Mellon Tribal College Research Journal --- Volume I Stephanie Grater and Jessie Antonellis 2.
Why do you integrate/not integrate your curriculum into the culture? 1
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How do you integrate your curriculum into the culture?
In the following section, the respondents are referred to by O’odham pseudonyms: Hemako, Go:k, Waik, Gi’ik, and Hetasp.
Results Why did you choose to teach at a tribal college such as TOCC? Results of our survey indicate that there were two motivating factors for respondents who came to TOCC: they came specifically to work with Native students (two respondents), or they came to gain teaching experience (two respondents; one respondent did not address this question); the latter did not specify if they meant to gain teaching experience with Native students in particular. It is clear that all respondents came to TOCC to become better teachers. Native American faculty who came specifically to teach Native American students seem to follow the trend found by Voorhees (2003), in which this was identified as a prominent motivating factor for Native American TCU faculty; as respondent Go:k wrote, “I am Native and enjoy teaching and working with Native students.” Native American faculty members may come to TCUs because of the cultural match, where the philosophies of the instructor and the tribal college are congruent (Tippeconnic & McKinney, 2003). For instance, Respondent Waik did not say she/he is Native, but did say, “I grew up on a reservation and it’s a comfort to be on one.” Non-Native American faculty members may feel that teaching Native American students is a way to make a difference in the lives of
1 At the time of the survey, TOCC used the phrase “integrate curriculum into the culture” as a way of describing the interweaving of culture and curriculum. As such, the survey question was written in this way, though throughout this article we refer to the same concept as “integrating culture into the curriculum.”
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