White Papers
The Career and Life Skills Curriculum of the Native American Achievement
Program at Arizona State University
Prepared by: Robin Hammond
NACE 2003 Diversity Committee
Executive Coordinator, Student Affairs, Arizona State University Career
Services
Acknowledgements:
Carolyn Jones, Ph.D., Arizona State University Counseling and Consultation
Career Curriculum Principal Developer, Native American Achievement Program
Michael Begaye, Arizona State University Multicultural
Student Center
Program Coordinator, Sr., Native American Achievement Program
Calbert Seciwa, Director, American Indian Institute,
Arizona State University
Native American Achievement Program, Second Year Program
The Native American Achievement Program is a retention program for Native students, and is a collaborative partnership among several academic and student affairs departments at Arizona State University East, Main, and West campuses.
The Native American Achievement Program (NAAP) at Arizona State University
(ASU) is a successful retention program that encourages Native American
students to achieve academic goals, determine career goals, attain leadership
skills, and develop personal life skills. Specifically, the NAAP is designed
to increase the persistence and graduation rates of ASU's Native American
students from the Navajo Nation, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, and the
White Mountain Tribe.
The tribes, which require their students to participate in the NAAP, provide financial aid and are responsible for determining eligibility criteria for tribal scholarships, selecting the students who receive the scholarships, and setting the scholarship award amount. ASU provides the academic and personal success support. Each NAAP participant signs a student agreement to accept the terms of the program, which include attending an on-campus orientation at the beginning of each semester; monthly meetings with NAAP staff; periodic meetings with instructors and academic advisers; workshops; social activities; and a recognition banquet at the end of each academic year.
A hallmark of this program is its extensive collaboration with existing campus programs, such as career and counseling services. Through extensive training, ongoing collaboration, and deep, personal commitment, the career and counseling offices, as campus partners, developed and delivered culturally focused and culturally relevant career programs to Native American students. This unique approach to traditional university programming proved to be a very successful collaborative model that was central to the NAAP's early success.
The NAAP has been successful on many levels, most notably in its retention outcomes. Over the last five years, NAAP students have persisted at higher rates than their cohorts. In three of those years, NAAP students persisted at rates ranging from 63 to 78 percent, 2 to 5 percent higher than all ASU freshmen. In all five years, NAAP students persisted at rates that were, on average, 14 percent higher than their Native American cohorts who did not participate in the program.
From its inception, career development was identified as a key component to the NAAP program. The departments of career services and counseling and consultation played central roles in helping shape and develop the program's career and life skills curriculum. One challenge to developing programs for college-age, predominantly Navajo students from urban and rural, traditional and secular backgrounds was the limited availability of research or models to use as a philosophical foundation. By combining what we knew of existing vocational psychology, career, human, and student development theories with applied learning from unique training opportunities, the program developers from both departments set out to create a culturally focused and culturally relevant career and life-skills curriculum for first- and second-year students.
This paper highlights the process by which this unique curriculum was developed, the factors that contributed to the program's overall success, and the lessons the developers learned along the way. This paper is not intended to provide a model that will work for all programs or for traditional program development; however, this process worked at ASU and contains some universal elements that can be applied to developing culturally sensitive programs.
Curriculum Development Process
The career development component of the program had the following characteristics. First, staff from both the career center and the counseling office had specific knowledge of the cultural values of the population, such as the influences of family and traditional values, cultural taboos, and spirituality with regard to decision-making. Staff either attained this knowledge as members of the population with traditional cultural upbringing, or through a sincere desire to learn the culture through extensive training and immersion. The second characteristic was our combination of education and training, which stemmed from our individual expertise in vocational psychology and career development. The third characteristic was that we were not willing to accept that the existing career development resources and tools were the best ones available. We were willing to question those traditional tools and adapt them to better fit the needs of the students in the program.
We studied career development and multicultural literature to learn as much as we could about the population we were working with. There was extensive and in-depth research relevant to the cultural values of Native Americans in general, but the limitations of that research were the unique issues of traditional and secular upbringing, and rural and urban issues, which influence the vocational interests of our students.
We sought out firsthand cultural knowledge through special training by tribal elders on the Navajo reservation, one-on-one consultation with program advisers from similar backgrounds, feedback from Native American students, and seminars specific to the populations we worked with.
