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Journal of American Indian Education

Volume 37 Number 2 Winter 1998

CONDUCTING RESEARCH WITH AN URBAN AMERICAN INDIAN

COMMUNITY: A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH

Priscilla A. Day, Elizabeth T. Blue, and Margaret Peake Raymond

In 1996, a notable collaboration between tribal and urban Institutions of higher education was established to create systems change to

benefit urban American Indian students. This piece describes community wide participation starting with a symposium in which a guiding

vision statement was developed and priorities were established. The needs assessment process included a literature review, three

community forum sessions and key informant surveys. It utilized knowledge and resources of the urban American Indian communities of

concern, which resulted in their investment in the research. Data collected will be used to implement the project.

American Indian people have experienced great difficulty in completing higher education degrees. College

retention rates for American Indians have been extremely poor, with various authors citing rates of from four to

nine percent (Davis, 1992; Dingman, Mroczka, & Brady, 1995; Lin, LaCounte, & Eder, 1988; Rindone, 1988 ).

Numerous studies in the past have examined student characteristics; the logical next step is to consider how the

higher education institutions, themselves, contribute to the problems. This article tracks the American Indian

community based research process used by the American Indian Urban Higher Education Initiative as afoundation for developing change strategies to enable higher education institutions to meet the real needs of

American Indian students.

Today, many American Indian/Alaska Native community entities are incorporating ongoing needs assessment and

other evaluative research into planning for the future. However, many minority groups have become alienated

from social science and other researchers (Uehara, Sohng, Bending, Seyfried, Richey, Morelli, Spencer, Ortega,

Keenan, & Kanuha, 1996).

Mainstream descriptions of how to conduct needs assessment abound (Rubin and Babbie, 1993; Warheit, Bell, &

Schwab, 1977), as well as growing literature about community based needs assessment (Giesbrecht, Conley,

Denniston, Gliksman, Holder, Pederson, Room, & Shain, 1990). At the same time, there has been a call for

culturally respectful and competent needs assessment and research (Becerra & Zambrana, 1985; Harrison Burns,

Kunisawa, & Center for Multicultural Awareness staff members, 1981; Neighbors, Bashshur, Price, Selig,

Donabedian, & Shannon, 1992; Orlandi, 1992; Uehara, et al, 1996). American Indian specific needs assessment

studies have focused on community wide assessment to create new agencies to meet community identified social

needs (Stivers, 1994) or on designing culturally based human service and education interventions with American

Indian individuals and families at the agency level (Braswell & Wong, 1994; Schact, Tafoya, & Mirabla, 1988).

Prior descriptions of needs assessment have not successfully illustrated how it can be made culturally compatible

or how it has been conducted in true collaboration with American Indian communities. Further documentation of

the effects of needs assessment or larger system change, which can have a positive impact on American Indian

communities, has also been lacking. This paper outlines a research project undertaken in one urban American

Indian community in the summer of 1997. It documents the specific community based strategies employed by a

research team composed primarily of American Indian people in conducting a three pronged needs assessment.

This needs assessment was to serve as the foundation for planned systemic change in the educational systems

affecting the urban American Indian people of this community.

The American Indian Urban Higher Education Initiative

The American Indian Urban Higher Education Initiative (AIUHEI) was founded in 1996 in Minneapolis througha notable collaboration of metropolitan Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) area higher education

professionals, postsecondary educational institutions, Indian community organizations, and foundation funders.

The Initiative was created to develop a comprehensive strategic plan to address the problems and needs of the

post secondary systems serving American Indian people living in the Minneapolis St. Paul metropolitan area.

Initiative founders were concerned with the recruitment, retention and support of American Indians involved in

higher education in the Twin Cities. Additional concerns included the cultural relevance of education as well as a

lack of cooperation and duplication of efforts among the institutions of higher education serving that population.

Regional funders had indicated less willingness to continue to fund these separate efforts and were pushing for

the various institutions to begin the process of collaboration. The Initiative was born in response to these

concerns.

