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Public Universities and Native American Enrollment
Cultural Attraction
Universities in the Pacific Northwest are building Native American structures to create an overdue welcome for students
written by Lauren Kramer
As students at Western Washington University wrapped up another year of studies this summer, plans were underway for the construction of the House of Healing. The $5 million longhouse, whose completion is scheduled for the second quarter of 2025, is intended to be a gathering and ceremonial space to promote cultural exchange and understanding.
The university’s administration hopes the longhouse will increase the rate of Indigenous enrollment by at least 10 percent. To date there are 360 students on campus who identify as Native American or Alaskan Native, representing 2.4 percent of the student population. Their numbers have been steady since 2011, when they constituted 2.3 percent. For the Indigenous-identifying students currently enrolled, the longhouse amounts to a spend of $13,888 each.
The longhouse, in discussion for more than thirty years, has been a long time coming, said Laural Ballew, WWU’s tribal relations manager. Her position was created in 2019 to advocate for Indigenous students, faculty and staff, liaise between them and the university administration and increase enrollment of Indigenous students.
“The university is on Lummi territory, so I feel there’s an obligation to build it,” she said. “The longhouse will put action behind the words of land acknowledgement, give back to the Native communities and provide an important sense of place and support for our students. You have to understand that when a Native student leaves their community to come to a white institution, it can be daunting and intimidating.”
Ballew speaks from personal experience. She began studying at the college in 1975 and remembers feeling isolated as a Native student. As she works on her doctoral degree today, she recalls how determined her parents were that she and her siblings attend college. When she became a parent, she immediately started saving for her sons’ college tuition and is proud that one recently graduated with a degree in psychology.
But in the Lummi Tribe, her parents’ encouragement of higher education was and still is more of an anomaly. “There’s this feeling in high school that not as much is expected from Native American students, so they tend not to have that belief and self-confidence that they can succeed academically,” she said. “And many don’t have parents pushing them, or a cheerleader in their corner, nor do they have enough role models in the community of tribe members who graduated college.”
That’s a legacy of the residential school system, she said, referring to how Native American students were taken to boarding schools far from their communities between 1819 and 1969, when fifteen residential schools were operating statewide. “Both my grandmothers were in boarding school, and my parents inherited that trauma and covered it up with alcohol,” she recalled. “Alcoholism was rampant in my community. I think that’s why my family pushed for higher education—they felt it was a way out of the cycle.”
Today Ballew encourages Native American students at WWU to visit the Lummi middle and high schools and bring graduating high schoolers to campus so they can take a tour and see the possibilities for their future.
“Having the longhouse here, and giving Indigenous high schoolers a chance to see our powwow and meet other Indigenous students will allow them to see themselves here in the future,” she said. “To date, this is the only higher educational institution on the I-5 corridor that doesn’t yet have a longhouse.”
Having the longhouse here, and giving Indigenous high schoolers a chance to see our powwow and meet other Indigenous students will allow them to see themselves here in the future. To date, this is the only higher educational institution on the I-5 corridor that doesn’t yet have a longhouse.
Oregon State University built its Native American longhouse, Kaku-Ixt Mana Ina Haws, in the 1970s and replaced it with a new one in 2013. Enrollment and demographic reports from OSU suggest its undergraduate enrollment of Native students has increased by 20 percent to 1,202 students in 2022 from fall 2013, when OSU had 997 Native students enrolled.
In general, data about the number of Indigenous students at college can be misleading, cautioned Scott Vignos, chief diversity officer at OSU’s Office of Institutional Diversity. “The way students identify is often much more complex than the data allows us to represent. Any time a student checks more than one box for race and ethnicity, their numbers are not reflected in the Native American enrollment data,” he explained. “We believe the 20 percent increase is evidence of the positive impact of the programs we’ve created, like the Ecampus and tuition policies.”
In 2017, OSU created a Tribal Communities Initiative as a partnership between OSU’s Ecampus (its online degree program) and the Office of Institutional Diversity. “We know that for tribal communities one of the barriers to higher education is being place-bound by obligations in their communities or family members they need to take care of,” Vignos said. “Having the option to pursue a high-quality degree online, with advisers that understand the unique dimensions of living in a tribal community, makes this a very attractive option.”
