Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Our target audiences include: * Native American STEM students at Montana State University Bozeman, both undergraduate and graduate students * Native American STEM graduate student working at Little Big Horn College * Little Big Horn College and the Apsaalooke Nation in Montana (Crow Reservation community) * Montana Tribal College STEM faculty (professional development) * Staff serving Native American students at MSU Bozeman (professional development) Changes/Problems:The major challenge we had which resulted in changes was the loss of our two collaborating faculty at Little Big Horn College, as described above. (C. Martin resigned from LBHC to enter the PhD program in Indigenous and Rural Health at MSU, J. Morsette died unexpectedly.) Hence, we shifted our approach at LBHC to further develop our water quality research program in a way to provide community-engaged graduate research opportunities for Crow STEM graduate students and for LBHC undergraduates, which has also resulted in improving people's access to safe drinking water and improvement in quality of life. LBHC PI and Crow Tribal Elder John Doyle conceives of this as developing Tribal Community Scientitsts, and is a phenomenal mentor to our Crow students.See above for more details. At MSU, we also lost our Program Coordinator, Dr. Jennifer Forecki, and have not been able to replace that very part time position. Eggers has just been able to hire a recent graduate on a part-time temporary basis to help with some of those duties. We have been able to partner with MSU's Undergraduate Scholars Program to identify, recruit, place and fund Native STEM majors in research internships on campus. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Objective (3) (above)To increase recruitment of Native American graduate students to the community health graduate degree program at MSU. Two graduate students were appointed over the course of the year, Crystal LoudHawk-Hedgepeth and Christine Martin, bothPhD students in the Indigenous and Rural Health Program. Christine is working on a water quality focused community-based participatory research project with the youth and families on the Crow reservation. Christine also assisted with organizing and leading the seminars and focus groups. Crystal works for the American Indian College Fund and assisted with the data collection and analysis including the interview guide for tribal college student focus groups. Dr. Simonds has held monthly virtual information sessions for the community health graduate degree programs from November 2023 through March 2024 with an average of 5 people attending each session. In spring 2024, she held two lunch seminars for community health students to learn from the IRH PhD student educational paths and research. Dr. Simonds also presented and recruited students at her presentation at the 2023 Annual AISES conference in Spokane, Washington. Objective (4) (above): To increase recruitment, retention and graduation of Native students in COA and HHD in part by increasing faculty understanding of Native students and their communities. This is not something that Drs. Eggers, Simonds, Kelly and Lisa Perry (AIANSS Director) do directly through explicit activities, it is more an ongoing role in speaking up for Native students and helping colleagues understand the tremendous obtacles and challenges students are overcoming to persist at MSU and graduate and to see their strengths. Other training and professional development: 1) In the summer of 2024, Eggers coordinated and hosted a weeklong professional grantwriting workshop for Montana Tribal College STEM faculty, provided by the The Grantsmanship Center Inc., a national provider of such training which has been in business for more than 50 years. The 30 attendees were a combination of Native-serving staff and faculty at MSU - including the entire AIANSS staff, Native doctoral students in the Indigenous and Rural Health degree program, and STEM faculty from Montana's Tribal Colleges. 2) Eggers' and Simonds' matched time was used to host a three day professional development Ways of Knowing Workshop for Montana Tribal College STEM faculty in May 2024. The goal was to explore how Native STEM university/college facultyare integrating traditional Ways of Knowing with Western science in how they teach, conduct community-directed research, and otherwise carry out their jobs. While the workshop was largely funded from another source, Eggers and Simonds co-led this workshop with three other Native MSU professionals, and hence contributed USDA NIFA time. 3) Doyleattended and presented at Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry national conference with USGS colleagues, and both attended and presented at the NIH NIEHS Partnership for Environmental Public Health national conference on our collaboration with USGS (along with two of our Crow graduate students and one USGS collaborator). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?To date, we have primarily focused on local dissemination, primarily in Crow but also at MSU. For the past three summers, the Crow Water Quality Project has held a summer community open house to report out to the Tribal community on our work and research results, usually with our external research partners. In Summer 2024, we hosted open houses not only at LBHC, but also in the Pryor and Wyola communities. Guardians of the Living Waters holds an end-of-camp community open house at which their participating students present their camp projects. Additionally, we typically presentan MSU seminar once a year, including presentations by our Crow graduate students. Graduate student Madisan Chavez presented her research at the statewide American Water Resources Association conference this past year, winning second place for a student poster. She and PhD candidate JoRee LaFrance gave poster presentations and a joint platform presentationat the NIH Partnership for Environmental Public Health national conference in 2024, with mentorship from Doyle and Eggers. