The professors at Northwest Indian College collaborated with the students spiritually and mentally, says Cayen, who has completed several internships in the community, including working in Lynden with the Natural Resource Conservation Service and dairy farmers on salmon restoration. The importance of this bond between NWIC a college for tribal members all over the country and WWU, is to understand Native peoples philosophy and our tribal ecological knowledge, she says. We want to build a bridge between tribal and federal governments. We want to be able to have a unity that will allow our people to get an education. The program opens doors for tribal members to get involved in natural resource management, Dixon says.
Tribes benefit on a number of levels.
I apply my schooling immediately in my job. It gives me the opportunity to do things that I never would have been able to do. The most important outcome of this partnership between Huxley and Northwest Indian College, says Huxley dean Smith, comes when Native students return home and address natural resource issues with a firm foundation in environmental science applied in the context of community culture.