul Boyer
Volume 26, No. 1 - Fall 2014
Joe McDonald ♦ August 6, 2014
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ARCHITECTS OF TCJ
The architects of TCJ, from left, Joe McDonald with wife Sheri, Ernest Boyer, and Paul Boyer.
Tribal College Journal celebrates its 25th birthday this year, and I think it is only proper to recognize Paul Boyer, the founding editor of the journal. It was his initiative and perseverance that brought forth the first copy of the publication: “From the Past, the Future,” volume 1, Summer 1989, Special Edition. Produced in his spare bedroom in Sacramento, California, the journal was a dream of many tribal college presidents at that time. We wanted to tell the world the wonderful and productive things the tribal colleges were doing; we wanted to share our successes with one another; and we wanted to provide an avenue for our faculty and staff to publish.
We had concerns. Would we have enough material to keep a publication going? How would we pay for it, as we all had tight budgets? How could we make it a publication that was recognized by the academic community? Paul took on all of these problems and met them head on. He was able to get many of the presidents and their staff members to write articles. He wrote many himself. We called it a “refereed” journal in that the contents of each issue were approved by a group of scholars recognized by the higher education community. The original editorial board was made up of Robert Bigart of Salish Kootenai College (SKC), Jack Forbes (Powhatan) of the University of California at Davis, John Red Horse (Cherokee) of University of California at Los Angeles, and O. Tacheeni Scott (Diné)of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching helped the project get started by awarding the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) $15,000 toward the publication of the journal. Since our AIHEC central office was not organized to administer grants at that time, the money was administered by SKC.
An advisory board was formed to help Paul select the themes for the issues and help raise funds for publication. The original advisory board was made up of tribal college presidents: Carlos Cordero (Maya) of DQ University, David Gipp (Hunkpapa Lakota) of United Tribes Technical College, Gwen Hill of Sisseton Wahpeton Community College, Phyllis Howard (Hidatsa) of Fort Berthold Community College, Jasjit Minhas of Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College, Peggy Nagel of Stone Child College, and myself.
Paul had a great experience prior to editing and writing for the journal. He had just completed writing the Carnegie Foundation’s report on tribal colleges, entitled Tribal Colleges: Shaping the Future of Native America. Paul’s father, Dr. Ernest Boyer, was president of the Carnegie Foundation. The former U.S. Commissioner of Education was held in high esteem by the higher education community, and his word carried a lot of weight. The report cited the quality education that was being provided by the tribal colleges, and listed some key recommendations to move them forward. It had a positive influence on the acceptance of the tribal colleges in the higher education community, the executive branch of the federal government, and in the U.S. Congress. Dr. Boyer, in his acknowledgements of the special report, wrote:
This report is primarily the work of Paul Boyer, instructor in journalism at California State University at Sacramento. He is the one who almost single-handedly designed the study, visited the campuses, and engaged tribal college presidents intimately in the project. His insights and sensitivity captured both the problems and the great potential of the tribal colleges while putting the work in historic perspective (Boyer, 1989).
It was this experience, and his insights and sensitivity to the tribal colleges, which made him such a successful editor and writer for TCJ.
For the next five years, Paul continued to publish four issues of the journal each year. In the summer of 1995, Paul edited his last copy of Tribal College Journal and turned the reins over to Marjane Ambler, who carried it on in a very effective way. In his final edition Paul wrote:
The journal began seven years ago with lofty ambitions. We hoped to bring national attention to the work of a remarkable group of institutions that had very little visibility. Although tribal colleges were bringing opportunity to long-neglected reservations, few knew of their existence.
We also wanted to describe the new spirit of hope that was taking shape within tribal communities. . . Through education, economic empowerment, and cultural reawakening, they were acknowledging the needs of their communities and offering solution to their own problems (Boyer, 1995).
He went on to credit the contributions of the financial benefactors: Christian A. Johnson Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, the Phillips Petroleum Foundation, and the Lannan Foundation. He added that both AIHEC and the American Indian College Fund provided essential support.
We, the tribal college community, owe a lot to the work of Paul Boyer in moving our institutions forward. And he hasn’t stopped writing in advocacy of the tribal colleges. He was the major author for the Carnegie Foundation’s follow-up report on the progress of the tribal colleges, Native American Colleges: Progress and Prospects, published in 1997. He has written several other publications and reports about tribal colleges, and he is presently writing a report for the National Science Foundation about the history of the tribal colleges.