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We are planning to largely continue the above activities. For professional development for both MT Tribal College STEM faculty and for Native STEM graduate students at MSU, we plan to provide scholarships for them to attend and participate in a weeklong Climate Change and Indigenous Ways of Knowing gathering at Blackfeet Community College (in northern MT) in June 2025, and have organized an opportunity for both groups to get full ride scholarships to take one or more two-week long ecology field courses at Flathead Lake Biological Station in NW Montana (housing and meals included) during the summer of 2025. We anticipate our collaborative research with the USGS will be published in this next reporting period, and Doyle and Eggers plan to present the results at a national conference with USGS colleagues. (Results of this research have already been presented at several community open houses in Crow.) Additionally, Simonds and Eggers are working with the high school serving the Crow Reservation and aUSGS Einstein fellow (nationally award winning high school science teacher) to integrate our research results into lesson plans for Crow and other high school students.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
(1) To strengthen Little Big Horn College's (LBHC's) educational pathways to careers in water resources (WR)/ environmental science (ES), environmental health (EH), and community health (CH) and other STEM careers. LBHC faculty member Christine Martin resigned to enter the PhD program in Community Health at MSU.LBHC faculty member Jonah Morsette, who was teaching water resources, died unexpectedly. Now lacking that faculty capacity, we are instead focusing our efforts on (1) building transfer agreements between LBHC (and other MT Tribal colleges) and MSU in STEM disciplines; (2) working with Crow STEM graduate students as future LBHC faculty and community leaders; and (3)supporting a water quality educational initiative for Crow youth (5th grade - College). (1) Eggers (not on USDA time) secured a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grantof $450,000+ for MSU to support these transfer agreements and Native transfer students in STEM disciplines, and turned the award over the the College of Agriculture's Associate Dean for Academic Programs Jennifer Thomson to administer. Dean Thomson has been able to hire a Coordinator with those funds, who is actively working on developing and institutionalizingthese transfer agreements. (2) LBHC PI on this grant,John Doyle, leads the Crow Water Quality Project at LBHC and throughout Crow communities. A main emphasis over the past three years has been our ongoing collaboration with the USGS to assess the microbial, inorganic and organic (including PFAS compounds)contamination of home wells, rivers and public water supplies and PFAS contamination of edible fish on the Reservation, to educate the Crow communities about the results and to pursue mitigation strategies. The sampling and analysis has been completed, and Doyle has returned the USGS results to participating families. This collaboration provides opportunitiesfor our four Crow STEM graduate students and one post-bacc student entering grad school (Fall 2025) to conduct research on water quality in their home community for their graduate studies. We have also been able to include Crow undergraduate STEM majors in the summer sampling. (See below for more on dissemination.) John Doyle mentors Crow doctoral student JoRee LaFrance (supported for 0.3 FTE on this award), who in turn led a summer 2024 home well water quality week-long testing clinic through which she mentored ten young Crow women in providing home well testing services to young families across the Reservation. Doyle continues this community service of home well water testing and interpretation year round in response to requests, and provides home water coolers to those whose well water is assessed as unsafe for long term consumption. Doyle and Eggers organized a one day field training on water quality sampling for LBHC students with our USGS colleagues when they were in town. We took the students up into the Big Horn Mountains to sample a commonly used spring for inorganics, various organics and fecal contamination, with our USGS colleagues providing training in their sampling methodology. Doyle and Eggers also participate in the weekly Crow Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Taskforce meetings hosted by a Crow non-profit, which has been able to use our data to secure a $1 million grant to repair Tribal members' plumbing, wells and septic systems. Doyle recently proposed to LBHC that they purchase a 300-acre farm which had come up for sale close to the College, to become a Tribal agricultural research station and educational resource for LBHC. The College has just closed on this purchase, and we will continue to stay involved to see how we can support STEM education utilizing this land and water right. (3) Doyle and Eggers serve on the Advisory Board for Guardians of the Living Waters, a long-runningenvironmental health literacy program for Crow youth from 5th grade through College, addressing both the science and culture of water through four weeks of summer camp. In sum, by continually working on various water issues in