The American Native Press and American Indian Studies

Abstract

The advent of a new decade in higher education usually spurs policymakers to evaluate programs and policies and to make plans and projections for the coming decade. So it was with American Indian studies at the advent of the eighties. Evaluation actually began in the late seventies, and in 1980 the fourth annual Conference on Contemporary American Indian Issues was devoted to the matter. Despite the general consensus that the flush times of the seventies were over and that American Indian studies had entered a critical era regarding its place in higher education, the tone of the reporting was generally optimistic. Indian educators could look at the preceding decade with some satisfaction concerning the development of American Indian studies. There had been tremendous growth in the number of programs and a number of institutions had developed programs of quality. Indian studies courses were offered in colleges without programs and in some secondary schools, and there was phenomenal growth in Indian enrollments.