Paul resides in Ithaca, New York, with his wife Hillary, his daughter Sophie, and his son, Mathew. His oldest son, Avery, is a student at St. Johns College in Annapolis, Maryland.
Joe McDonald, Ed.D., (Salish/Kootenai) is the founder and former president of Salish Kootenai College.
REFERENCES
Boyer, E.L. (1989). Acknowledgements. In Tribal Colleges: Shaping the Future of Native America, pp. vii–ix. Princeton, New Jersey: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Boyer, P. (1995). Thinking About the Future. Tribal College: Journal of American Indian Higher Education, 7 (1), 4.
The Birth of TCJ: Father’s curiosity launched Paul Boyer on his journey into Indian Country
Juan Avila Hernandez ♦ August 15, 2009
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From its inception in 1988, the Tribal College Journal has been a family affair.
“I was just finishing up a master’s (degree), and around a dinner table my father said, ‘Would you be interested in getting some information on these (American Indian) colleges,’ and I said sure,” says Paul Boyer, the buoyant founder of the Tribal College Journal (TCJ) who published, produced, and edited the magazine until 1995.
The subsequent TCJ editor, Marjane Ambler, calls him a “visionary,” a description he adamantly disagrees with. Boyer says the magazine sprouted not from an idealistic plan but from a combination of his own youthful enthusiasm, the support and guidance of his late father, Ernest L. Boyer (then president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching); and a supportive group of tribal college presidents who almost immediately embraced the magazine after its creation.
TCJ FOUNDER. Paul Boyer, above right, produced and edited the Tribal College Journal from 1989 to 1995. (Photo by Hilary Boyer) ERNEST L. BOYER. Also referred to as "A leader of educators and educator of leaders," the late Boyer, above left, published many works on education reform, including several Carnegie Foundation reports. (Photo courtesy of the Ernlest L. Boyer Center, Messiah College)
Since its start, TCJ has documented and reflected the Tribal College Movement on Native American reservations and a First Nations reserve and has also served as a forum for the social, political, and cultural trends in higher education. It has guided and mirrored important intellectual debates on educational models and critical discussions on pragmatic issues such as infrastructure and curriculum.
The magazine is also the sole public space where students, staff, faculty, administrators, and families across the system can communicate with one another and also voice their opinions, share their stories, and even air their concerns over their cherished institutions, which for many may be the best opportunity for their communities’ future successes.
At the beginning of the magazine’s journey, however, the then 22-year-old Boyer was not driven by lofty idealism but by his own curiosity, journalistic acumen, and – according to him – “I just thought it was fun.” At the time, he had a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from Empire State College (New York) and a Master’s Degree in Mass Communications from California State University-Chico.
He recalls his mood at the magazine’s inception. “You are so young, and you have no responsibilities, and you’re sort of used to living like an undergraduate student still. You know, hey kids, let’s put on a play, my dad’s got a barn. You can make the costumes. It was just sort of like that. I had no big expectations for it to be a career; I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Father and Son Team
Ernest L. Boyer was the former chancellor of the State University of New York System and a prominent figure in higher education who was “always interested in Indian issues.” His son’s journey into Indian Country began when the elder Boyer suggested the unique assignment, taking him to American Indian reservations throughout the West to collect basic information such as curriculum, infrastructure, and funding on the tribal colleges.
“He had learned there were a number of small colleges run by Indians,” Boyer says. Although the first tribal college opened in 1968 and more than 20 others had opened by 1988, hardly anyone knew anything about them. “My father wanted to know more about them out of personal curiosity more than he wanted to do anything particular.”
After he accepted the informal “assignment,” it soon transformed into an intimate “father and son” project as well as a fact-finding mission. The younger Boyer sent letters to tribal colleges’ presidents throughout the country asking for basic information to conduct his study. Information slowly trickled in, and with this information in hand, the elder Boyer asked his son to go on the road and find out more about the schools and people who were struggling to educate their own communities in isolated areas with few resources.
“It was a great story to tell as a journalist – scrappy college makes good on Indian reservation and brings opportunity to places where unemployment is 80 percent,” Boyer says.
