Hi-Line Living: Stone Child College: Helping students step up and forward

Peggy Aquino moved with her husband and two sons in 1997 from California to Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation. An enrolled member of the Chippewa Cree tribe, she grew up in California but as a child spent her summers with relatives on Rocky Boy.

"I moved back here just 'cause California was so busy. This was my home away from home" she said. That same year, Aquino also enrolled at Stone Child College. She went on to earn four associate of science degrees in two years and later certificates in two other programs.

Aquino, now scholarship officer at Stone Child, is one of many of students who have used Stone Child as a stepping stone on their way to professional and educational success.

Stone Child is one of 38 tribal colleges and universities in the U.S, the website for the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, a support network for tribal colleges and universities throughout the U.S. says. Tribal colleges and universities vary in size, program offerings and region, but they all share a core mission of  tribal self-determination and service to their communities.

Tribal colleges and universities are rooted in the American-Indian self-determination movement of the 1960s, the website says. Navajo Community College chartered in 1968, and renamed Dine College in 1997, was the first tribal college or university.

Today, tribal colleges and universities throughout the U.S, provide higher education to more than 80 percent of Indian Country, serving more than 100,000 students annually in academic and community-based programs, the website says.  

Stone Child was chartered May 17, 1984, by the Chippewa Cree Business Committee, the Stone Child College website says.

"It was the feeling of tribal leaders that the establishment of a college was necessary for the preservation and maintenance of the Chippewa Cree culture, and for the educational training of its membership," the website says.

Stone Child College Interim President and Dean of Academics Cory Sangrey-Billy said the bulk of Stone Child's funding comes from the Bureau of Indian Education and a multitude of federal grant programs.

Unlike colleges and universities within the Montana State University system, Stone Child does not have access to a reliable stream of funding from the state, Sangrey-Billy said. Oftentimes, the only state funding it receives is for the students they have who are not enrolled in a federally recognized tribe.

Stone Child offers 14 associate degree programs, five certificate programs and starting this year a Bachelor of Science in elementary education.

Montana Office of Public Instruction and Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities each gave Stone Child College approval in November to move ahead with the program. With the addition of the new program, Stone Child is one of only two tribal colleges in Montana to offer a four-year degree.

Salish Kootenai College on the Flathead Indian Reservation, which offers 17 bachelor's programs, partnered with Stone Child to create their elementary education program.

Sangrey-Billy said the program will help meet the high demand for teachers in Rocky Boy and Box Elder schools she said.

A four-year degree program in elementary education is something that has been a goal of Stone Child for years, she added.

Tribal colleges are often about building partnerships, Sangrey-Billy said. If one tribal college doesn't have a program, another can step in to help them create one.

"That is how we have been able to make a lot of things happen is through our partnerships with other tribal colleges," she said.

Sangrey-Billy said work is underway to move all the college's education programs into Stone Child's former cultural building that housed the White Sky Hope Center up until it was moved into the new Rocky Boy Clinic. She added that she is working with the family of former Stone Child College President Nathan St. Pierre to dedicate the new education building to his memory.

Sangrey-Billy was appointed interim president last year after St. Pierre died.

Students in Stone Child's building trades program are doing the remodeling, she said.

Beyond the education programs, there are other things happening at Stone Child.

Stone Child is teaming up with with Bob Quinn of the Quinn Organic Research Center in Big Sandy to produce whole wheat products on the reservation, Sangrey-Billy said. The partnership is part of a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant.

A grain mill has already been purchased and will be located in a three-door garage on campus, she said.

The aim is to get more whole-wheat products such as pastas and flour that can be healthier for the community, Sangrey-Billy added.

She said Quinn and Stone Child's Natural Resources Department are working together to raise some of the grains. The mill has already been purchased and is set to be delivered to the campus.  

Sangrey-Billy said she hopes the effort can move Stone Child closer to eventually offering a certificate in agriculture.

She added that she hopes Stone Child can eventually build dorms for students, something it has never had before.

Last year the tribe donated five acres to Stone Child to be used for dorms, after they looked at buying some modular houses, Sangrey-Billy said.

She added that the houses were in such poor condition it was decided it would be better for the college to build their own rather than buy them.

Construction funds are limited for tribal colleges, she said, but Stone Child wants to make sure they are ready when funds become available.

The preservation of Native culture is a foundational part of Stone Child's mission.

Any student who graduates must take and pass one Cree language course and another in Cree history.

Sangrey-Billy said many younger people are no longer taught the Cree language at home and Stone Child wants to do what it can to promote it.

"For us it is about keeping our culture alive, sustaining it and teaching that to those who don't always get taught it at home," she said.

Stone Child is also using a language grant from the state to create a Cree language app developed by Thorton Media.

Sangrey-Billy said the app will teach basic Cree phrases such as hello, goodbye, numbers, the names of colors and some basic commands.

The app was completed, but language specialists at Stone Child looked at it and saw some errors in syntax, she said. Thorton has agreed to make corrections to the app.

She said once corrections are made and Stone Child receives the finished app it will be turned over to the tribe to use at their discretion.

Sangrey-Billy, a student at Stone Child in the late 1990s who has worked there for the last 16 years, said she has noticed the student body has gone from being older or more nontraditional, to being younger and having recent high school graduates.

Steve Galbavy, who has worked on and off at Stone Child since 1992, including as its president from 1996 to 2004, said he sees the same thing.

Galbavy said that when he first came to Stone Child in 1992, the overwhelming majority of students were about age 30 or older. When he left in 2004 the student population was split about evenly between those students and others in their 20s.

Sangrey-Billy said the change is something she sees as a good thing.  

“We want to give them that good foundation so they can go and get their bachelor’s somewhere,” she said.

For Whitney Gardipee, a freshman at Stone Child College a big part of why she decided to go to Stone Child was the low cost of tuition.

“It was affordable, that is the main part,” she said.

Tuition at Stone Child is cheaper than other colleges.

She said going to Stone Child allows her to remain closer to her family on the reservation.

“You have ties to the community, you could walk in here and see your aunt or see your cousin,” she said.

The smaller class sizes also have an appeal and the material is more hands on, Gardipee said.

“They can teach you better, you can learn better, you can ask questions more and they are available more,” she said.

Stone Child has an open door policy, meaning anyone who fills out an application produces proof of a GED, high school diploma or high school transcripts is welcome.

Barriers such as admissions tests or steep tuition that would otherwise keep some students out of college, do not exist at Stone Child.

Sangrey-Billy said that means many times students who need help come to Stone Child.

And sometimes students find themselves in the process.

Galbavy said that a few years ago he was the advisor to a student who enrolled right out of high school and started out taking developmental courses.

The young man started out academically challenged and had never been pushed before.

However, over the course of a year and a half the young man went to Stone Child, Galbavy said he saw an evolution take place in the young man.

Every day the student would be on campus at 7:30 a.m. studying and doing his work. Galbavy said that at the end of the day, he would also be the last person to leave.

“That is the kind of dedication he put into it,” he said.  

By the time the young man left Stone Child, he was taking pre-calculus, Galbavy said.

Galbavy added that at Stone Child he gets to see a lot more of that development in a student up close, something that at a more traditional college or university with a larger population he might not see.

The high level of commitment is not only on the part of the students but the staff and faculty.

Sangrey-Billy said that instructors and students are willing to work hard to meet the needs of their students.

She said that she feels the same way when people come to her own office, where her door is often wide open.