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Renata Birkenbuel
ICT
Salish Kootenai College in Montana boasts a graduation rate of 64 percent – the highest of all 35 accredited tribal colleges nationwide. But it comes at an ongoing price of vigilance and boots-on-the ground teamwork.
Easy to talk about – teamwork – but harder to fulfill in the real world of struggling, diverse college students whose lives are complex.
“There are so many people that contributed to the work that went into this effort,” said SKC President Sandra Boham, Confederated Salish and Kootenai. “It was a big job and we had to stop and think about everything that we do to support students here and get them to graduation.”
The college, snuggled in a valley among the stunning Mission Mountains, draws mostly reservation students. It’s located on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Western Montana between Missoula to the south and Kalispell to the north. The college sits about two hours south of Glacier National Park.
Instead of making authoritarian top-down administrative overtures, the SKC staff adopted an open-ended “What do you need?” approach for students.
Enrollment services, academics, registration, housing, website re-designers and even food pantries all play a hand in becoming more available and accessible to students.
“We all got together and we said, what do we need to do to help students become successful? What is it that they need?,” said Boham, who has served seven years as president and acting president previously. “Because we thought we knew what they needed.”
In the midst of the COVID pandemic, Salish Kootenai College graduated just over 33 percent of its students in 2021. The same year, only 20.9 percent of all tribal college students graduated.
That’s about the time Boham and team took serious stock of what worked and what did not work.
“When we actually started talking to students, when we actually started looking at our processes within the institution, we had a question about are we doing these things because they work well for us? Or are we doing these things because they work well for students?”
At least one other tribal college administrator praises the college’s high graduation rate.
“In general, that’s a stellar graduation rate for Native students, especially concerning the challenges our students are confronted with,” said Robert Martin, Institute of American Indian Arts president in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Most tribal colleges average about 80 percent Native students, with the exception of Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, he added.The latter two enroll 100 percent Native students.
“They’re doing a really good job and I’m really impressed with their graduation rate,” he added.
The collaborative, ultra-supportive team model seemingly works at Salish Kootenai College. Yet it doesn’t deter staff from intervening when a student – a traditional freshman straight out of high school or a nontraditional older student raising a family – struggles while taking classes.
“But it’s a lot of intrusive … working with students and not letting them just sort of disappear,” Boham added. “Or, … if you start to see a student struggle, we intervene immediately. We don’t wait for them to be drowning ’cause it’s hard to ask for help.”
Barriers to education can come in many forms – attempts to earn a living and feed a family while improving one’s life skills for the future, lacking access to the Internet, unreliable or unaffordable child care, or simply transitioning from home and family to student housing and campus life as a recent high school graduate.
Housing problems increased with the 2020 pandemic, when new residents bought up residences on the reservation and turned many into AirBnBs – leaving local students out in the cold. Drop-out rates increased.
But Boham and Salish Kootenai College are planning to build more apartments for students. It’s clear to her and her staff that a true 18-year-old freshman and a 40-year-old nontraditional student returning to school obviously do not mesh. So they are taking into account real-world differences in ages, life experiences and needs.
“We find that having students’ basic needs met helps them with school,” Boham said.
Many single male parents are among the 650 students enrolled, but the college’s typical college student is a single woman, age 35, often a mother.
Robyn Kay Iron, Crow and Northern Cheyenne, a recent 2023 Jeannette Rankin Foundation Montana Tribal College Scholar Grant recipient – and a Salish Kootenai College graduate – regales a portion of the team.
“My advisors encouraged me through my studies, my personal life and even while being a mother,” said Iron, now enrolled at the University of Montana and self-described storyteller.
“Their support beyond education pushed me further and further to success. If it wasn’t for my SKC family, there was every reason to quit from finances, missing home and school itself. I couldn’t have graduated without the help from my advisors. They made my growth possible.”
Dawnette Swank, Northern Cheyenne, mother of six and an ambitious third-year Salish Kootenai College business student who earned an associate’s degree in business management and grant project management last June, relies heavily on the well-oiled machine that produces stellar students like her.
“The staff are helpful with any questions I have,” said Swank. “The Business Department advisors, my instructors, Financial Aid department, Enrollment Services, and TRIO programs were all supportive in my first years coming back to school. I have a great network of family, friends, peers, and career advisors that are valuable in my endeavors as a student. I enjoy the classes and the instructors are great!”
On course to earn her bachelor’s degree in 2025, Swank snagged another honor recently: one of 52 female college students to win a Jeannette Rankin Montana Tribal Scholarship.
“The communication I have with various departments has been great both prior to and during my time at SKC,” added Swank. “I also enjoy the welcoming atmosphere, being a member of AIBL (American Indigenous Business Leaders), the workshops, and other fun activities the college offers for students.”
Successful students like Swank boost Salish Kootenai College’s retention rates, as well.
Boham said the school’s retention increased to 87 percent now between fall and winter term, when more drop-outs occurred. In comparison, the overall tribal college retention rate averaged about 50 percent in 2021.
“We started working very hard with normalizing and making it not a stigma to say, ‘I need help,’ Boham said. “And that was with our students and with our staff and faculty, as well, because we’re all kind of from the same community.”
Boham admits that resilient Native students and residents “kind of tend to white-knuckle it and try to get through” when finances, personal issues, housing or academics overwhelm. “And that doesn’t work very well.”
The college proactively fixed its registration process, including orientation and onboarding of new students, in order to “be more intentional in our advising,” said Boham.
With the help of Achieving the Dream, a nonprofit that helps partner community colleges transform, Boham’s coaches, advisors and mental health workers collaborated.
“We created holistic student support from the moment they (students) step foot on the campus until they graduate.”
Students can access mental health counseling either face-to-face or via an online 24/7 portal. Adult students bear a lot of distractions, so Salish Kootenai College has helped alleviate some burdens, including offering a food pantry.
“It’s not just for the students, but their families and their children. Because if anything that takes your attention, if you don’t know if you can feed your family to the end of the month, if you don’t know if you’re gonna have gas to get to school, if you don’t know if you’re gonna be able to pay the rent, if your children are having physical or mental health crisis, you are not focused on school.”
The college’s staff can be considered stress eliminators. Boham said it wasn’t easy to achieve, but results are paying off.
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