An agreement between North Idaho College and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe calls for a campus longhouse to serve as a gathering place for Native American students.
That longhouse is still just an idea, but in the basement of the Student Union building, a different gathering place is taking shape.
Evanlene Melting Tallow started as the college’s adviser to Native American students last month and plans to turn her office into a place where students can meet one another, get help with school work or just hang out.
“The whole goal here is to keep kids in school,” said Melting Tallow, 45. “I know personally that having that support when I went to school was huge.”
Her position at NIC isn’t new, but the focus has turned more to helping enrolled students than recruiting.
The tweaked job description stems from a decline in Native American students at the college over the past few years, said Eric Murray, NIC’s vice president for student services. More than 100 Native American students attended the school in 2003. This year, 72 are enrolled – a decline that shows NIC could do more to help students once they arrive, Murray said.
“There was really no point in recruiting students if we knew after a semester they were going to leave us,” he said. “If we’re recruiting Native students and we don’t have the support services in place to help make them feel comfortable, then we’re not serving them.”
