SELF-STUDY REPORT
November 12, 2002
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Theme: Wolakolkiciyapi-Learning Lakota Ways of Life in Community
PART I: INTRODUCTION
Chapter One: Introduction and Overview
Purposes of the Self-Study…………………………………………………………………… 1
Organization and Process of the Self-Study …………………………………………………. 1
Lakota Perspective and Values……………………………………………………………….2
History of the Oglala Lakota Oyate by Robert Gay………………………………………….4
History of Oglala Lakota College by Robert Gay……………………………………………8
History of Accreditation ……………………………………………………………………. 10
Significant Developments since 1998………………………………………………………. 11
Chapter Two: Responses to 1998 NCA Concerns, Suggestions and Advice………………..14
Chapter Three: NCA Advisory Visit August 2000…………………………………………… 29
Chapter Four: General Institutional Requirements………………………………………….34
PART II: CRITERION ONE
Chapter Five: Mission and Purposes
History……………………………………………………………………………………… 44
Involvement of Constituents………………………………………………………………..44
Vision, Mission, and Purposes……………………………………………………………...45
Long Range and Short Range Institutional and Educational Goals………………………...46
Commitment to the Values of Higher Education…………………………………………...47
Support for Freedom of Inquiry
Combination of Programs
Commitment to Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Patterns of Evidence……………………………………………………………………….48
Evaluation of Purposes
Decision Making Processes
Understanding of College Purposes
Chapter Summary.……………………………………………………………………….48
Strengths
Challenges
Recommendations
PART III – CRITERION TWO
Chapter Six: Organization and Governance…………………………………………………49
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..49
Organizational Structure…………………………………………………………………..49
Centralized Administration…………………………………………………………….49
The Personnel Office…………………………………………………………………..51
The Development Office……………………………………………………………….51
Vice President of Business……………………………………………………………..52
Technical Support Services Department……………………………………………….52
Coordinator of Support Services……………………………………………………….52
Vice President for Instructional Programs……………………………………………..52
Instructional Sites…………………………………………………………………………53
Enrollment by Instructional Site………………………………………………………57
Course Sections taught by Full-Time and Adjunct Faculty by Instructional Site ……58
Governance……………………………………………………………………………….59
Governing Boards
Decision Making Processes………………………………………………………………59
Standing Committee
Piya Wiconi Okolakiciye (College Senate)
The Student Senate
Chapter Summary………………………………………………………………………… 60
Strengths
Challenges
Recommendations
Chapter Seven: Human Resources…………………………………………………………..62
Students……………………………………………………………………………………62
Student Profile
Personnel…………………………………………………………………………………..63
Staff/Faculty Development………………………………………………………………..63
Faculty Qualifications and Recruitment…………………………………………………..64
Faculty Development……………………………………………………………………... 66
Chapter Summary.…………………………………………………………………………66
Strengths
Challenges
Recommendations
Chapter Eight: Physical Resources………………………………………………………….67
Physical Assets……………………………………………………………………………69
Chapter Summary…………………………………………………………………………70
Strengths
Challenges
Recommendations
Chapter Nine: Financial Resources…………………………………………………………72
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………72
Budgets…………………………………………………………………………………..72
Funding Sources………………………………………………………………………….72
Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs……………………………. 73
Tuition and Fees………………………………………………………………….73
Direct Mail Donors……………………………………………………………….73
Enterprise………………………………………………………………………… 73
Grants and Contracts……………………………………………………………...73
Chapter Summary…………………………………………………………………………74
Strengths
Challenges
Recommendations
Chapter Ten: Student Services……………………………………………………………….75
Overview…………………………………………………………………………………...75
Registrar’s Office…………………………………………………………………………..77
Financial Aid Office……………………………………………………………………….77
Scholarships……………………………………………………………………………….77
Learning Resource Center…………………………………………………………………78
Archives…………………………………………………………………………………...80
Book Store………………………………………………………………………………...80
Student Support Services Program………………………………………………………..81
Early Head Start Program…………………………………………………………………82
Chapter Summary…………………………………………………………………………82
Strengths:
Challenges:
Recommendations:
PART IV – CRITERION THREE
Chapter Eleven – Educational Programs and Curriculum…………………………………84