Every Native student who enrolls in Ecampus is matched with a dedicated success coach who meets with them regularly, sets goals, explores work-life balance and helps them navigate challenges. There are 330 tribal students enrolled to date, and both enrollment and graduation numbers are growing each year.
Another barrier has been the cost of higher education in public institutions, which, Vignos said, is higher in Oregon than in its neighboring states. The Oregon Tribal Student Grant, a $19 million fund allocation created in 2022 by the Oregon Legislature, covers the full cost of education for any student who is enrolled in an Oregon tribe. OSU has more students enrolled in the grant than any other Oregon state institution, but the grant doesn’t help Indigenous students from tribes outside of the state.
The longhouse is one of seven cultural resource centers at OSU, all of which serve a crucial role, Vignos said. “They create spaces in a predominantly white institution where students can explore and refine their identities. That’s important because higher education has long been tailored to a particular kind of student. In recent years, we’re paying careful attention to the unique perspectives of students from minoritized backgrounds. They bring incredible wisdom and perspective to higher education, but we have to adapt our culture and programs so we can be ready for them.”
Oregon State University also has a new living-learning community, munk-skukum, a residential space where Indigenous, Native American and Pacific Islander students can explore their cultural identity and find connections, campus resources and support. Vignos said this community has a waiting list and is a space the university hopes to expand.
Reflecting on the enrollment data, he cautioned that for generations, data has been used to tell the stories people want to tell. It allows the story to be framed thus: If there are so few minoritized students, why are we giving them so much attention and resources?
“We do this because we have an obligation as a land grant institution,” Vignos said unequivocally. “It’s part of who we are, and it’s aligned with our values and mission—to serve all of Oregon’s students, not just some of them.”
“Think of this from an equity concept: We have students who are sixth in their generation to go to college and have great access to networks and family support. Now think about what it means for someone to be the first in their family to go to college because of legacies of settler-colonialism. It makes it even more imperative that as a land grant, values-driven institution we think about what it takes to provide equitable access to an institution.”
Think of this from an equity concept: We have students who are sixth in their generation to go to college and have great access to networks and family support. Now think about what it means for someone to be the first in their family to go to college because of legacies of settler-colonialism. It makes it even more imperative that as a land grant, values-driven institution we think about what it takes to provide equitable access to an institution.
The July 2023 Supreme Court decision to ban affirmative action on college campuses will likely affect Native American students’ access to higher education says Nolan Cabrera, a University of Arizona professor who specializes in racial dynamics on college campuses.
“Because Indigenous tribes are federally recognized, they fall beyond the realm of an affirmative action ban, so technically the ban should not adversely affect their access to higher education. But in reality, it probably will,” he says. “A lot of leaders in higher education don’t understand the distinction between racialized groups and federally recognized tribes. So the affirmative action ban will likely have a chilling effect that will result in less recruitment of Indigenous students to university campuses, even though institutional leaders have a lot of leeway to continue with their recruitment of these students.”
At Western Washington University, the longhouse will arrive too late for Kimberly Werlito, 24. The Navajo student from New Mexico graduated in March 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in English literature and is a co-chair of the Native American Student Union (NASU) on campus.
She described feeling lost when she first came to the university. “Where I come from there are many Native folks, but arriving at Western Washington, which is predominantly white, was a culture shock,” she reflected.
“Being a Native American student on campus felt strange—you feel so small compared to the greater community. It wasn’t until I got into NASU that I found other Native students, faculty and staff on campus, and began to feel a greater sense of belonging.”
Werlito is excited for the changes coming to campus with the construction of the House of Healing. “The Native community on campus will finally have a hub, a home base to really cultivate themselves as they enter higher education and begin their academic journey,” she said.
As Ballew considers the goal of 10 percent enrollment increase of Indigenous students, she said it’s definitely realistic. She sat in her office and thought of herself as a high school graduate in the early 1970s, looking from across the bay at Western Washington.
“It was this white institution sitting up on a hill, and I would think to myself, anyone that could be studying or working there has really made it!” she recalled.
“When I came to this position in 2019, I was so honored to be accepted, but at the same time, I thought the longhouse would be ten to fifteen years out. Instead, we’re breaking ground next year. Who thought that would be possible? So, why not look at a 10 percent increase in enrollment? After everything I’ve seen, I believe in dreaming big!”