The Initiative is expected to produce coordinated fundamental systemic change in the existing urban higher

education s stems. These chan es will be develo ed in order to hel American Indian eo le in the Twin Cities

http://jaie.asu.edu/







metro area to reach their post secondary educational goals, to allow them to compete successfully for jobs, and to

improve the overall quality of their lives. This change process was envisioned as having two phases; Phase 1 was

a two year research and planning phase to be followed by Phase II in which the plans are to be implemented over

a five year period. Higher education institutional partners in this endeavor included the Lac Courte Oreilles

Ojibwa Community College, the Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, the Native American Educational

Services College (NAES), Augsburg College, Metropolitan State University, and the University of Minnesota.

American Indian organizations who have been directly involved since its beginnings are the American Indian

Housing Corporation and the American Indian Research and Policy Institute. The Initiative was funded for the

initial phase by the Bush Foundation, the Minneapolis Foundation, and the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs

of the University of Minnesota. The Higher Education Coordinating Team which has served as the advisory group

for the Initiative includes fourteen members from the partner institutions and from metro area American Indianorganizations.

The research process of Phase I involved enlisting community wide participation in order to create a research

process driven by community perceptions, which would also serve to galvanize support for the entire seven year

endeavor. The Project Coordinator met with community members and persons representing the higher education

systems of concern and a loosely defined original steering committee was created. This group of about 60 people

proposed a research process which began with a symposium to establish and focus the Initiative vision. This was

followed by a series of community forums and a survey to gather opinions about needs, barriers and potential

avenues to success for the Initiative. In addition, a comprehensive review of the American Indian higher

education literature was conducted to inform both the research and planning processes.

Symposium

The Initiative Symposium was held over two days in May 1997 on the St. Paul campus of the University of

Minnesota. It was coordinated by the American Indian Research and Policy Institute with input from the AIUHEI

steering committee. Together they developed a comprehensive, broad, community based list of potentialparticipants, which included teachers, students, faculty, administrators, and community activists from the urban

Twin Cities American Indian community, as well as selected long term friends of Indian education from the metro

area and leaders from the Initiative higher education institution partners. The symposium was designed to be

highly participatory and interactive, with these participants contributing their opinions and knowledge. The

nominal group method was used during the Symposium to encourage maximum participation and consensus

building. During the first morning of the Symposium, participants identified the values which were incorporated

into the guiding vision statement for the Initiative:

The American Indian Urban Higher Education Initiative believes in the respect for and use of American

Indian cultural traditions and philosophies in higher education. We value inclusion of family and

community as teachers and supporters. We will build upon mutual understanding between cultures and

institutions. We will incorporate mutual accountability and reciprocity with tribal communities, and we

will commit to a sustained, long term effort to provide self directed, self defined post secondary education

to urban American Indian people.

During the afternoon, participants worked at identifying and prioritizing issues, needs and barriers to successful

urban Indian education experiences. The participants worked in four groups focusing on four topics of particular

concern to the steering committee. These topics were: linking tribal and mainstream higher education, special

challenges to today's urban Native student, contributions of Native faculty to post secondary education, and

academic excellence and institutional development. Themes of concern emerged which crossed all four areas;

they were:

that the American Indian community be included in the development of higher education which is a fit for

them;

that supportive mechanisms to foster success for American Indians in academia (faculty and students) be

developed; and

that the values and philosophies expressed by Indian people be included in the higher educational

development process.The four areas examined in the Symposium and the values and concerns expressed in the Symposium became the

foundation upon which the literature review and the needs assessment processes were built, guiding the direction

of the entire needs assessment.

Needs Assessment

Needs assessment is used in order to "systematically research diagnostic questions for program planning

purposes" (Rubin & Babbie, 1993, p. 699). In this case, the "program" of concern was the general higher

education system as it has impacted American Indian people within the Minneapolis and St. Paul areas. The needs

were defined both normatively (objectively in comparison to what else is known, examining what is deemed

acceptable or desirable by those concerned with reaching the target group) and in terms of demand (from the

perspective of those who feel or have felt the need themselves and who would be considered to be part of the

group to be served by a given intervention). This particular sample contained persons in a position to







orum was e n nneapo s as we as n . au , as e wo n an commun es en o e s nc rom

one another and represent different geographic groups. A separate group was held with current and recent

postsecondary students who were considered to have a recent and unique perspective and to be knowledgeable

about the current conditions in the post secondary systems they attended. All three were held in community

friendly and familiar settings to encourage community turnout and participation.