the Crow Tribal community, promoting and conducting home well water testing, involving our Crow youth in the Guardians camp and research with the USGS, and by actively supporting Crow graduate students in community-driven water quality research, we aim to grow the next generationof leaders and increase Crow Tribal community capacity in stewardship and sustainability of Tribal lands and waters. (2) To increase recruitment, retention and graduation of Native students in these and other MSU College of Agriculture (COA) and Health and Human Development (HHD) degree programs. Drs. Eggers, Simonds and Kelly variously collaborate with MSU's American Indian/Alaska Native Student Success (AIANSS) office, the Council of American Indian Programs (CAIP, a staff/faculty organization), the Empower Program (support for all underrepresented STEM students), the Microbiology Department's REU program and annual Indigenous Student Research Celebration, the Human Development and Community Health Department,the Undergraduate Scholars Program at MSU,the NIH PREP Post-baccalaureate program at MSU, the Building MSU Families Program (faculty mentoring Native students) and more to support Native students in STEM majors at MSU. The AIANSS staff contribute 1.3 FTE of match to this award, in recognition of their support for Native STEM majors. Three STEM faculty and two STEM administrators provide a total of 1.6 FTE match as well. Specific activities include Eggers serving on the Committees of five Native STEM graduate students, funding research internships for six Native STEM majors and participating in Building MSU Families events and CAIP meetings to maintain and expand relationships and the campus network in support of Native students. The Empower Center has both peer tutors and Empower Ambassadors, both paid positions. Peer tutors provide almost 40 hours of free tutoring in a variety of STEM classes each week. Empower Ambassadors staff the Empower Center from 6-10 every night except Friday and Saturday. Ambassadors ensure that the Center runs smoothly after hours, making sure that the food pantry is stocked and hosting students in the evenings. On most days, the Empower center is busy with ~ 20 students using the Center at a time. The Center conducted a user census in early November 2023, and 78 unique students used the Empower Center over a two-day period. Center use continues to increase in comparison to last year--more students consistently use the Center, studying independently as well as working with tutors.Our USDA NIFA NBTS award supports five to six Native STEM majors a semester to work as peer tutors and Empower Ambassadors. (3) and (4) - See next entry. (5) To conduct ongoing formative and summative evaluation, and to learn from the results, including in annual strategic planning Dr. Simonds and graduate students conducted anadditional focus group with transfer students in the spring of 2024 and are currently completing the analysis and write-up. The Grantsmanship Center (see below) conducted an evaluation of the weeklong training they provided, and received rave reviews. However, we do not plan to repeat this training as we already reached the audience we intended it to serve. Depending on Montana Tribal College STEM faculty interest, we may host a grants administration training in the future. (6) To disseminate what we've learned to multiple audiences, from local (Crow Tribe and MSU) to national See response to question below.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:Native STEM undergraduate and graduate students at Montana Tribal Colleges and at MSU Bozeman, along with the faculty and staff who teach, mentor and support them. Changes/Problems:Changes: Christine Martin, who was the Little Big Horn College (LBHC) PI on this award during the 2022-2023 fiscal year, started MSU's PhD program in indigenous and Rural Health in August 2023. John Doyle, the original LBHCPI, has applied to resume the role of PI for LBHC. Dr. Jen Forecki, an MSU Co-PI, is terminating her position at MSU in January 2024, after having a baby and moving with her husband back to her home state of Michigan. As Dr. Tracy Dougher, former PI for our sister NBTS award to MSU, has been promoted to Provost, and Dr. Jennifer Thomson has taken her place as Assistant Dean for Education for the College of Agriculture (and sister NBTS PI), we now collaborate with Thomson. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Multiple opportunities, described above under the relevant Objectives and Supplements. Additionally, LBHC PI Christine Martin (Crow) was funded to accompany and mentor MSU Native students on a summer 2023 ten-day cultural exchange with Iwikua, a Native Hawaiian community-based non-profit working on food security and cultural revitalization in Kauai, Hawaii (https://www.iwikua.org/). MSU pre-med student Kody Gust (Crow) received internship funding to participate in this exchange, with Martin and other Native MSU Honors College students. Subaward to Plenty Doors Community Development Corporation (PDCDC), Crow Agency, MT. PDCDC is using the NIFA sub-award to support Crow doctoral candidate JoRee LaFrance's work with Plenty Doors' Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program. LaFrance helped with the Pryor and Crow Agency Private Well & Onsite Wastewater workshops during summer 2023. The workshops provided information on well and septic system construction, function and maintenance as well as health risks from contaminants. Participating community members got their well water tested for free for common heavy metal contaminants, nitrate and coliform and E coli bacteria. Some elected to also have a private well and septic assessment conducted