Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute

Seminar ll E 2117  2700 Parkway NW  Olympia, WA 98505  (360) 867-6889

August 9, 2007

To: Don Bantz, Provost

Fr: Alan Parker, Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute

Re: Report on 2007 Public Service Center Activities and future plans

This report will briefly summarize the major program and project activities that I have been engaged in as Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute Director and my plans for the remainder of 2007 and the first half of 2008. Major programs and initiatives that will be addressed include the following:

MPA Tribal – new faculty and program development.
Climate Change and Pacific Rim Indigenous Nations – next steps
Collaboration with local tribes in design of curriculum for local public schools
The Indigenous Nations Treaty – formation of United League

MPA Tribal Program Development:

As you know, we went through a major transition in 2006-07 with the hire of Bruce Davies to replace Linda Moon Stumpff in the MPA Tribal Program. Bruce has done an exceptional job learning the teaching practices and faculty responsibilities in his first year and I am confident that he will develop into an outstanding member of our faculty. He and I taught three quarters as the faculty team for tribal government curriculum and are currently doing a summer course in Intergovernmental Relations with a group of 16 students. We currently have about 20 students in the MPA Tribal cohort with several more intending to join in fall quarter. As you know, this is our third cohort since initiating the program in 2002 and, as we will not start another cohort until 2008, these additional students are highly motivated to catch up rather that wait two years. We had over 40 enrolled in winter quarter’s tribal concentration course, Intergovernmental Relations, and decided to ask some to defer taking the course until this summer.

Certificate Program Prototypes: In addition to these academic program issues, Bruce and I have dialogued with tribal representatives and academic colleagues at colleges and universities serving other areas of Indian Country regarding possibilities for offering our tribal concentration courses to their constituents. In the past, Theresa Aragon and I have had a running conversation regarding the development of a certificate program that could be offered to participants in one or more of our four credit tribal concentration courses for special student category participants as well as development of additional training programs that might be offered outside of our MPA program. For example, two of our recent graduates recently agreed to teach in a two credit elective on tribal personnel management and tribal employment preference. This summer, Bruce incorporated an on-line component into the Intergovernmental relations course we are teaching using the public access program “Moodle” in lieu of the webcrossing program currently used by TESC. I will look forward to our evaluation of this experience and share this with you this fall if you are interested.

The Joe DelaCruz Center:

In previous reports I have explained that The Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute established the DelaCruz Center in order to provide a focus for its research and educational programs on tribal governance. The Center is simply a project within our public service center that does not have its own staff or organizational structure although we have received several contributions from tribes in the name of the Center and hold these funds in Evergreen Foundation accounts with their help. We decided to give prominence to the ideas and work of the late Joe DelaCruz by identifying our tribal governance activities as constituting a Center for Advanced Studies in Tribal Government that is guided by his vision. In my view, Joe was a model of tribal community leadership, engaging his people in a long -term program of indigenous nation building and establishing standards for integrity and fairness in the exercise of tribal governing authority. He also offered leadership over many years of activism within Washington State, the Pacific Northwest region and on a national and international stage. I believe that, in addition to the professional education program offered through the MPA Tribal Governance Concentration, we have an opportunity to advance the practice of tribal governance through education and training programs that are built upon the principles and theories of good governance advocated by Joe

Climate Change and Indigenous Nations of the Pacific Rim

In October of 2006 Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute published an 80 page report that Native Studies faculty Zoltan Grossman and I collaborated upon, a study of the impacts of climate change on NW tribes. As you may recall, Zoltan’s field is Geography and map making but he came to us with a long and distinguished record of community and environmental activism in the mid-west. We recruited Ted Whitesell to join with us and co-sponsor a summer research program with both Native Studies and Environmental studies students to assist. In addition I was fortunate to have made contact with a Maori environmental scientist, Prof. Brett Stephenson, who was able to travel from New Zealand last summer to join the study and link the experiences of Pacific Rim indigenous nations in addressing the impacts of global climate change. This team of faculty convened a study session on the Tulalip reservation in order to facilitate the participation of their tribal natural resource officials. Terry Williams and Preston Hardiston have represented tribal issues before the UN Convention on Biodiversity for many years and brought tremendous expertise to our collaborative effort.

