Helping Native American Students Prepare for College

An NEH grant enabled Haskell Indian Nations University to welcome two classes of incoming students for a free, three-week Summer Bridge program that used Native American literature to prepare them to read and write to collegiate standards. The intensive residential program, complete with co-curricular evening activities, provided vulnerable students with the extra leg-up they needed to successfully transition to college both academically and socially. Students were afforded the opportunity to form mentoring relationships with the faculty who would teach their freshman writing courses and a community of peers that would be waiting for them when they returned for the fall semester.

“The Summer Bridge program was very beneficial to me. I was really nervous about coming here, but I’ve been able to learn the campus, meet some awesome people, and learn more about writing. I gained skills in reading, analyzing, writing, and managing everything I have to do to be successful in school. I am so glad I did this program.”

–Student Participant

The program was designed to address several factors that make it difficult for Haskell to retain students. Many Haskell students do not graduate high school with the reading and writing skills they need to succeed, and research has shown that disadvantaged minority student populations benefit from English instruction grounded in literature from their particular identity group. During the first year of the grant, English Department faculty gathered repeatedly to develop a curriculum merging accessible Native American literature with the teaching techniques they had found to work best with struggling students. They also worked to address the unique social challenges Haskell students face when transitioning to college. Many are first-generation college students; some are leaving tight-knit tribal communities for the first time; others, less connected to their tribal identities, wonder if they truly belong at the school. The program provided a structure for immersing all of these students in a diverse community of authors and peers with whom they could connect.

Participants in the Summer Bridge program connect with one another over a meal in between lessons. Photo courtesy of Haskell Indian Nations University.

As a result of the program, English faculty at Haskell are now using more Native American literature in their introductory composition courses, helping more students to connect with the material and their tribal identities. The grant also enabled Haskell to bring in a panel of Native authors who worked on a poetry anthology together, one of whom returned to campus for a workshop the following year.