at their home. Jesse Campbell, the Private Well Coordinator/Technical Assistance for Midwest Assistance Program, Inc (a nonprofit organization) led the workshops. LaFrance accompanied and assisted Jesse in the field as he went to local Crow Reservation residents to conduct the well and wastewater assessments and water testing. Mr. Campbell provided individual printed reports for each participant sharing and explaining their test and assessment results. Supplement 1 In the fall of 2022, Eggers and colleagues at MSU invited Tribal College STEM faculty to come to Bozeman to discuss, prioritize and plan for summer professional development opportunities that meet their needs. A top priority for this was a chance to work on integrating Tribal ways of knowing and local ecological knowledge into their STEM courses.In response, two Tribal College Faculty Development opportunities were piloted during the summer of 2023: Ways of Knowing Gathering. A team from MSU put together and hosted a day and half pilot workshop for Tribal College faculty to explore integrating Tribal ways of knowing and local ecological knowledge into their STEM courses. This was led by Dr. Ranalda Tsosie (Navajo), with other Native MSU faculty and staff, Dr. Sheree Watson (USGS), Dr. Susan Kelly and Dr. Eggers from MSU. Half a dozen Tribal College faculty joined us in piloting this, and we are currently planning an expanded workshop for the summer of 2024. MT Tribal College STEM faculty were invited - along with their students - to the above-described two-day environmental health "Rivers of Knowledge" open house at Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML). About ten STEM faculty and staff from Little Big Horn College, Blackfeet Community College and Salish Kootenai College attended and participated. (As above, we also funded MSU and Montana Tribal College student travel, with funding for the MSU students, only, coming from this grant.) How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Through the above described communityopen houses at Little Big Horn College on the Crow Reservation as well as internally at MSU. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?All of the above activities will be continued, except that we do not know if Little Big Horn College (LBHC) will have a faculty member qualified to teach community health, now that Ms. Martin is in a PhD program at MSU, and RML has not yet decided whether they will host a Rivers of Knowledge open house this coming summer. We do not anticipate offering another MSU faculty trip to LBHC this fiscal year, although there is faculty interest, as Martin is not available to coordinate it at LBHC. There will be another community open house at Little Big Horn College in the summer of 2024, which will include report backs on this initiative and research projects the CEHSC and Crow students are involved in. Martin will be working on the Tribal College - MSU STEM degree transfer agreements in May and June especially, planning to expand beyond just LBHC, with active support from MSU COA Assistant Dean Jennifer Thomson. This summer we will be offering Tribal college STEM faculty both a Ways of Knowing three-day workshop as well as professional grantwriting training (provided by The Grantsmanship Center, Inc.). John Doyle has applied to resume his role as PI of the USDA NIFA NBTS subaward to LBHC. Doyle, Martin and Eggers have submitted an abstract to present on our work at the NIH NIEHS Partnership for Environmental Public Health in Durham, NC in February 2024. Implementation of the new Supplement 2 Objectives is already underway. PDCDC is once again hiring JoRee LaFrance as an intern, this time to complete her research on PFAS contamination in the Little Big Horn River on the reservation. PFAS is showing up in one of the public drinking water supplies in Crow, hence this is high priority for us.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Obj #1: Ms. Martin taught (for the 3rd time) a 3 cr Foundations of Community Health course at LBHC, which includes culturally relevant and climate effects material, and closely follows the MSU course of the same title. The Water Resources Management course was taught at LBHC during the summer of 2023 by Jonah Morsette. He designed the course to match the introcourse for the Water Resources Minor at MSU. Jonah is Crow and grew up on the Crow Reservation,is an LBHC graduate, holds a BS degree in hydrogeology from MSU Bozeman and is a long time STEM faculty member at LBHC. The LBHC Dean of Students has been coordinating with Christine Martin todevelop 2+2 transfer agreements for Water Resources, Environmental Science and Community Health degrees between LBHC and MSU-Bozeman. Although Christine Martin resigned her USDA NIFA position at LBHC in August 2023, in order to begin her PhD at MSU in Indigenous and Rural Health, she will be continuing to work on these transfer agreements, first with LBHC and then with other MT Tribal Colleges. Christine Martin planned and coordinated monthly meetings with the Crow Environmental Health Steering Committee (CEHSC) members. The steering members had an active voice to make sure each phase of this project was done in an appropriate way. Little Big HornCollege Community Open Houses, in Crow Agency: We shared and discussed water and air quality research results, both in 2022 & 2023 with Crow community members during Community Open House events held at Little Big Horn College. These were well-organized and attended community events, and included several LBHC faculty members who brought their classes to listen in. The CEHSC is composed of LBHC PI Martin (Crow), LBHC Crow Water Quality Director (and returning MSU NBTS PI) John