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..84
General Education…………………………………………………………………………85
Academic Departments and Degree Programs……………………………………………85
Agriculture and Natural Resources Department……………………………………85
Applied Science and Technology Department……………………………………..87
Education Department……………………………………………………………...90
Humanities Department…………………………………………………………….92
Human Services Department……………………………………………………….93
Information Technology Department………………………………………………95
Lakota Studies Department…………………………………………………………96
Math and Science Department……………………………………………………...97
Nursing Department………………………………………………………………...99
Graduate Studies Department………………………………………………………100
Chapter Summary………………………………………………………………………..103
Strengths
Challenges
Recommendations
Chapter Twelve – Assessment of Student Academic Achievement………………………...104
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..104
Assessment Committee…………………………………………………………………104
Assessment of the Majors………………………………………………………………105
Assessment Results in Basic Skills Subjects…………………………………………...109
How Assessment results have and are affecting Planning and Budgeting……………..110
Chapter Summary………………………………………………………………………110
Strengths
Challenges
Recommendations
Chapter Thirteen – Special and Related Programs………………………………………...111
Community and Continuing Education Program………………………………………111
Welfare to Work……………………………………………………………………….111
Americorps…………………………………………………………………………….112
SIDS…………………………………………………………………………………...112
Distance Learning……………………………………………………………………..112
Oyate Consortium……………………………………………………………………..113
WebCT………………………………………………………………………………...114
Civic Learning………………………………………………………………………...114
Articulation Agreements………………………………………………………………114
Transfer Credits……………………………………………………………………….114
Computer Services……………………………………………………………………..114
Wellness……………………………………………………………………………….115
Chapter Summary……………………………………………………………………..115
Strengths
Challenges
Recommendations
PART V – CRITERION FOUR
Chapter Fourteen: Strategic and Operational Planning…………………………………...116
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..116
The Planning Process and Key Planning Events………………………………………. 117
Resources……………………………………………………………………………….118
Physical Resources
Financial Resources
Fundraising Activities
Human Resources
Assessing Institutional Effectiveness…………………………………………………..120
Student Academic Achievement……………………………………………………….. 124
Strategic Planning Direction…………………………………………………………… 124
Chapter Summary……………………………………………………………………...124
Strengths
Challenges
Recommendations
PART VI – CRITERION FIVE
Chapter Fifteen – Institutional Integrity……………………………………………………125
Mission and Purposes…………………………………………………………………125
Policies and Procedures……………………………………………………………….126
Patterns of Evidence…………………………………………………………………..129
Catalog
Handbooks
Governance
Student Services
Relationships with Other Organizations
Academic Integrity
Chapter Summary…………………………………………………………………….132
Strengths
Challenges
Recommendations
PART VII – CONCLUDING STATEMENTS
Chapter Sixteen – Summary of Major Strengths, Challenges, and Recommendations…134
OLC All Staff Survey……………………………………………………………….134
Results of the Self-Study Process………………………………………………...... 134
Strengths
Challenges
Recommendations
Chapter Seventeen – Request for Continued Accreditation………………………………..136
APPENDICES
- Oglala Lakota College Board of Trustees Members…………………...138
- Members of Board of the Instructional Sites…………………………..140
- Oglala Lakota College Personnel 2002-2003…………………………. 142
- Self-Study Work Groups……………………………………………... 144
- Full-Time and Adjunct Faculty………………………………………. 146
- Seeking Third Party Comment……………………………………….. 157
- Record of Student Complaints……………………………………….. 159
- Strategic Plan………………………………………………………….161
- Basic Institutional Data Forms……………………………………….. 176
- Facilities Plan………………………………………………………….200
Wolakolkiciyapi – Learning Lakota Ways of Life in Community
Part I: Introduction
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
Purposes of the Self-Study
The primary purpose of the self-study report is to critically and comprehensively assess the current status of Oglala Lakota College (OLC) with regard to its planning processes, academic standards, and fiscal stability, and thereby to demonstrate that Oglala Lakota College continues to meet the Higher Learning Commission’s requirements and criteria for continued accreditation.
