The Making of Relatives: Creating a home away from Home for American Indian Pre-Service Teachers at a Predominantly White Institution

Abstract

Despite the many retention models in place to support American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students’ academic success within Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) of higher learning, AI/AN student persistence and degree completion continues to be in a state of crisis. Here we highlight the factors that enhance or diminish persistence and describe culturally congruent mentoring approaches. In this article we are focusing on the extraordinary group of American Indian achievers who are members of the Society of INdigenous Educators (SINE) and who, against tremendous odds, persisted and graduated from their teacher preparation program at a land grant institution in the western United States. The SINE mentoring program was created to recruit, retain, graduate, place and provide ongoing support to these pre-service teachers. As is, the status quo at PWIs falls short at best, and in many circumstances diminishes AI/AN students’ chances for persistence and completion. By embracing the concept of creating a secondary home away from Home, where students in college have the social, and academic supports necessary, we have conceptualized and developed a culturally congruent, discipline-specific mentoring program. As key advocates, faculty mentors need a repertoire of knowledge and capacities to support novices’ induction into teaching, and to help students navigate institutional, departmental, and programmatic requirements in the university context by developing a constellation of supporters. Given only .4 % of faculty on college campuses are AI/AN, it is unlikely that AI/AN students will have an AI/AN faculty mentor in the leadership position of their culturally congruent, discipline-specific mentoring group. This being the case, we identify specific attributes that we recommend for selecting a faculty mentor to serve AI/AN students.