When he visited Salish Kootenai College (SKC) in Montana, he toured a new TV station at the tribal college. A few weeks later he went to the Navajo Nation in Arizona and interviewed a man developing a television station at Navajo Community College. “I was surprised to learn that he didn’t know that SKC had a station up and running. No one told him, and he didn’t have an opportunity to meet with his colleagues at other tribal colleges,” he says.
The experience inspired him to consider starting a magazine so the colleges could learn from one another. Later he met with Sinte Gleska College President Lionel Bordeaux and broached his bold idea. Boyer realized he was on the right track when Bordeaux told him, “As a matter of fact, we thought of that, but we really don’t have anybody to do it.”
“Here’s this 22-year-old white kid from California who works for a foundation from New Jersey and never heard of Minot (ND) until two weeks ago, but I said, ‘Well, maybe I could do something for you.’”
One Whirlwind Year
Boyer had little professional experience: He had been editor of his college newspaper and completed several newspaper internships. He says, “My knowledge of Indians and Indian issues was not deep either.” Nevertheless, he met with the tribal college presidents and proposed creating a 24-page, black and white “sample” magazine called Tribal College: Journal of American Indian Higher Education. Friends and tribal college presidents helped with the first issue (Bordeaux wrote a lead essay on economic development and the tribal colleges), but Boyer wrote most of the articles himself.
At the same time, his father and the Carnegie Foundation decided to publish a policy report on the tribal colleges to be authored by Paul. When the Carnegie Foundation released the report (Tribal Colleges: Shaping the Future of Native America), it garnered national attention. “It was the first report to give visibility and credibility to the movement,” he says. “So it got major stories in the New York Times, the Washington Post. It was used by congressmen, and federal funding (for tribal colleges) actually went up for a couple of years.”
Shortly after that, in the summer of 1989, the first issue of the TCJ appeared. “It all happened in one whirlwind year,” Boyer says.
American Indian College Fund Provides a Boost
With a budget of $1,000 that he bankrolled himself, Boyer published the scrappy but ambitious magazine. Immediately, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) board voted to support the magazine and take it under its wing. Scant funding for the first year of publishing came from AIHEC, private foundations, advertising, and a handful of subscribers. However, it wasn’t until Barbara Bratone, executive director of the American Indian College Fund, met with Boyer the following year that the TCJ took another big step in its evolution.
The American Indian College Fund was just being started at the time. Bratone suggested that the journal be sent to all the donors of the college fund. “In essence the journal would be like a premium that donors would get for giving money to the College Fund. Instead of the College Fund starting their own publication, they just asked the journal to do it,” Boyer says.
The College Fund provided funds to produce the magazine and mail it to their donors. Literally overnight, the TCJ grew from 1,000 issues per quarter to 8,000 to 10,000 issues. The increase in volume meant that the cost of producing the magazine decreased while advertising rates could be increased. “That triggered growth in income,” Boyer says.
Boyer left the TCJ in 1995 to begin the next stage of his career as a writer and educational consultant and to enter a doctoral studies program. He authored Smart Parents Guide to College (Petersons Press, 1996) and in 1997 wrote a second Carnegie Foundation report titled Native American Colleges: Progress and Prospects. In 2001 he received a Ph.D. in Educational Theory and Policy from Pennsylvania State University.
Boyer is most appreciative of the confidence that the AIHEC board members showed him. Despite his brief journalistic résumé at the time, “they patiently let me go about the work of the journal, letting it grow as my skills grew,” he says. “Sometimes we need to patient and let ideas and projects mature. That group of presidents at that time and that era was very willing to do that. It was a special group and a special time in the history of the tribal colleges.”
Juan Avila Hernandez (Yoeme/Yoi) teaches Native American History and Media at Saint Mary’s College in the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California and reports on current topics of importance to the Native American community. He can be reached at bwikame@hotmail.com
Origin Story: The Genesis of Tribal College Journal
Volume 26, No. 1 - Fall 2014
Paul Boyer ♦ August 14, 2014
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PAUL BOYER WITH TCU LEADERS AT 1988 AIHEC RETREAT
At the 1988 AIHEC summer retreat, Paul Boyer (far left) met with TCU leaders, including journal adviser Joe McDonald (Salish/Kootenai) and AIHEC chair Lionel Bordeaux (Sicangu Lakota) (front center). Boyer’s father, Ernest, is standing next to Bordeaux.