Announcement/invitations/notices were sent to all Symposium participants and to those invited to the original

Symposium. Notices were also distributed throughout American Indian organizations in both communities and

through the partnership institutions. The times selected for the first two forum sessions were established to

accommodate working people and parents. In addition, each of the three sessions was accompanied by a buffet

style meal to thank participants for their participation (and also to encourage participation and turnout).

A colorful wall graphic illustrating the Initiative mission statement and the values associated with the researchand Initiative processes was displayed during the forum at each site. This graphic was intended to facilitate the

discussion of what the Initiative was and the purpose of the meeting at hand. There was a banner up in each site

as well with the following research question: "What should be done to improve the higher education experience

for urban American Indian students?"

The two community based forum sessions were set up to include community leaders from each city who were

involved in the project, and several of the Initiative partner representatives and local community leaders were

called upon to make introductory remarks. These well known leaders were included to visibly encourage

community people to attend and to come forward to testify at the events. Both sessions were very informal and

were led by community people associated with the Initiative planning committee. The researchers were present at

both of these sessions and were introduced to the community, but were not visibly "in charge" at either session, as

they were not community members. There was a court reporter present at each session, who took down all

remarks verbatim from each session. Participants were encouraged to respond to the research question posed on

the banner with whatever they wished to contribute.

The qualitative data produced in the context of the community meetings was later analyzed by the two researchers

using inductive methods in which common themes were developed from the specific observations of participants.

Themes were defined as recurring subjects or topics of concern. Both researchers had to agree about the nature

and parameters of a given theme and then also had to agree upon how to assign the specific comments of the

participants to the theme areas.

The student forum was held in Minneapolis in an area close to five of the six partner institutions. This session was

facilitated by the two researchers who had been brought in to coordinate the needs assessment processes. The

research question banner and the wall graphic were posted once again; in addition, the students were asked to

respond to the research question in each of five specific areas. These sub divisions were adapted from the four

primary areas utilized in the May Symposium. They were linkages, student concerns, concerns about faculty,

academic excellence and institutional development.

The researchers used a brainstorming activity called "All on the Wall" to engage participants and elicit their

responses. In this activity each person was encouraged to write down any and all concerns in each of the four

areas on postit notes; these were then posted by participants on the wall under the area of concern. These items

were then shared back to participants after they were grouped into themes of concern under each of the areas of

concern by the researchers. Students were asked to comment on the theming, to once again consider anything

they felt had been missed, and to add these items to the wall. Finally, this was followed by an open ended

discussion during which one of the researchers took notes. Thus, the theming for this activity was accomplished

with student feedback at the time of the activity. Common themes of concern emerged from all three fora. They

were:

the need for the creation of formal and informal support structures in academia;

the need for the development of access to surmount challenges and barriers of entering and succeeding in

higher education;

the need for the creation of formal and informal community linkages;

the need for increased and better resources;

the need for academic preparedness and readiness for the college experience;

the need to address issues related to financial aid.

Key Informant Surveys

The third type of data collection method for the needs assessment involved the use of two key informant surveys.

The key informant survey approach to data collection assumed that a selected and specific group of people had

access to or possessed the information needed to evaluate the issue under consideration. This approach has often

involved interviewing or the use of questionnaires with such persons presumed to have special knowledge of the

issues (Rubin and Babbie, 1993, p.559). Advantages associated with the use of this approach were that the

information sought came directly from participants who could competently address the topic of concern. In

addition, in the key informant approach it was possible to acquire rich information from relatively few

participants. It was also a versatile method as key informants could be interviewed individually or in groups, in

person or by telephone, or even be sent a questionnaire. The key informant approach was very practical because it





allowed the research team to acquire a sample quickly, to survey it easily in a timely manner, and to conduct the

process relatively inexpensively. Finally, the key informant approach served a double role, obtaining information

while making the Initiative visible and building connections with key persons in the community of concern

(Rubin & Babbie, 1993, pp. 558 559).