The specific objectives of the self-study are to:
- Continue accreditation status at the two-year and four-year levels.
- Continue accreditation status for the Master degree in Lakota Leadership/Management and an emphasis area in Education Administration.
- Systematically examine and evaluate OLC’s structure and operation in relation to its stated vision, mission, and purposes.
- Answer NCA’s concerns from the 1998 comprehensive visit.
- Provide evidence that OLC meets the general institutional requirements and the criteria for accreditation set by the Commission.
- Produce a report that will help OLC to improve its educational programs and students’ academic achievement, institutional stability and future planning, and assist the Commission in assessing the institution as a whole.
Organization and Process of Self-Study
On November 14, 2000, President Shortbull appointed five college employees to the Strategic Planning Task Force that met on November 17, 2000. The initial charge of the Task Force was to work within the framework of the college’s charter, vision, mission and purposes and continue the momentum of institutional strategic planning for the next five years. On December 8, 2000, the second meeting of the Strategic Planning Task Force took place and by January 2001, the Task Force produced a draft of Oglala Lakota College’s new vision, mission, and purposes statements that were reviewed and modified by the Lakota Council of Elders.
In March 2001, the Strategic Planning Task Force members agreed to also serve as the Steering Committee for the institutional Self-Study in preparation for the comprehensive visit of evaluators from the Higher Learning Commission in March 2003. By August 2001, the Steering Committee produced a Guide for Self-Study that set out a process and timelines. The Steering Committee began to organize sub-committees for each of the five Criteria for Accreditation. Meanwhile, the proposed new versions of the vision, mission, and purposes statements were circulated for input from all college constituencies, including students.
On October 5 and 6, 2001, the college held a retreat at which all constituencies were represented, including the Board of Trustees. The proposed vision, mission, and purposes were discussed at the retreat and participants developed a set of goals. Small groups engaged in considering questions relating to the Self-Study Report. The Board of Trustees formally adopted the new vision, mission and purposes statements on November 26, 2001.
The Self-Study work groups continued meeting regularly during 2001 and continued their efforts and refined their production. Names and job titles of members of the work groups appear in appendix D. Some changes in work group membership occurred between 2001 and 2002.
The Self-Study work groups submitted their work to the Self-Study Coordinator, and the first rough draft of the report began circulation in June 2002. In August 2002, a more substantial draft report was distributed to all administrators, academic department chairs, supervisors, and members of the Board of Trustees. The document was discussed at the all-staff meeting on September 13, and further revisions were made. The October 2, 2002 draft was distributed, by mail, to members of the Board of Trustees and to all OLC employees electronically.
At the annual college Retreat on October 11 and 12, 2002, the draft of the Self-Study Report was again discussed and further input solicited. A deadline for comments and suggested changes in the Report was set as October 18, 2002, the monthly all-staff meeting.
The Board of Trustees formally accepted the Self-Study Report at its monthly meeting on October 24, 2002.
The Lakota Perspective and Values
The Lakota perspective is a world view which derives from the oral creation story of the Lakota people and is, therefore, a living, dynamic view handed down from generation to generation. At the base of this view is an unchanging adherence to the humanistic values of respect, generosity, wisdom, fortitude, bravery and humility. To see the world from the Lakota perspective is to understand that one must live each day guided by these values.