Doyle, MSU PI Margaret Eggers and other Crow Tribal members active in environment, health and education on the Crow Reservation. This past summer, Christine Martin contributed to organizing a successful fish sampling for PFAS on the upper and lower Little Bighorn River, which the CEHSC is conducting with the USGS' national Environmental Health Program. All of the adult and youth volunteers who showed up got to spend some time learning about human exposures to PFAS and metals, from USGS expert Kelly Smalling, Eggers and NASEM PFAS Committee member Dr. Laura Anderko, who travelled to Crow to present at the 2023 Community Open House (held in conjunction with fish sampling). Objective #2 We collaborate with the 2020 and 2023 USDA NIFA NBTS awards, which funds Ms. Rikki Ollinger (Blackfeet, MSU BS in Microbiology) as the Mentor for Native STEM students in College of Agriculture majors. We continue to collaborate with her on student support, especially for chemistry and math course support for Native STEM majors. Eggers and Dr. Crystal Richards and her colleagues at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, MT, collaborated to host both a fall 2022 two-day visit and a two-day environmental health "Rivers of Knowledge" open house at RML during the summer of 2023 for Native STEM majors and their faculty. The content emphasized the ecology of waterborne pathogens (in rivers) and vector borne pathogens (ticks) and how genomics can be used in this research. Eggers, Martin, Doyle and three Native STEM students attended in fall 2022; Eggers and a total of about ten Tribal College STEM faculty and fifteen Native STEM students participated in the summer 2023 workshop. Eggers participates regularly in the Council of American Indian Programs (CAIP) meetings. CAIP is composed primarily of staff working with Native students in various student support programs. Eggers is an active member of the Microbiology and Cell Biology Department's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, which works to increase and support DEI in the department. The DEI Committee hosted a diversity fair for the campus this past year. Eggers serves as Senior Personnel on the Microbiology and Cell Biology Department's NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates Program (for which she receives no compensation from NSF). Each summer, one (2022) or two (2023) members of the 10 student cohort are MT Native students. Eggers has been mentoring and continues to mentor Native undergraduate, graduate and prospective graduate students in the focus disciplines for this grant. This includes undergraduates Michaiah Pease in Land Resources Environmental Science (LRES), Tillie Stewart in Environmental Health, Russell Conti in LRES and Kody Gust in microbiology; graduate students Miranda Rowland in geosciences, Madisan Chavez in LRES, JoRee LaFrance (doctoral candidate, soil and water science), Christine Martin and Elizabeth Swank in the Indigenous and Rural Health PhD programs; and graduate school applicant Eric Morrison (LRES). Objective #3: Dr. Simonds worked with graduate students in community health to develop brochures and recruiting materials for the Community and Indigenous & Rural Health graduate degrees. Dr. Simonds has held virtual information sessions for the community health graduate degree programs, with 13 participants total. Two graduate students were appointed this fiscal year: Roni Knows Gun, Northern Cheyenne MS student, community-based participatory research project with the youth and families on the Crow reservation: Marsha Small, N. Cheyenne PhD student who has assisted Dr. Simonds with building community and recruiting students. Objective #4: Eggers helped start the Building MSU Families initiative, which is committed to providing professional development to MSU faculty to learn how to more holistically mentor Native students at MSU. Dr. Held and L. Perry completed the training manual and the Program rolled out at the beginning of Fall semester 2023. More than 20 faculty have signed up and completed the orientation, student recruitment is ongoing and students and faculty are being matched as mentor/mentee. Dr. Elizabeth Bird (Health and Human Development), Eggers and a couple other STEM faculty started the Common Threads Network of MSU faculty who conduct community-engaged or community-led research with Tribal communities in Montana. Dr. Bird is taking the lead on coordinating this network, with support from Eggers. The Network meets ~ monthly, with guest speakers and opportunities for faculty to discuss their collaborations and lessons learned. MSU Faculty Retreat at Little Big Horn College (LBHC) hosted an overnight Crow Culture/Environment/ Health camp for a dozen MSU STEM faculty. Christine Martin co-planned and co-coordinated the events at LBHC, which included Crow oral histories, a student panel of Crow scholars to discuss their experiences navigating academia, maintaining their family relationships and taking care of their wellbeing, and a tour of the Crow Indian reservation which stopped at a number of significant sights and towns to listen to guest speakers talk on various topics. Objective #5: Evaluator Dr. Barbara Komlos accepted a position at a Canadian university. Dr. Simonds planned to recruit more Native STEM students to participate in the surveys and focus groups to better understand their challenges and successes in navigating MSU. However due to the timing of the request there was a limited response rate for this year. Therefore, for the coming year, she will partner with the Director of AI/AN Student Success, Lisa Perry, more formally and plans to connect with students in the American Indian Hall where students can feel more comfortable signing up for the surveys and focus groups, instead of just using a listserv for recruitment. Some twenty students participated in the first year, and another round of recruitment and surveys/focus groups will be conducted in summer 2024. Dr. Simonds is compiling these results, and we will use them to shape our NBTS program going forward. Objective #6: 2022-2023: Dissemination within MSU and at the open houses at LBHC.