Native Circle Seeks to Improve Retention at IAIA

SANTA FE-Native Circle , a Title III grant project at the Institute of American Indian Arts, is now in its third year of a five-year $1.9 million grant ending in September 2005. 

"This grant is the result of a nationwide growing concern of students not persisting in completing their education," says Frances Bannowsky, the new Native Circle coordinator for developmental education.

Native Circle is just one of many U.S. Department of Education projects in the United States designed to improve student retention through mentoring, intensive orientation, college preparedness training, and faculty development that acquaints faculty with teaching and learning styles to help students with various needs. 

Bannowsky's responsibilities include coordinating peer tutoring, providing resources for faculty, and coordinating and developing IAIA's developmental education program.  The U.S. Department of Education's report The Condition of Education 2000 reveals that sixty-four percent of students who attend both two-year and four-year institutions take at least one remedial course. At the developmental level, students lack the critical basic skills in math or English, making it difficult for them to master these classes at the college level. 

Her goal is to give students the tools in reading, writing and math they need for educational success and hopefully enable them to become independent lifelong learners. To that end, IAIA will pilot a computerized developmental math course in the second half of this spring semester using new computer technology which allows students to become self-paced in their mastery of skills.. The computer tracks the student's progress, recording which skills they have mastered and which ones they still need to work on. This allows for self-paced individualized education. 

Bannowsky encourages students to come in and talk with her. She would like to hear what would help them stay in school. Her office is located in the central hallway of the administration building. The tutor schedules are posted on the wall near the office door.  

Bannowsky also supervises the instructors of developmental courses and evaluates new teaching formats. She is researching and collecting articles and books on subjects dealing with learning styles, studies on student diversity, and successful retention programs at other universities and other Title III programs. These materials will serve as a reference library for interested faculty. Counseling is another important component of Native Circle.

Jane Oliver, the new counselor with Native Circle and Student Life, provides supportive counseling to students for any issues they may have. This includes adjustment to college, homesickness, relationship problems, and substance abuse awareness and treatments, as well as referrals to other providers if needed.  On Tuesday evenings she facilitates a recovery and insight for group for students who have questions about their use of alcohol and/or drugs and for those who feel their use is starting to become a problem. The humanistic or client-centered approach is the theoretical approach Oliver most uses.

This approach stresses the importance of people courageously taking responsibility for their lives as they confront personal transitions. It is an optimistic belief in the capacity of self-determination and human qualities, such as choice, creativity, the interaction of the body, mind and spirit and the capacity to become more aware, free, responsible, life-affirming and trustworthy. 

People have the answers they need within themselves, Oliver believes, but cannot always access them. She helps them to access these answers by providing a safe environment to look at difficult issues, listening actively, and paying attention.  Oliver also utilizes Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing in therapy, a method of treatment that can help clients process stuck traumas or memories that are stored in the body, which allows them to work through and resolve them. 

Her prior experiences with Native Americans include working as a counselor with the Northern Pueblos Project and with the Unity Treatment Center in North Carolina, a federal mental health and substance abuse agency for native youth throughout the country. She also was a counselor at Western Carolina University in North Carolina where she discovered that she enjoyed working with college students.  

"I liked working with a team and with students. At IAIA I have both. I am working with the student population and the Native Circle team," Oliver said. The Counseling Center is located in the portable across from Student Life. The Native Circle is located in the IAIA academic building.

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