Important parts of the Lakota perspective are the skills of listening and sharing. No oral tradition can survive unless people know how to listen well and to share knowledge and wisdom. Decision making, governance, curriculum design, and classroom instruction depend upon the skills of all people involved to listen to each other and to share their views. Administrators, instructors, students, and the community all feel they must be heard. Classrooms, meetings and forums need to encourage listening and speaking to allow these needs to be met.
The Lakota perspective enters the classrooms of Oglala Lakota College in many different forms. It enters through the perspectives of our Lakota students, who must be encouraged to express their ideas to respectful listeners, fellow students and instructors. It enters through the use of Lakota materials: books, tapes, treaty documents, arts and crafts, song, dance, stories, and oral histories. It enters through the presence of people from the communities who share their memories, skills and wisdom with OLC students. It also enters through the use of the Lakota language either as the language of instruction, or as a vehicle for supplemental information.
The Lakota perspective, as a way of life, is supported in a powerful way by the treaties. The importance of the treaties is often overlooked, and that is a great danger. The treaties need to be studied, explored, and understood if the Lakota perspective is to survive in the generations to come. In implementing the Lakota perspective, we will observe the following guidelines:
- The Lakota values of respect, generosity, wisdom, fortitude, bravery and humility guide all activities at Oglala Lakota College.
- Structures within the college, including the classroom, accommodate a respect for listening and sharing so that students, faculty, staff and the community can all speak and be heard.
- The Lakota student perspective, Lakota materials, Lakota speakers, and the Lakota language are incorporated into every course to the fullest extent possible.
- The treaties will be studied, discussed, and understood in every way possible, as are the federal-tribal relationships and policies.
Note: This statement on Lakota perspective was prepared in 1991 by a task force of the Instructional Division. It incorporates ideas from several meetings of the task force and from meetings of staff and faculty that were held at Piya Wiconi in August 1990.
In his review of the statement, Dr. Elgin Bad Wound noted that “At some point, we need to come to grips with the discrepancies between the Lakota perspective, or beliefs, and the structures and processes by which we actually live – tribal government, organizational structures, etc.”
History of the Oglala Lakota Oyate by Robert Gay
The history of the Oglala Oyate (people) is a controversial subject that continues to be hotly debated by non-Indian historians and traditional Lakota people.
The most popular scenario advanced by non-Indian historians is that of westward migration. According to their theories, the Sioux left the eastern woodlands sometime in the mid-1500s. This theory may be true for some tribes such as the Dakota Santee; however, there is little scientific data to support the theory of the Oglala Lakota Oyate every having lived on the eastern seaboard. The Oglala Lakota Oyate were called “Tetonwan” by their eastern cousins meaning “dwellers on the prairie.” Lakota oral traditions and winter counts place them in the Black Hills region around 900 A.D. According to Battiste Good’s winter count (Bureau of American Ethnology Report, 1890), the Lakota Oyate were given the sacred pipe by the Sacred White Buffalo Women in the Black Hills region in 900 A.D.
The Oglala Lakota Oyate did not make significant contacts with the white race until after the trappers and traders crossed over the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers onto the plains. In exchange for metal goods, firearms, and gunpowder, the Indians supplied beaver pelts and buffalo hides. Eastern tribes were the first to receive firearms and soon began to exert their military superiority over the Lakota and Eastern Sioux. The Lakota soon realized the necessity of obtaining firearms from British and French traders. Hyde, (1937) tells of Western Sioux visiting trading fairs in the great Lakes area in search of firearms to fight their enemies.
During the War for Independence, the newly formed colonial government took steps to ensure that Indian tribes in the mid-west region remained friendly and neutral. A major objective of the Lewis and Clark expedition was that of signing treaties with Great Plains Indian Tribes to obtain their loyalty to the Great Grandmother in Britain. Although meetings for the exchange of gifts and promises of friendship had taken place earlier, the first treaty was signed between the Oglala Lakota (Teton) and the U.S. government in 1805.