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:Our target audience are current Native students in STEM majors or STEM graduate programsat Montana State University Bozeman and at Little Big Horn College (LBHC) on the Crow Reservation, Montana. Our particular focus is on Native students in the College of Agriculture, especially in environmental science and environmental health majors, as well as in the community health major in the Health and Human Development Department at MSU. At LBHC, this translates into all students in science majors, as the student body is usually ~ 99% Native. Our second audience are the whole network of faculty and staff at both institutions who support and mentor these students.. Changes/Problems:There are no major changes/problems in approach. Our most signficant change is the loss of our evaluator, Dr. Komlos, who moved with her family (husband's job) to Canada. We have made an offer to a potential new evaluator and hope to have a person on board by the end of February, 2023. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? PI Dr. Eggers hosted Dr. Kyle Powys Whyte, internationally recognized Native climate change scholar and member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, in giving a seminar and workshop at MSU for Native students from MSU and from MT Tribal Colleges. PI Eggers and Co-PI Christine Martin from LBHC took two Crow MSU UG and one MSU graduate student in STEM fields to Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, MT, for a full day workshop about their microbial research. RML collaborates with us on our USDA NIFA Tribal College Research grant as well as with our Crow youth in the GLW program, analyzing Crow water samples for pathogenic microbes. Students learned about the isolation, amplification (PCR) and sequencing of DNA and the use of bioinformatics to identify these pathogens. Two new STEM courses are being offered at Little Big Horn College: Community Health, taught by Ms. Martin, and Water Resource Management, taught by Mr. Morsette. Both are designed to transfer to MSU as equivalent to their entry level courses in these two disciplines, respectively. Eggers and three other faculty membersstarted the Building Families initiative at MSU, which is committed to providing professional development to MSU faculty to learn how to more holistically mentor Native students at MSU. The initiative is currently led by Dr. Suzanne Held (Community Health) and Lisa Perry, Director of the AI/AN Office of Student Success. Eggers and two other faculty continue to serve with Held and Perry as the core team on this initiative. The 2021-2022 school year was devoted to developing a training manual, with rollout planned for spring 2023. Dr. Elizabeth Bird, Eggers, and a couple other STEM faculty started the Common Threads Network of MSU faculty who conduct community-engaged or community-led research with Tribal communities in Montana. Dr. Bird leads this network, with support from Eggers. The Network meets ~ monthly, with guest speakers and opportunities for faculty to discuss their collaborations and lessons learned. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Objective #1: To strengthen LBHC's educational pathways to careers in water resources (WR)/ environmental science (ES), environmental health (EH), and community health (CH) and other STEM careers. Martin will integrate more Crow place-based andcultural content into her community health course and offer it again in the fall of 2023. She and Eggers are developing a community health screening for exposure to PFAS compounds and related health conditions, wihichwill provide opportunities for LBHC STEM majorsto intern in community health research. Martin, Eggers and Forecki willbe working on LBHC-MSU course equivalencies and the development of transfer agreements for the targeted STEM majors. Morsette will continue to teach the Water Resources Management course during LBHC's summer school, and will work with others to develop Crow traditional and place-based ecological knowledge content for the course. Guardians of the Living Waters will hold its annual summer month-long camp on the Crow Reservation in June 2023. Although the Camp is funded from other sources, many of Simonds' and Martin's students and mentees from this grant also serve as Camp counselors, and Eggers (in her role on this grant) participates as an Advisory Board member for integration of water and health research into the Camp. Objective #2) To increase recruitment, retention and graduation of Native students in these and other MSU College of Agriculture (COA) and Health and Human Development (HHD) degree programs. Drs. Eggers, Simonds, Forecki (Co-PI) and Kelly (Co-PI) all actively mentor and will continue to mentor Native STEM students at MSU in bachelor's and graduate degree programs in COA and HHD. Eggers particularly works with environmental science and environmental health mentees to connect them to funded research internships, and works with prospective Native graduate students in these disciplines to match them with graduate advisors and funding. (Forecki and Kelly have other funding sources, hence their accomplishments are not listed here.) These four faculty, plus COA Associate Dean Dougher, College