I was 24 years old when I started Tribal College Journal. From the vantage point of middle age, that seems shockingly young, and, I must now confess, my qualifications for the job were proportionately thin.
I had recently completed a master’s degree in journalism and had briefly worked as a reporter and freelance writer. But my experience as an editor was limited to running a small college newspaper and starting a tiny environmental newsletter. This is the kind of résumé that would qualify me for an entry-level position at a newspaper where I could look forward to covering city council meetings and fires until I moved up to stories about corruption in state politics.
This struck me as a dreary career path. I wanted more adventure and I was determined to make a difference in the world. As a teenager, I fantasized about living abroad while writing the great American novel; as a young adult, I thought the life of a foreign correspondent in a war-torn country sounded grand. But then I discovered tribal colleges.
My father, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, had learned about the existence of community colleges that were located on reservations and started and run by tribal educators. This piqued his curiosity and he asked me to visit a few campuses to find out what they were all about. I threw myself into the task and travelled to a half-dozen colleges, filing dispatches to my father as I traveled. “Why don’t you write a report about the movement?” he asked. So I did, which was published by the foundation in 1989.
But while I was still making my campus visits, I was formulating another project. Tribal colleges represented a new educational movement, yet administrators and faculty knew very little about the work of their counterparts on other reservations. In these pre- Internet days, the colleges didn’t even sponsor a newsletter. When Lionel Bordeaux, president of Sinte Gleska University, acknowledged that they needed a magazine but didn’t have the people or funding to create one, I sensed an opportunity.
I spent about $1,000 to put out a prototype of Tribal College Journal—a 24-page publication designed on an early Macintosh computer and frugally printed in black and white. It was well received, not always for the intended reasons. I recall Georgiana Tiger, who represented the tribal college interests in Washington, DC at the time, telling me that she liked the first edition precisely because it was not fancy or slick. Instead, its primitive design showed lawmakers just how needy and poor the colleges really were. This was meant as a compliment, so I thanked her.
The growth and development of the journal during my seven-year tenure primarily reflected the incremental growth in funding— the result of rising circulation, increased contributions from the colleges, and, in the early years, vital support from the American Indian College Fund and later the Lannan Foundation. But, to be honest, it also reflected my own learning curve. Four times a year for seven years, thousands of readers watched me learn how to run a magazine.
This is not something I would have admitted 25 years ago. I wanted to be taken seriously, and I tried to present myself as a competent and knowledgeable professional. Above all, I wanted to do justice to the work of tribal colleges and the sacrifices made by their leaders. I didn’t want to parade my inexperience. I wanted to do my best to show the colleges at their best.
PAUL BOYER WITH SON AVERY
Boyer (with son Avery) worked out of a spare bedroom and designed the journal on an early Macintosh computer.
But now, with hindsight, I am increasingly fond of those early editions, in spite of their limitations (and frequent typos). To me, the journal’s humble origin story is in perfect harmony with the larger history of the tribal college movement.
Yes, I was young, inexperienced, and a bit over my head—filled with passion and good intentions while lacking practical skills and a clear plan for the future. But the same can be said for many of the early tribal college founders. I am currently writing a history of the tribal colleges and through my interviews with the movement’s founders, I am constantly reminded that the institutions were invented by, frankly, a bunch of kids. Many were no older than I was when they helped start their college; a few were even younger.
Their qualifications for running a college were, in some cases, limited to having recently been college students. Most did not yet have doctoral degrees in education administration; that would come later. A few had gained additional experience as campus radicals, which meant they knew more about fighting systems than creating them. What did they know about the tedious but essential machinery of higher education: budgeting, accreditation, Title III funding, or articulation agreements? At first, almost nothing.
But that, as it turned out, was not what mattered most. To succeed, they really needed something less tangible: a sense of passion, a conviction that change was needed, and above all, the belief that they could help make change happen.
Tribal colleges have grown a great deal over the past 40 years. They have accumulated the trappings of maturity and respectability, including accreditation and land grant status. Most now have campuses that actually look like campuses, not (as was originally the case) a mismatched collection of double-wide trailers and rented storefronts. Some now offer four-year and even graduate degrees. And they are also run by skilled and experienced administrators. This is evidence of progress and offers hope for the stability and growth of the movement into the future.