Following the discovery of gold in California in 1849, gold miners headed westward through Lakota territory. Skirmish after skirmish took place as the Lakota people fought to protect their ancestral hunting lands. In 1851, the U.S. government called together all of the tribes of the northern plains for the purpose of obtaining a corridor through which immigrants could pass safely on their way to the gold field of California, preventing future hostilities among neighboring tribes by defining their territorial boundaries, and confining the plains tribes to a large reservation in what is now the states of Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, and North and South Dakota. In exchange for these considerations the U.S. government promised to provide rations and annuities for the next fifty years. The Lakota, as well as other Plains tribes consented to this treaty (1851, Treaty of Horse Creek). The 1851 Treaty established the formal relationship between the U.S. government and the Lakota nation, thus providing the format for the later treaties.
The discovery of silver and gold in Montana Territory sent hordes of miners over the Bozeman Trail that passed directly through the heart of Lakota hunting territory. The Lakota led by Mahpiya Luta (Red Cloud) and Tasunka Witko (Crazy Horse) fought to protect their hunting grounds. In April of 1868, the government capitulated to Red Cloud’s demands and removed all military forts along the Bozeman Trail. Historians have referred to this as Red Cloud’s War. This agreement, known as the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868, confined Red Cloud and his people to the western half of present day South Dakota in exchange for promises of rations, annuities, agencies, schools, physicians, blacksmiths, teachers, etc. for an undetermined number of years. To this date, many traditional Lakota people believe that no land was ceded under the 1868 Treaty.
Six years later, gold was discovered in the Paha Sapa (Black Hills) by a U.S. military expedition led by General George Custer. The Paha Sapa were considered by the Lakota to be Wakan (holy, sacred). In 1875, Congress authorized several commissions to lease or purchase the Black Hills from the Lakota. All efforts of these commissions were successfully defeated. President Grant in his annual message to Congress suggested cutting off the rations of the Lakota as they were no longer obligatory. The Lakota refer to this as the “sell or starve bill.” The Act of 1877, was signed by less than ten percent of the eligible voters, thus violating Article 12 of the 1868 Treaty. The U.S. government had “illegally seized” the Paha Sapa from the Lakota. The Battle of Rosebud and the Little Big Horn, both fought in 1876, were a final desperate attempt to preserve a traditional way of life. These victories for the Lakota were futile, as the U.S. government sent military expedition after expedition to subjugate and confine the Lakota on reservations.
The last confrontation between the Lakota and the U.S. military came about as a result of the Ghost Dance movement in the late 1880s. The Lakota, like many tribes of the northern plains, had been confined to the reservation for over ten years. Gone were the old days of hunting and roaming over the plains free to do as they wished. Instead, they were faced with starvation, epidemic diseases and confinement. In desperation, many Lakota turned to the Ghost Dance. The Ghost Dance prophet, Wovoka (Jack Wilson, a mixed blood Paiute), preached that if Indian people danced the Ghost Dance, the white people would disappear from the face of the earth and all of the game would return and the Indians would be free and happy.
Misinterpreting the Ghost Dance as a threat, fearful Indian agents called in the military. As a band of Mniconjou under the leadership of Big Foot, left the Cheyenne River Reservation to seek protection at the Red Cloud Agency, they were intercepted by the Seventh Cavalry about five miles from Wounded Knee. They were ordered to set up camp for the night. The next morning the Indians were ordered to surrender their arms. Who fired the first shot will never be known, but it resulted in the death of over two hundred and fifty Lakota, many women and children. Most of the cavalry’s casualties were a result of their own crossfire from weapons that had been positioned around the Indian camp during the night. The U.S. military proudly proclaimed it the Battle of the Wounded Knee, even though many of the Lakota were not armed. Fourteen soldiers were later decorated with the Congressional Medal of Honor. Present day Lakota refer to this event as the Massacre at Wounded Knee.