of Engineering retired Associate Dean Camper, Director of the Center for Faculty Excellence Dr. Dean Adams, Dr. Sweeney Windchief (HHD), Director ofAIAN Student Success Lisa Perry or her designee and Rikki Ollinger have started meeting monthly as a leadership team for Native STEM student support, and will continue to do so for FY2. Simonds will continue to work with Native doctoral studentsin her Indigenous and Rural Health PhD program, and two or more Masters students in community health whose graduate research is integrated with our work on this grant. She and one of her MS students will work on cohort building for Native community health undergraduates. We will continue to recruit Native STEM students at MSU and at LBHC to participate in our surveys and focus groups, and Native STEM professionals to participate in interviews. Data analysis will continue and presentation of results, at least to this grant's leadership team and the MSU campus community, will take place in FY2. Objective #3: To increase recruitment of Native American graduate students to the community health graduate degree program at MSU. Simonds will travel to and participate in the National Indian Health Board Conference to recruit community health graduate students. Simonds also recruits through regular informational webinars and extensive travel throughout Montana. In fall 2022, Marsha Small, a N. Cheyenne student, was funded from this grant with a ½ time GRA and works with Dr. Simonds to develop a plan for reaching out to the MSU community health undergraduates to build community. Objective #4: To increase recruitment, retention and graduation of Native students in COA and HHD in part by increasing faculty understanding of Native students and their communities. Eggers will continue to actively support and participate in the Building Families Initiative and the Common Threads Network, for MSU faculty development around mentoring Native students and partnering with Native communities on STEM research and educational initiatives. In the fall of 2022, Martin, LaFrance and Eggers hosted an overnight retreat to the Crow Reservation for MSU faculty who wanted to learn more about the community and become better mentors to Native students. A dozen faculty participated, and Simonds is conducting the evaluaton. A highlight of the experience was a panel of Crow college students and alumni talking about their educational journeys - their challenges, successes, and the support that helped them through school. Objective #5: To conduct ongoing formative and summative evaluation, and to learn from the results, including in annual strategic planning. An offer has been made to a new evaluator. We anticipate meeting with the new evaluator to review and update the initial evaluation plan, during spring semester, 2023. We plan to conduct an annual strategic planning meeting in late May 2023. Objective #6: To disseminate what we've learned to multiple audiences from local (Crow Tribe and MSU) to national. We anticipate disseminating the results of the surveys, focus groups and interviews to both the MSU and LBHC communities during FY2. (Publications are planned for FY3.) Additional dissemination activities will be planned for FY2.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective #1 The community health course was developed over the summer of 2022 by Christine Martin, in consultation with SInonds at MSU, and was taught for the first time in the fall of 2022 (in FY2 of this award). As this was Ms. Martin's first teaching experience, she did not also try to integrate Crow traditional knowledge into the course, but as a Crow Tribal member raised on the Reservation, who has been working in community health in Crow for a decade, she brought extensive relevant personal experience to the course. Martin holds BS and MS degrees in Community Health from MSU. The Water Resources Management course was taught at LBHC during the summer of 2022 by Jonah Morsette. He simultaneously audited MSU's online version of this course during the summer he taught it. He is a Crow Tribal member, grew up on the Crow Reservation and is an LBHC graduate, holds a BS degree in hydrogeology from MSU Bozeman and is a long time STEM faculty member at LBHC. With other funding, Crow college and high school students have the opportunity to learn more aboutwater quality by serving for a month as "Guardians of the Living Waters (GLW) " summer camp counselors for Crow 5th and 6th graders. This camp is led by Simonds and Martin, which allowsthem to mentor Crow students interested in community health and/or water resources thru both grants. Eggers (in her capacity with this grant) is a member of the Advisory Committee for GLW, and helps with developingthe hands-on water quality research component of the camp. Objective #2 We collaborate with the 2020 USDA NIFA NBTS award, which funds Ms. Rikki Ollinger as the Program Coordinator/mentor for Native STEM students in the College of Agriculture. Her activities are reported in the BCC/MSU annual report for their 2020 award. Community Health Dr. Simonds developed a Qualtrics survey and focus group questions to better understand the perspectives of Native STEM students at MSU and MT TCs.33 surveys and one focus group with six Tribal College students have been completed. Students were asked about additional support they wished they had at MSU and some responded that they lacked mentoring and wanted more emotional support or connections with peers. This emphasizes the importance of connecting students through our community building activities. Native Students' surveys also mentioned things they wished their professors knew, including understanding more about the communities