ALASKA NATIVES COMMISSION
JOINT FEDERAL-STATE COMMISSION
ON
POLICIES AND PROGRAMS AFFECTING
ALASKA NATIVES
4000 Old Seward Highway, Suite 100
Anchorage,
Alaska 99503
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Witness List | PDF
Version
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Michael Jennings, fourth time.
MR. JENNINGS: My name is Michael Jennings. I've been a dic -- a guest of the Doyon Region for the last 22 years. I'm originally from Wind River in Wyoming. I'm currently concluding a Ph.D. program through the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, which focuses on the relationship of the University of Alaska to the Native peoples of the state of Alaska.
And I guess I'm also the author of the infamous report that you've heard so much about from the UAA students, so I'd like to reinforce the points that were raised by the students.
I think they did an eloquent job in terms of arguing for the existence of their space, the creation of curriculum and faculty positions for Native peoples at the University.
And I guess I'm somewhat embarrassed to be sitting here 20 years later, because I was at AFN in 1972, and we were making these same arguments to a slightly different audience. Some people were here.
And I look at the University, and it hasn't changed. It has five percent minority hire; basically no Native faculty, and relatively -- well, not relatively, it has no culturally-sensitive curriculum at all. And we subject another generation of children to these issues.
I assume there's a board that you're charged with thi -- with looking at issues of policies that relates to education; and I guess I would ask that you bear in mind in your deliberations that when you look at elementary and secondary education, that the people who are responsible for training and certifying those people are, in fact, the sacred cow of the University; and that, while we have numerous schools, that it may be better use of our times and energies to focus on the institutions in Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks.
There must -- and I don't have any magic, I guess. I mean, in part, it's our fault; we've let them do these things and get away with it. We've sat quietly. As Sam Kito said a year ago at this meeting, we put $36 million into the University's base budget between 1972 and 1980. I would be hard pressed to find three million of it now.
Well, I'm embarrassed that we have to sit before this panel and beg for what is rightfully the people's -- the people's right in this land. It's a land-grant institution; and it's a humiliating process; and it's the responsibility of the Native leadership and the youth to remind the Native leadership that if they want replacements to run the corporations, if they want people in policy positions in the White bureaucracies who have some understanding of the Native world view, that they should attend to these institutions and try and sensitize them a bit, before we lose another generation.
And I suppose that's all I have to say. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Thank you, Michael.
COMMISSIONER MASEK: I have a few questions for you. During your testimony -- why hasn't, you know, the system changed since 1972? You said you were at the AFN 20 years ago, and why do you think it hasn't changed? And who do you think should be held responsible? And you kept replying to them.
Who do you mean by them?
MR. JENNINGS: Well, I guess, to understand that, you need to look at the history of higher education. The universities are a Western culture; and they're grounded in European tradition. The logic systems come from the Judeo-Christian System. Their languages are German and French, not Inupiaq or Yup'ik. People -- even the best-intentioned people write from that world view, from that understanding of reality, which is not necessarily the understanding that Native people bring to the classroom.
As far as who's to blame, we're all to blame. The University is to blame for failing to address the issues that have been brought before it numerous times. AFN did a report in '72. They commissioned a report in '74. The last one that was commissioned was 1985, just before the restructuring. This has been an ongoing process. They have never implemented the requests. And we have failed, because we have failed to push those requests to completion; so, in part, it is our responsibility as well as theirs.
COMMISSIONER MASEK: There's a lot of organizations, nonprofit, etcetera, that are set up to help deal with this type of problems. Do you think they were not delivering the right information and getting, you know, what you're talking now to 20 years ago, during that 20 period -- 20-year period?
MR. JENNINGS: I don't think there has been a concerted effort to address Native higher education, since Elaine Abrahams was hired as the first Vice-President for Rural Education in 1974. I don't think that the leadership has come together and made it a priority.
COMMISSIONER MASEK: Do you think if some of the organizations, or some of the leaders played a bigger role in maybe helped implicating some of these issues, that --
MR. JENNINGS: I guess the bottom --
COMMISSIONER MASEK: -- probably --
MR. JENNINGS: -- line is that I believe that the ultimate stateme
-- that budget's the ultimate statement of policy. And I don't think the University
understands how much money comes into its system because of Native students --
educational foundation moneys from the corporations, BIA money, and federal-impact
money. I don't think they can tell you how much money comes into their systems;
I don't think they -- I don't know that they really want to look at those kinds
of issues. But I think that if you could get the people to come together,
that you could probably bring some pressure to bear on
them.
MS. PERATROVICH: I have
a question for him. I find
it interesting that Same Kito that sat on
the Board of Regents for many years had such a cogent remark
to make; since he, of course, you know, pretty much ran the budget.
Do you think that with all the federal monies that is -- that are going into the University of Alaska -- you know, the reason why we got a Native Studies Office going at the University of Alaska -- and when we first got it going, it was right out of a woman's office who gave out loans to students -- was because we stopped them from taking all the BIA checks when they were kicking students out left and right. And they found out that when the student left and the check went back to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, they were having all these shortfalls. Of course, those were the days when the University of Alaska didn't have a lot of money.
The interesting thing is I'll bet you anything there is somebody at the University of Alaska who knows exactly how much money --
MR. JENNINGS: Well, I was being somewhat --
MS. PERATROVICH: -- we bring into the university, and --
MR. JENNINGS: -- facetious.
MS. PERATROVICH: -- if need be, then they should be reminded about all the oil money from the North Slope that they're living off of. I mean, anybody in a Ph.D. program should be able to point that out to them.
But what I would like to know is what do you see on the horizon for us, at least getting a history of Alaska? Do you know that out of 50 states in the Union, we are the only state without a state history? Do you know that our kids can go all the way through school without even learning about Alaska Natives.
And you know, you can go out to a military school and ask chose kids in the third and fourth grade to write about where they came from or where they were born, and they can write you pages? And you can go out to a rural village, and they can't tell you what the main revenue is for the state; they can't tell you how many Native people there are in the state; they can't tell you about our Alaska Legislature, because we don't have a history for our state. We are the only state out of 50, and we're the wealthiest.
And you know why? Because I'm sure they want to keep us the best-kept secret in the nation. But do you see anything on the horizon that could change the University of Alaska? They are a land-grant college.
MR. JENNINGS: Well, I think that you have pointed out some things. I think that there is -- there has always been the ability of the Legislature to intervene in the University. There is the ability of the regional corporations to deny -- or to discourage the enrollment of their students. There is the possibility that has come earlier about the creation of a tribal college. There are other avenues, mechanisms.
We can -- trying to be positive and working together with the University, if the new System president was so inclined, they could once again address the needs of Native people on a statewide level. Because it isn't a UAA issue; it is a statewide issue. This just happens to have the largest enrollment at UAA. I don't see them being proactive.
From '85, I see them restructuring and restructuring; and the cost of that restructuring is in rural services -- it's in the rural colleges that were established by the Bush caucus in Bethel, and Kotzebue, and Nome; rural delivery systems that are being manipulated and budgets being used to fund other things.
But it's not until you have people in policy positions who can fight for -- and presidents who are willing to sit down and listen to the people that you're going to have any real change in the system.
And it's not just that level. It's a bureaucracy. You have people who have been there 10 and 15 years, and they're ingrained in the way they do business; and they think if we stall this long enough, it'll go away. We can placate them for a few months; and then they'll be preoccupied by land el-aims, or subsistence, or some other life-threatening issue, so that it diverts our interest from this issue.
(Pause.)
I'm not real optimistic myself, so. . .
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Thank you, Michael.
MR. JENNINGS: Thank you.
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