We would need to conduct a more in-depth study of the program to single out the effects of the career development program. However, based on workshop evaluations, the students found the program to be helpful in learning and exploring in-depth the factors that influence career and life choices.
Key Elements to the Success of the NAAP Program
Institutional Commitment—ASU's steadfast commitment to the success of this program is evidenced by multiple departments working collaboratively across academic and student affairs, and across campuses to help the students in the program to be successful in their academic pursuits. Departments such as the financial assistance/scholarship office, housing, tutoring, career services, counseling services, Multicultural Student Center, American Indian Institute, ASU West and ASU East Native programs, faculty, and the Learning Resource Center are examples the cross-college and cross-division collaborations.
Cultural Training—We coordinated a special training session with a tribal college to immerse ASU staff working with the NAAP program in the philosophy, traditions, lifestyles, and issues of the Navajo, who were the original tribal members involved in the program. Additional training sessions and seminars of different Arizona tribes helped staff broaden their knowledge and understanding of the various cultures from which these students come. A unique opportunity arose for all collaborators and partners to go to the reservation for two days to learn about Native philosophies from an elder/teacher/medicine man. At the end of the training, a common frame of reference served as the source by which we evaluated programs for both sensitivity and respect for cultural values.
Creating Culturally Sensitive Programs
Applying what we had learned also required us to critically assess the current career development tools at hand. Many of the tools had to be adapted or modified to better meet the needs of the students we worked with. For example, to explain self-actualization and Maslow's hierarchy of need, we made analogies to the Navajo Philosophy of Life, which emphasizes trying to live life in perfect harmony and balance, and reaching a stage in life where such harmony, or self-actualization, could exist. We modified value card sorts to include cards that expressed traditional values not identified in the institutional pack. Elders were invited into the classroom to lend support and to facilitate program components. We instructed using active learning/cooperative learning principles, and relied very little on singular response activities or questions, which were typically adverse to the group dynamics of the culture.
We also had to be aware of how we helped students evaluate occupations that involved working with cultural taboos around death and dying, including occupations such as life insurance sales, nurses, doctors, morticians, forensic scientists, and emergency response personnel. We had to be able to talk about possible conflicts with cultural values and belief systems, and to help students work through these occupational concerns.
All our training and practical applications were focused on bridging long-standing academic practice with more culturally focused methodologies, yet we found our best attempts fell short in some areas, and that we still had much to learn.
Lesson Learned
Though the intent of this paper is to establish the framework for the career-life skills component of the program, a few lessons are important to keep in mind as similar programs begin to take shape and are implemented. We offer the following bits of advice with the best of intentions, and a reminder that professional ethics have to serve as guiding principles in new and creative program development.
What worked for our institution's purpose may not work at other institutions or with other targeted populations. Do your homework and be creative and innovative in how you dialogue with the populations you wish to offer targeted services. Ask yourself, "What relationship do we have with this community? What really matters to those we want to work with? What are their concerns and aspirations? What role do we expect to play in facilitating growth? What role do they expect of us? What nonverbal messages does our office give about sensitivity to diversity? Does it make sense to promote the resources of our office, but not have staff, employers, or programs that have a culturally diverse or relevant foundation? What changes are we willing to make to create a more inclusive environment?"
We found that a good starting point was to consult the communities we wanted to serve about which resources they find most helpful. In doing so, Native constituents recommended a directory of all state tribal offices and their contact information. We would not have known about this valuable resource had we not asked.
Other lessons we learned in this process…
- Involve elders, talk more with members of the community you wish to serve and with key stakeholders (scholarship offices, education departments, economic development departments, as examples) to find out their experiences and concerns. Identify immediate barriers and be creative in overcoming those barriers so that important work can progress.
- Involve the community and parents. They have long-lasting influence and they may even become advocates on your behalf when they know you have their family member's best interest at heart.
- Be clear about your institution's commitment to either your program or the program you're working with. Identify key supporters and secure the needed resources to support your program's success.
- Go out into the community, in gathering places, and within enclaves and develop relationships within the community. Begin a dialogue to find out their needs. Embed yourself in the community to understand what really matters most to your students.
- Be prepared to make a long-term commitment to building these relationships.
- Don't be afraid to ask critical questions and challenge traditional tools, thoughts, and programs so that something better can be co-created with your students.
- Reflect on your work, test ideas before implementing, and be willing to improve your methods continuously.
- Listen to feedback.
- Be passionate about work that you do and be willing to keep learning.