the students come from, the close connections students have to their extended family, their connection to land and tradition, as well as making sure professors recognize the diversity within and across tribes. Transfer students also wanted to have a more centralized way of getting information about the transfer process and resources available at MSU. In a related project partly supported by this grant, Martin has been conducting interviews with Crow STEM professionals. One of Simonds' MS students is leading the qualitative analysis. These interviews are illuminating ways that Crow STEM professionalsintegrate traditional knowledge with their STEM careers and research projects. Martin explains: "All participants emphasized the love they have for our culture, mountains, animals and water ways. We want to use this information to encourage the youth to make good decisions for our people, land, and future generations and hope to engage them in learning and practicing Apsalooke values and concepts. This is important for the youth and their families, so they can balance between western science and Apsalooke knowledge successfully to become stewards of our land.": The information gained from these surveys, focus groups and interviews can help inform the types of support that our team (and MSU in general) can provide for Indigenous students. Environmental Science & Environmental Health Eggers mentors Native undergraduate, graduate and prospective graduate students in the focus disciplines for this grant, including: Mentoring Crow student Michaiah Pease, who transferred from a MT Tribal college into MSU'sEnvironmental Science degree program, and has been awarded a $5000 Native Science Fellowship. Mentoring Tillie Stewart who returned from Little Big Horn College to MSU to finish her BS in Environmental Health; Eggers connected her with a paid internship in environmental health policy with the Western Transportation Institute. Met with three prospective STEM majors from LBHC when they came to visit MSU with their faculty advisors. Two are interested in environmental science/ecology and one is pre-med. Eggers will continue to follow up with them. Matched Crow graduate student applicant Miranda Rowland with Dr. David McWethy in the Earth Sciences Department, and with colleagues and full ride funding from the USDA to conduct paleo fire history research in Montana. Ms. Rowland began her graduate studies in the summer of 2022, and is excelling. Mentoring Crow Tribal member Madison Chavez, who plans to apply to graduate school at MSU inEnvironmental Science. Ms. Chavez just completed her BS in environmental studies at MSU Billings. Eggers connected her with two potential graduate advisors. Mentored Alaska Native environmental health major Annie Ferguson, who graduated from MSU in December 2021 and began medical school on a full ride scholarship at U of North Dakota in fall of 2022. Mentored Native environmental science student Russell Conti in applying to Hopa Mountain for a $5000 Native Science Fellowship to continue his research on water quality and fisheries in MT, in conjunction with MSUExtension. He plans to use his Fellowshipfor his graduate research at MSU; beginning fall of 2023. Provided funding for Blackfeet Community College natural resource major (and Tribal member) Shawna Illig, to conduct research on her Reservation with COA faculty member Dr. Bruce Maxwell, during the summers of 2021 and 2022. Shawna graduated from BCC with her Associates and transferred to the Sustainable Foods Program at MSU, . Mentored Native environmental health major Rose Mary Antone during the 2021-2022 school year, and helped her secure an internship with the Water Resources Department on her home reservation (Rocky Boy) along with a $5000 Native Science Fellowship from Hopa Mountain. Eggers participates regularly in MSU's Council of American Indian Programs (CAIP) meetings. CAIP is composed primarily of staff working with Native students in various student support programs, so participation in CAIP allows us to coordinate this grant's activities with programs across campus. Rikki Ollinger, the USDA NIFA NBTS 2020 Program Coordinator, co-directs CAIP. Eggers is an active member of the Microbiology Dept's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, which meets monthly and works to increase and support DEI in the department. Objective #3: Simonds directs the new Indigenous and Rural Health (IRH) doctoral degree program at MSU. During FY1 of this grant, eight new Native students started in the IRH program and are doing well. Roni Knows Gun, a N. Cheyenne student, is a MS community health student who used this grant's ½ time GRAto work on the Guardians of the Living Water project as a research assistant. She was trained in evaluation research methods and assisted with developing program activities for youth at Crow in our research projects. Objective #4 See Training and Professional Development section below. During the summer of 2022, Eggers, Martin and JoRee LaFrance planned an overnight retreat to Little Big Horn College and the Crow Reservation for a dozen MSU faculty member, for fall 2022. Among the retreat activities was a panel of current MSU and LBHC students and alumni.
Publications
- Type:
Book Chapters
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Doyle, J.*, Martin, C.*, Young, S.L.*, Lefthand, M.J.*, Three Irons, E.*, Eggers, M.J. 2022. Graduate Research Serving Aps�alooke Communities. In Atalay, S. and McCleary, A., Editors. The Community-Based PhD: Complexities and Triumphs of Conducting CBPR. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ. *Aps�alooke Tribal members
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