Professor University of Minnesota University of Minnesota Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Abstract: This presentation describes findings from data collected from a focus group of 56 institutional stakeholders on how to respond to Native community members' key concerns regarding the university's lack of coordination and internal alignment of its partnership activities with Tribal Nations. The results of the focus group identified several key approaches and action steps for improving some of the institution's community engagement practices, and they highlighted the importance of building deeper understanding of the critical nuances inherent in university partnerships with Native communities that are not necessarily found in other types of university-community partnerships.
Narrative: OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH OR COMMUNITY PROBLEM
At this large, midwestern public university that sits on stolen native lands, many faculty, students, staff, and units are engaged in various kinds of partnerships designed to strengthen the University's relationships with tribal nations and indigenous communities. However, members of tribal nations have raised concerns that these University-supported efforts are haphazard and lack internal, institution-wide coordination. For Tribal partners, this lack of coordination has fostered frustration as representatives from different units at the University approach the Tribes times during the year seeking partnership opportunities, not realizing that the Tribes already have well-established partnerships with other units at the University. For the University, the lack of internal coordination has created confusion, duplication of efforts, cross purposes, and in some cases competition among efforts. In many ways, the lack of internal alignment of efforts has limited the institution's the ability to build and maintain reciprocal, trusted, and meaningful Tribal Nations-University partnership work.
STATEMENT OF THE PURPOSE
This presentation describes findings from data collected from institutional stakeholders on how to respond to Native community members' key concerns regarding the University's partnership activities. A focus group was held with 56 academic leaders (e.g., deans, department chairs), faculty, staff, and students engaged in partnerships with Native communities to identify strategies for better coordinating and strengthening their work. Prior to the start of the focus group session, Tribal leaders shared their concerns with the 56 University participants, highlighting the challenges and frustration Tribal Nations face in conducting partnership work with the University. The Tribal leaders put forward a call to action for the University to find ways to build a more coordinated approach to working with the various Tribal Nations.
Focus group participants were then divided randomly into three groups. Each group had a facilitator that engaged participants in brainstorming recommendations and action steps based on five questions:
1. What are the barriers/challenges we face in securing high quality, reciprocal partnerships with Indigenous communities and Tribal Nations?
2. What are specific steps we can take to strengthen the internal alignment and coordination of the University's partnerships with Indigenous communities and the Tribal Nations?
3. What would we like the University (e.g., central administration offices and others) be able to offer or do to support/advance internal coordination?
4. Who should lead the coordination effort?
5. What are measures of success?
The resulting suggestions were then organized into themes and action steps (see below).
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE WORK
Undergirding the topic are three framings that were important to building a set of action steps for improving the University's partnership activities with Tribal Nations. The first framing centers on the loosely-coupled, decentralized structure of higher education institutions, and the ways in which community engagement efforts are organized along areas expertise rather than reporting lines or other organizational structures (Liang, Sandmann, & Jaeger, 2015). In partnership work with Native communities (and other aspects of community engagement work), the different nodes of expertise (e.g., by discipline, by societal issue area, etc.) perpetuate siloed efforts whereby those with particular expertise tend to build affinities with each other rather than extend their expertise as boundary spanners (Weerts & Sandmann, 2010).
A second framing centers on issues pertaining to decolonized pedagogies, which calls for the dismantling of the systemic oppression perpetuated by colonial models of education. The longstanding oppression of Native peoples by tertiary education systems requires a re-envisioning of the relationship between Indigenous communities and higher education institutions (Shahjahan, Wagner, & Wane, 2009). Decolonization requires a reworking of the community engagement framework that operate within universities. This reworking requires not only the infusion of more genuine reciprocity and participatory approaches, but also a mutually-agreeable long-term vision that includes healing and reparation (Smith, Tuck, & Yang, 2019).
A third framing centers on the concept collective impact, which focuses on finding ways to bring together the diverse expertise to work in coordination to address complex societal changes. In regard to higher education community engagement practice, no one discipline or unit at university has all the knowledge or expertise needed to address complex societal issues (Ferraro, Etzion, & Gehman, 2015). Therefore, organized and coordinated collective action is needed to successfully address society's most intractable challenges. In the context of conducting community engagement work with Native communities, the issues are immensely complex and sensitive; collective action is a must if higher education institutions are to be successful in building stronger, more positive relationships with Tribal Nations (Giguere, Lalonde, & Jonsson, 2012).
These three frames guided much of the focus group discussion and provided insights into how to best tackle the resulting, suggested action steps.
A rationale for the significance of the talk.
The resulting themes and action steps brought to the fore inherent systemic challenges to developing a more coordinated engagement agenda with Indigenous communities due to the University's highly decentralized institutional culture. The themes and action steps also unearthed a high level of diverse perspectives across academic units regarding the intended purposes of and approaches to engagement with Native communities. In addition, they helped identify some key approaches for addressing the systemic and institutional challenges and highlighted the importance of building deeper understanding of the critical nuances inherent in university partnerships with Native communities that are not necessarily found in other types of university-community partnerships.
As the findings of the focus group suggest, the building of this alignment and coordination does not happen automatically. There needs to be an intentional effort built to initiate and support such efforts. This small effort at this University offers one example of how intentionality on the issue can catalyze action and move the institution toward addressing some of the systemic challenges in conducting coordinated work. In addition, such efforts helps document key steps that can serve as a roadmap for building greater institutional engagement.
The findings from this effort can inform leaders at other higher education institutions on potential ways to deepen and improve their community engagement work with Tribal Nations.