But I also remember that the movement began with people who did not have these credentials and who did not even see their work as a “job”—let alone a viable career path. The odds were so fully stacked against them that nothing less than a sense of obligation to a larger cause can really explain the commitment made by the early founders and those who joined the movement. I’m reminded of what Janine Pease, founder of Little Big Horn College, once said on this subject: “Tribal colleges are like a religious order,” she proposed. “You take a vow of poverty and stay for life.” Amen to that.
I don’t mean to suggest that my efforts to start Tribal College Journal are comparable to the efforts made by Pease and others to start their colleges. Their task was much harder, the stakes were higher, and the opposition greater (in fact, I enjoyed full support from the colleges). But I do think that both efforts illustrate the often underappreciated virtues of youthful energy and good intentions— even when experience and formal credentials are lacking.
Carol Davis once told me a wonderful story about her efforts to create Turtle Mountain Community College when she was 25 years old. She used her own money to fly from North Dakota to Seattle for a meeting of the first tribal college founders, but felt that she was being excluded by leaders of the more senior institutions. They told her she could only participate in efforts to win some vital federal funding if she developed a funding proposal. The deadline was a week away. “Do you have a proposal?” she was asked. “My proposal is written,” she shot back. But what she was really thinking was “What’s a proposal?”
Did it matter that she didn’t know what a proposal was? In the long run, no. She quickly figured that out and wrote a draft on the flight home. Instead, the vital ingredient was a willingness to pursue a goal in the face of unrelenting opposition. This is a gift given to the young. In fact, being young, inexperienced, and even naive can actually be an asset. It’s easier to start a project when you don’t know the odds of failure. If I had known what I was getting into, I might have looked for that newspaper job. Running a magazine, it turns out, is hard work.
Paul Boyer, Ed.D. is the founding editor of Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education.
QUOTED: "His book's brevity belies its value."
"Readers will find clear (though too often passive) prose, photos, and notes."
"highly recommended."
Boyer, Paul. Capturing education: envisioning and building the first tribal colleges
D. Steeples
53.8 (Apr. 2016): p1209.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Boyer, Paul. Capturing education: envisioning and building the first tribal colleges. Sallsh Kootenai College Press, 2015. 11 Op ISBN 9781934594148 cloth, $22.95; ISBN 9781934594131 pbk, $12.95
(cc) 53-3592
E97
2015-33674 CIP
Boyer is an educational policy expert, author of a Carnegie Fund study of American Indian education, and founding editor of Tribal College: Journal of American Indian Higher Education. His book's brevity belies its value. Its 110 pages distill from a sound sample of 12 American Indian Nation-controlled colleges the story of all 36 colleges created since the advent of the 1960s black and red power movements. Boyer places particular emphasis on the colleges at Sinte Gleska, Pine Ridge, Fort Peck, Little Big Horn, Turtle Mountain, and Flathead, as well as those serving the Navajo Nation. Part "how to" and part US cultural history, this book is also a quasi oral history condensing 30 years of interviews that document the challenges leaders faced while they worked to establish colleges on isolated and impoverished Indian reservations. Eleven probing chapters discuss tribal opposition (support of elders overcame it in every instance), funding, finding facilities and instructors, framing collegiate curricula infused with Native languages and cultures, and winning accreditation, among other issues. Readers will find clear (though too often passive) prose, photos, and notes but no bibliography or index. A must for all academic libraries. Summing Up: *** Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals; general readers.--D. Steeples, Mercer University
Steeples, D.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Steeples, D. "Boyer, Paul. Capturing education: envisioning and building the first tribal colleges." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Apr. 2016, p. 1209+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA449661723&it=r&asid=5665f117c72b89359cd9b1f2193d74e6. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A449661723
NSF Featured in New Book About History of Tribal Colleges
Capturing Education (actual size)
As the nation’s oldest tribally controlled colleges and universities prepare to celebrate their fiftieth anniversaries, a new book recalls the challenges faced by those who founded some of the first colleges located on reservations in the 1960s and 1970s. Capturing Education: Envisioning and Building the First Tribal Colleges, written by Paul Boyer and published by Salish Kootenai College Press, documents how early leaders faced opponents who believed Indians did not need a college education or were incapable of running their own institutions.
