The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2 - 107

First Nations and Higher Education

and institutions, is an explicit commitment
to culturally appropriate, readily accessible,
quality post-secondary education for First
Nations people. Typical of the mission statements associated with such institutions is that
of the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology
(NVIT) in Merritt, British Columbia:
To provide First Nations people with access to
a system of the highest quality post-secondary,
academic and career/technical education in a
culturally reinforced environment (NVIT, 1990).
While NVIT functions as a more or less
independent First Nations institution, similar
purposes can be achieved within the structural
framework of existing public institutions. At
the University of British Columbia (UBC), for
example, the First Nations House of Learning
draws on the following mission to broaden
the cultural attributes of all UBC programs by
helping them better serve the needs of First
Nations people:
The mandate of the First Nations House
of Learning is to make the University's
vast resources more accessible to British
Columbia's First People, and to improve
the University's ability to meet the needs
of First Nations. The House of Learning is
continuously seeking direction from the First
Nations community in determining priorities
and approaches. This is achieved through
consultation meetings and workshops held
throughout the province. The First Nations
House of Learning is dedicated to quality
preparation in all ﬁelds of post-secondary
study. We believe that quality education is
determined by its relevance to the philosophy
and values of First Nations (Kirkness, 1990).
Similar missions, goals and programs can
be found in most of the other higher education
initiatives coming from First Nations people

across Canada and the U.S. It is the exercise
of First Nations leadership and responsibility
through institutions such as these that offers
the best long-term promise for improving First
Nations participation in higher education (Barnhardt, 1991). Through institutions of their own
making and/or under their own control, First
Nations people are creating a more comprehensive deﬁnition of "education" and reafﬁrming
their right to respect and self-determination.
The signiﬁcance of this undertaking was summarized by the Carnegie Foundation in its
report on U.S. Tribal Colleges:
At the heart of the tribal college movement is
a commitment by Native Americans to reclaim
their cultural heritage. The commitment to
reafﬁrm traditions is a driving force fed by a
spirit based on shared history passed down
through generations, and on common goals.
Some tribes have lost much of their tradition,
and feel, with a sense of urgency, that they
must reclaim all they can from the past even
as they confront problems of the present. The
obstacles in this endeavor are enormous but,
again, Indians are determined to reafﬁrm their
heritage, and tribal colleges, through their
curriculum and campus climate, are places of
great promise (Boyer, 1989).
The need for such a shift in cultural emphasis as that sought by the Tribal Colleges is
no less important in existing Western-oriented
institutions of higher education serving First
Nations students, but the structures and processes for engaging with First Nations people
through these institutions are necessarily different. The nature of some of those differences
are spelled out by Tierney (1991) in his use of
critical analysis to examine the role of colleges
with regard to Native American students:

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2

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