which the college hopes to get approved as early as next spring.
But producing online classes is only part of the equation. Those classes also need to be delivered to students who live across the vast expanse of the Navajo nation.
Roessel said that when they took their classes online, the College surveyed students to make sure they were addressing any barriers to connectivity.
One student, for example, said he had OK online access, but when pressed for more specificity, he allowed that to get a signal he had to drive 15 miles – part of that way over a dirt road – to the top of a mesa, then get out of his vehicle and hike a little further up for reasonable reception. That sounds like a 21st century version of young Abe Lincoln’s 9-mile, one-way walk to school every day. The College knew it had to do better.
This is where the microsites came in. Although COVID-related relief funding came with restrictions that prevented building new facilities, remodeling was allowed. So after ascertaining where they had students who needed better access, Diné College located an old Head Start building in the little Navajo chapter of Aneth, Utah, population 598, refurbished it with wi-fi and desks, and staffed it with a Diné College employee who can help with tech issues, application forms, financial aid, and more. The College created a similar microsite in a former wellness center located in the even tinier community of Newcomb, New Mexico.
“But as we started going through this, we discovered there were more other things the community needed, and it changed the way we looked at our centers,” Roessel said.
The College realized that not only could it provide academic delivery at its microsite, but the facility could be used for other purposes, too. Local artists and jewelry-makers, whose sales had been hit hard as in-person art fairs were canceled, could access the microsite’s internet in order to sell their wares online.
In addition, the Newcomb site already had a kitchen. By upgrading it to commercial standards, the College provided local farmers with the opportunity to create new income streams by processing the produce they were growing.
“We’re not just focusing on classes, but on what challenges our community is having,” Roessel said.
This meshes well with the college’s stated aims of promoting tribal sovereignty, language revitalization, multicultural education, and nation building.
For the College, other developments inspired by the relief funding involve significantly reduced tuition costs for students this year, and, in an announcement made late last month, increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour for the college’s regular full-time employees. This wage increase will impact more than two thirds of the College’s work force. Currently, the federal and Navajo Nation minimum wage remains at $7.25 an hour. The State of Arizona’s minimum wage is $12.15 an hour and the State of New Mexico’s minimum wage is $10.50 an hour. So this move is a real game-changer for a lot of folks.
With so many positive outcomes achieved already, thanks to the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan, Roessel said the College is energized and eager to learn more about Biden’s promise to focus on equity and reach out to Tribal Colleges with his Build Back Better plans for education.
“If you’ve lived your whole life and all you hear is no, no, no – but now you hear maybe and yes – that is transformational!” he said.