The School of Forestry is committed to supporting the academic and personal growth of our Native American forestry students. We actively help our students to achieve their academic and career goals, including providing a range of support services and referrals. We strive to address issues of cultural difference for students and faculty, since differences in culture may affect a student's ability to succeed at NAU. Our goals are to increase the number of Native Americans graduating with bachelor's degrees and to encourage more students to pursue graduate study.

We are proud of our record of serving Native American students. Many forestry and natural resource professionals working for tribal governments, for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and other organizations in the region are Native Americans who graduated from the School of Forestry.

Opportunities for Learning and Growing

The School of Forestry offers rewarding enrichment activities for all of our students. These include opportunities for summer positions in forestry and attendance at a number of professional forestry and natural resource management conferences. Several of these opportunities have associated financial support, which can prove particularly important to our Native American students.

Several faculty members within the School of Forestry have established working relationships with neighboring Native American tribes. These relationships with tribal departments can help encourage and motivate students who might otherwise be skeptical about the value of education. We are also able to include tribal forestry issues in the undergraduate forestry courses. Overall faculty awareness of Native American culture is increasing as a result of the interactions with different tribal departments.

We are cooperating with other institutions of higher education that serve Native Americans. For example, we have an articulation agreement with the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque that helps facilitate the transfer of their graduates into our forestry program.

In addition to programs offered through the School of Forestry, NAU as a whole offers many opportunities for Native American students, ranging from financial aid programs to clubs. A good place to find out more about what NAU has to offer Native American students is at the Native American Student Services website, located at: http://home.nau.edu/nass.

An organization that female Native American students, in particular, might want to consider joining is the Indigenous Sisterhood for Interdisciplinary Scholars, or ISIS. This organization is sponsored in part by a School of Forestry faculty member, Dr. Thom Alcoze, who is Native American. ISIS has done extensive wildlife and ecology fieldwork at places such as the Kaibab-Paiute Reservation. ISIS has its own website, so please check it out! http://oak.ucc.nau.edu/smo6/isis/aboutme.htm.

For More Information Contact:

Dr. Thom Alcoze,
Professor of Forestry & Native American Ecology
928-523-5972
Thom.Alcoze@nau.edu

Jennifer Tsonis,
Student Service Coordinator
928-523-8956
Jennifer.Tsonis@nau.edu

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 21 October 2009 )