Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 4, Number 12, 1 December 1987 — Native American Program Seeks Interested Hawaiian Students [ARTICLE]

Native American Program Seeks Interested Hawaiian Students

Two hundred year-old Dartmouth College of Hanover, New Hampshire, has a Native American program with a historical commitment "for the education of youth of the Indian tribes . . ." In 1%9, Dartmouth had only 12 Native American graduates. Under a new president the next year, the eollege pledged to change this by establishing a Native American program to actively recruit Indian students for the very first time.

Since then, over 270 Native Americans from over 100 different tribes have attended Dartmouth whieh has maintained a lower student dropout rate than any other college or university with such a program. The college is an Ivy League liberal arts institution with about 4,000 undergraduates. It has three major divisions: Humanities, Social Sciences and Sciences, and the student-faculty ratio is 12-1. The Native American program is responsible to provide students with eounseling on a range of academic, personal and cultural issues working with the Native Americans at Darmouth (NAD), a student organization.

NAD sponsors activities throughout the year that make it easier for students to maintain ties with their cultures while educating themselves and others to other tribes and native issues. The organization is housed at the Native American Culture Center whieh also serves as a dormitory. Another Native American body on the campus is the Native American Council whieh is eomposed of representatives of NAD, faculty members, deans and other administrators.

In the academic field, Dartmouth also offers a Native American Studies program whieh is interdisciplinary. Courses offered are in Native American languages, cultures, history, oral tradition, Iiterature, contemporary issues and other related topics. In addition, the Native American Studies department also sponsors major conferences and symposia every other year, and internship opportunities as well.

As part of her job, Colleen Larimore, Assistant Director of Admissions/Financial Aid, recently visited Hawaii. Of Japanese and Comanche background, she spent mueh of her short stay here with relatives, visiting the Kamehameha Schools and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. She has a cousin who graduated from Kamehameha. Larimore had eome to Hawaii seeking to find more Native Hawaiian students who may be interested in completing their undergraduate degrees at Dartmouth. She said there is already a Native Hawaiian student there, Kanani Kauka, and the term "Hawaiian" is found throughout the informational material concerning the Native American proqram.

As senior high school students begin to finally realize the need to determine where they want to go to eonhnue their higher education, those Native Hawaiian students who are interested in receiving information about the Native American program may write to Colleen K. Larimore, Admissions Office, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755.