There were a number of disadvantages in selecting this approach; the information obtained using this method did

not entirely come directly from the community which was targeted for the service (the consumer); it was often

obtained from "experts" about the community and topic. Thus, the quality of the data acquired using this

approach was very much dependent upon how knowledgeable and objective the opinions expressed were. It was

important to select a sample sufficiently broad to include more than one point of view (Rubin & Babbie, 1993, pp.

558 559).

In this study, the approach was selected because the planning group knew it could not reach every individual

concerned with Indian education and the systems serving it in the metro area. By selecting people possessing

specialized, "expert" knowledge about the educational systems with which Indian people interact, they hoped to

get at a wide variety of opinions. The pool of informants was deepened and broadened by ensuring that multiple

stakeholder groups were well represented. These included:

faculty, staff, and administrators from throughout the urban area, Indian and non Indian, who were

associated with both the tribal and mainstream post secondary education institution partners, and/or who

worked directly with Indian students and/or issues within their institutional settings;

other persons involved in state and state wide tribal and mainstream institutions directly concerned with

Indian education (like the state Department of Education and tribal education directors from all

reservations);

leaders from American Indian organizations throughout the metro area;

American Indian post secondary graduates from the metropolitan area for the 1996 97 school year;community members serving on education institution advisory boards;

both Indian and non Indian political figures and decision makers from tribal and mainstream institutions

(like state senators and representatives from the metro area and tribal chairs and secretaries from each

reservation);

decision makers involved with current and potential funding sources of the Initiative.

Initiative

In this case, the "experts" who came directly from the Indian community had also been personally involved with

higher education (thus also representing the target group as well). They were chosen because they had a set of

personal and, sometimes, professional experiences which put them in a unique position to know both the Indian

community and the workings of the higher education institutions serving Indian people in the metro area. Other

people were chosen because of their history of involvement with Indian education, their ability to impact

decisions being made currently about Indian education, their involvement in a position currently directly involved

with the Initiative partnership, and/or their recent involvement in post secondary education in the metro area.

There were two sub groups within the overall sample; one group was given the long version and one the shorter

version. The long version sub group, which was the smaller sample, was specifically selected on the basis of prior

involvement with the Initiative and its steering committee; representatives of all Initiative partners and

reservation tribal chairs and secretaries were also included in this group. Everyone else was administered or sent

the short version of the survey. Dividing the group in this manner made it possible to obtain more indepth

information from persons already familiar with and/or committed to the Initiative. It also made it possible to

separate out the opinions of this group who had already been heavily involved in both the Symposium and the

community fora from the opinions of the rest of the sample to see if there were statistically significant variations

in their responses. This was a non probability convenience sample, meaning it was not randomly chosen. The

master list was established by the Project Director with input from various steering committee members and the

research team. A letter of introduction from the Project Director was sent to each potential respondents to inform

them of the survey and its purposes and to invite their participation when they were called. This was done to

establish the study's credibility and to improve the response rate.

A semi structured interview schedule was developed by the researchers and the data analysis coordinator. This

instrument, with minor additions made for the specially selected longer version group, was used with both sample

groups. Both surveys were divided into the same six topic areas: American Indian student related issues,

American Indian faculty related issues, curriculum concerns, institutional development, effective linkages

between tribal college and mainstream universities, and effective linkages with families and communities. Within

each of the six topic areas, respondents were asked the same initial openended question, accompanied by an open

ended follow up item. They were then asked to respond to a set of rating items (from two to six items) in each

section. However, the sub group of specially selected key informants was asked to qualify each of the close ended

quantitative questions on the survey by adding suggestions, examples, or comments after their ratings.