Boyer is founding editor of the Tribal College Journal and author of numerous books and policy reports about the tribal college movement. Capturing Education is based on extended interviews with more than a dozen long-serving presidents, including those who helped found colleges serving the Navajo, Rosebud, Flathead, Crow, Fort Peck, and Turtle Mountain reservations. It is the first project to systematically record and disseminate oral histories told by the movement’s early leaders.
Stories told by founders emphasize the colleges’ humble beginnings. “Most were, at first, small and unpromising institutions, “ Boyer writes. “Classes were taught in church basements, trailers, rented storefronts, surplus building and—when necessary—in bars and under trees.” Founders were young—many were still in their twenties—and none had administrative experience. But all were guided by a potent mixture of idealism, anger, and faith in the power of education.
The book explores how these presidents overcome opposition, inexperience, and limited resources to build stable, accredited and respected institutions of higher learning. As part of this story, Capturing Education acknowledges the early role played by the National Science Foundation, which as one of the first agencies to support the colleges. An early grant made to Turtle Mountain Community College before it was even accredited funded the construction of the institution’s first science lab and supported the salary of two instructors. “It is hard to imagine a grant that was more efficiently and profitably used,” Boyer writes.
Capturing Education: Envisioning and Building the First Tribal Colleges (128 pages) is published by Salish Kootenai College Press. It sells for $12.95 paperback and $22.95 hardback. It is available by mail prepaid from SKC Press, PO Box 70, Pablo, MT 59855 (include $2.00 shipping). It is also available through online booksellers, including Amazon.com.
QUOTED: "Although several books have been written about the tribal colleges, at least three of them by Boyer himself, this is a unique contribution. It provides an opportunity for these luminaries to share not only the creation stories but also their evolving philosophy and vision for the movement’s future."
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Capturing Education: Envisioning and Building the First Tribal Colleges
Volume 28, No. 2 - Winter 2016
Marjane Ambler ♦ November 13, 2016
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Capturing Education: Envisioning and Building the First Tribal Colleges by Paul BoyerBy Paul Boyer
Salish Kootenai College Press (2015)
110 pages
Review by Marjane Ambler
This slim text provides volumes of wisdom gleaned primarily from six people Paul Boyer calls “visionaries” who helped invent the tribal college movement. Although several books have been written about the tribal colleges, at least three of them by Boyer himself, this is a unique contribution. It provides an opportunity for these luminaries to share not only the creation stories but also their evolving philosophy and vision for the movement’s future. Boyer interviewed six people who served as presidents of their tribal colleges: Carty Monette, David Gipp, Janine Pease, Jim Shanley, Joe McDonald, and Bob Roessel. His interviews over 25 years also include others, both Indian and non-Indian, who helped get the movement on its feet. As Boyer points out, oral histories are fragile, and we are fast approaching the 50th anniversary of the first tribal college, Navajo Community College. Its first president, Bob Roessel, has died, and the others are getting older. Hostility to the concept of Indian-controlled education was fierce and widespread. In fact, Boyer says, the support by non- Indians was more surprising than the opposition. The presidents credit the birth of the movement to several factors, including divine intervention.
The holistic nature of the colleges’ missions is critically important, the presidents say. In addition to providing academic, vocational, and cultural curriculum, they have nurtured a love of learning that has empowered reservation communities. Jim Shanley says this fulfills a basic premise of American Indian religious thought and worldview: “The intent is not to develop a rich person, but to develop a wise person.” This broad mission may be in jeopardy, Boyer says, due to increasing internal and external emphasis on job training and other narrower priorities.
The author has been writing about tribal colleges for more than 30 years. After serving as the founding editor of Tribal College Journal for seven years, he earned a doctorate in educational theory and policy. A grant from the National Science Foundation funded this book as part of the Tribal College History Documentation Project, which also involves digitally archiving interviews.
If the book has any shortcomings, it would be the lack of an index and a bibliography. However, it is a short book, and most of the contents derive from the author’s interviews. It does not include later presidents, who have their own remarkable stories. That job is left to another book by Boyer or someone else. In the final chapter, the presidents reflect on the movement’s accomplishments and emerging challenges. The book, and especially this chapter, should be read by everyone interested in this remarkable movement at what Boyer calls “the ragged edge of social change.”
Marjane Ambler was editor of Tribal College Journal from 1995 until 2006, and is author of Breaking the Iron Bonds: Indian Control of Energy Development.