Our report was presented and distributed at the 2006 NCAI annual conference in Sacramento and then at a series of regional conferences of Indigenous climate change activists. Copies of this have been published on our own website as well as various organizations working on these issues. The report has recently been updated by Zoltan and was distributed and discussed at the international gathering of indigenous nation representatives gathered in Lummi on July 31 – Aug. 2. (see report on climate change, infra; Treaty Materials)

Collaboration with local tribes on curriculum design:

In spring of 2005 the State Legislature passed a bill that “encouraged” public school districts in the State to develop and deliver curriculum regarding tribes in Washington State including especially tribes in their locale. Known and the McCoy bill for Tulalip tribal member and state house representative John McCoy, the bill was originally intended to be directive but has served as policy advisory. Based on Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute’s previous curriculum development work and the experience of the Evergreen Center with Chahelis Tribe, we approached neighboring tribes, Quinault, Muckleshoot, Colville and Nooksak and offered to work with them in designed tribally centered curriculum for the school districts serving their areas. They gladly accepted our offer and we have engaged in a series of meetings with tribal officials and school district officials who have been very receptive of this offer. A native graduate of TESC’s MIT program, Cheree Potts, was appointed as a temporary employee with our office and the Evergreen Center to work on our curriculum development. The Evergreen Center has worked closely with the Chehalis Tribe over the past several years to assist community and tribal government staff to research tribal history and design a body of curriculum. Thus, Cheree works closely with both public service centers on this project. Recently, the OSPI issued an RFP for $500,000 curriculum development project and we are now engaged in substantive discussions with our tribal partners in developing a collaborative and joint proposal for these funds.

Treaty of Indigenous Nations:

For the past three years I have served as co-chair of the National Congress of American Indians Special Committee on Indigenous Nation Relationships, committee created pursuant to a resolution introduced by NW tribes for the purpose of developing a treaty agreement with indigenous nations of the Pacific Rim countries. Our special committee conducted a series of meetings under NCAI sponsorship to design principles of indigenous nation treaty making and a statement of treaty goals. These proposals were presented first to a meeting of Maori tribal leaders in December of 2005 and subsequently to representatives of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs of British Columbia. I then served as NCAI representative at the annual conference of the Assembly of First Nations meeting in Vancouver in July 2006 where I was joined by Maori representatives in presenting this proposal. Four students enrolled in the MPA Tribal program accompanied me, at their own expense, to the New Zealand meeting in December 2005 and reported their experiences at a special meeting in the Longhouse in January 2006. I presented a report to the NCAI on October 6th during their annual 2006 conference in Sacramento. In Sacramento we finalized a draft of the proposed treaty and then convened, at the invitation of the Lummi Nation Chair, Ms. Evelyn Jefferson, a special international meeting of indigenous nation representatives on July 31 – Aug. 2, at Lummi. Eleven Indigenous Nation representatives within our group agreed to sign the Treaty on Aug. 1 and then subsequently have developed a treaty ratification and implementation plan. (see; infra; Treaty Materials)

My Future Plans: I have informed Cheryl King that I am committed to teaching in this two-year cohort and will have some sense of my ability to continue with a 2008 cohort by the end of this academic year. As I celebrate turning 65 this summer, I am considering how to make best use of my time and energy but have no current retirement plans.

I have continued to research a number of major issues that have the potential to enhance the curriculum for our MPA Tribal program. In April 2007 I was privileged to represent our program at the AERA annual conference in Chicago and participate in a number of panels on Indigenous Education theory and curriculum. I will attach to this report a paper that I submitted to AERA on our Evergreen experience in designing and delivering “Tribally Determined Studies in Higher Education.” My experience interacting with senior Native American and Indigenous Scholars at the AERA has convinced me that developing a future cadre of Native American faculty who are firmly grounded in their tribal communities is essential to sustain our tribal sovereignty movement. Nearly all the Native American PhD’s that I met come from an academic background with no experience in the world of tribal affairs. While they are outstanding scholars, their work is often far removed from the mainstream of tribal community development in the political, economic and cultural revitalization arenas. Yet, in our field of applied tribal government studies, we have a great need for in-depth research and theoretical inquiry that should be the domain of native scholarship at the highest levels.