The survey instrument was revised and piloted twice. It utilized clear, uniform definitions for unfamiliar terms,

mixed both open and close ended items, used unambiguous language, and did not contain double barreled items.

The close ended items were ratin scales develo ed from a reement of information obtained from the





Symposium, the literature review and/or the community fora. They were formulated to allow the researchers to

confirm whether the sample involved here was in agreement with the other sources of the research information.

As data collection for this study was conducted in July and August, the data collection team had to work around

vacations, scholarly summer activities which had taken academics away from the city, and changes in positions.

Phone numbers and people in given positions were updated as the study progressed. A minimum of two attempts

were made to reach each person in the original sample group. More calls were involved in tracking return calls

and in completing follow up appointments set. The research data collection team was trained to use the surveys

and to respond to questions regarding definitions of terms on the survey. All team members followed the same

outline of introduction when contacting and leaving messages for potential respondents. Every effort was made to

make appointments to speak to people when it was convenient for them. The appropriate survey was sent out tothe participant if, after two calls had been attempted, there had been no response within a week, when potential

respondents would not be available until after the calling period (but before data analysis began), and when

respondents asked to use that method instead of participating in a telephone discussion. This did improve the

response rate.

Five themes of concern were mentioned most often in the open ended comments throughout the survey. They

were:

Insufficient resources;

The need for a critical mass of American Indian students, faculty, staff, and administrators;

Lack of formal linkages (between tribal colleges and mainstream institutions);

Barriers embedded in the institutions themselves;

Lack of formal linkages between the higher education institutions and the Indian community.

Common Themes

Several themes which emerged from the various research projects associated with this study were of note because

they were present in ALL aspects of the study (literature review, community fora, and key informant surveys).

These common themes were:

Concern about the barriers embedded in the institutional settings themselves which work to prevent the

retention and successful graduation of American Indian students.

Concern about the absence of culturally relevant and meaningful learning opportunities across the

curricula of post secondary institutions.

Concern about the insufficient interpersonal, academic, collegial, departmental, and institutional support

in post secondary institutions.

Concern about the lack of critical mass of American Indian students, faculty, staff, and administrators in

post secondary institutions. This concern was usually tied to issues related to recruitment.

Concern about inadequate institutional resources which limit the development of solutions to problemsfacing American Indian students and faculty.

The themes emerging from throughout the study were inextricably connected to the vision and values initially

expressed through the Initiative Symposium. These were:

the importance of inclusion of American Indian cultural traditions;

the importance of understanding and respect between cultures and institutions;

the importance of mutual accountability between mainstream institutions of higher education, tribal

colleges, and American Indian communities; and

the importance of self defined education relevant to urban American Indian students.

Conclusion

In it's vision statement, the Initiative identified the need to "commit to a sustained, long term effort to provide self

directed, self defined education to urban American Indian students". This research was culturally appropriate,

yielding rich and complex data. It was also inclusive and focused upon the empowerment and involvement of the

American Indian community it was to serve. The process required careful planning and coordination and a

significant commitment of time and resources. The research team was composed of persons with research

knowledge, knowledge of American Indian culture in general, and specific knowledge of the community of

concern. Repeatedly, the process was designed to utilize the knowledge and resources of the American Indian

community itself. Finally Phase I of this process has provided the Initiative with the information needed to define

the development and implementation of planning to address systemic change related to these issues. The

Intitiative is currently engaged in Phase 11, the strategic planning process.

Priscilla A. Day is an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth in the Department of

Social Work. She is an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Reservation, an Anishinabe Tribe. She is

completing work for her doctorate in Educational Administration at the University of Minnesota.





Elizabeth T. Blue is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin Superior in the

Department of Human Behavior and Diversity. She has served as a consultant in many projects working

with American Indian people. She is completing her Ph.D. in Social Work at the University of Minnesota.

Margaret Peake Raymond is the Director of the American Indian Urban Higher Education Initiative.

The Initiative seeks to bring about systemic change within post secondary institutions in order to support

urban American Indian students in successfully completing college. She is a member of the Cherokee

Nation. She lives in Minneapolis and heads her own consulting agency.

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