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This week UW-Madison announced the Wisconsin Tribal Education Promise Program.
Starting in fall 2024, members of 11 federally recognized tribes in the state will be able to attend the flagship campus all expenses paid for undergraduates and full tuition for law and medical students.
We're joined now by UW-Madison Director of Tribal Relations, Carla Viju, for more, and thanks very much for being here.
Well, thank you for having me.
So what is the reaction to this Tribal Education Promise Program from tribal nation members across Wisconsin?
I think everyone's really excited.
UW-Madison, like you said, is one of the states, or is actually one of the country's premier universities.
And we've been working with tribes for the better part of a year on this proposal, and we finally brought it to fruition.
But essentially what happens is, if you are, like you said, a resident of Wisconsin, a member of one of our 11 federally recognized tribes, and you get admitted to UW-Madison, will take care of the full cost of admission, which is not just tuition, but room, board, books, fees, and a few other little things too.
What is it like for you to be able to roll this out, even as Speaker Voss, whom we just heard from, works to dismantle diversity, inclusion, and equity programs?
Yeah, I mean, there's other things happening in the state capital, but really, for us, we sat down with tribal leaders many months ago, and we said, if we have this idea, other states do it, other universities do it.
And so we talked to them and said, this is an idea we have, and how can we move forward with it?
We've been very fortunate all 11 of the tribes came to the table and sat with the chancellor and I, and talked it through, and we shared stories.
One of the tribal leaders talked about sleeping in his car while he was at undergrad, and others talked about, you know, food insecurity and other things.
And as we sat around the table and talked about things, this is what we came up with, and I think it's a really good proposal, and there are other things happening in the world, but this is something we worked really hard on together.
So as you mentioned, other states do this, but are other states offering such robust kind of packages to include all of the living expenses?
Most don't. I think, you know, like I said, we weren't the first out of the gate with this sort of plan, but I think we're the best.
Maybe that's just me talking, but yeah, I think, you know, like I said, we sat down and we talked through all the scenarios and how many semesters and what it should include and all of those things.
And I think we came up to an agreement with the tribes that this is really how we should do it in order to support Native students.
Is it unusual as well to pay tuition for law or medical school?
Yeah, so that was where we gave a little surprise to the tribes at one point, and we said we spoke to the law school and the medical school, and they both agreed to tuition.
And you know, there are different kind of students right there a little bit older, so we didn't include some of those other things, but tuition for law school and med school, that's a very big deal.
Yeah, it's a big expense. So there are no income restrictions with this because I understand about promoting a UW Madison education to Native students.
Why is that important?
Well, I think one of the things, so when I first sat down with the Chancellor, when I first took my position, she and I talked about this, and for us, it's both about giving back to the community, but also acknowledging that this university that we work for is built on land that was, you know,
forcibly removed from the whole chunk nation, and so both of those things in combination of just wanting to do the right thing for Native students.
Describe for us what you say is at the heart of the Native community as it relates to this program.
Yeah, I think when we talked about it, like I said, it's really about taking care of our community, and I'm Native American. I grew up on the Oneida Indian Reservation.
I have two little boys, Hunter and Otto, and the way we always think about community is how do we give back and how do we take care of the next seven generations?
And so it's not just about decisions that are good for me or my little boys or even their kids, but seven generations down the road. How are we taking care of those seven generations?
Do you have any understanding of how many students might participate?
We do, not really kind of, that's a bad answer, but so we have some numbers, but right now people self-report, so anyone who claims Native ancestry can report that they're Native, they don't have to.
But with this program, you'll have to now show you're enrolled in one of Wisconsin's 11 tribes, so we'll get better data as we go along.
And presumably, as you said about offering this program, there was a certain amount of money set aside. Do you have an expectation as to what that will be?
We, you know, we're rolling this out in, you know, December and the application deadline's February, so we're not expecting this first year to be a huge number.
I think we'll see what this first year looks like and then be able to build from there, and this is really the first iteration of this program, hopefully.
Maybe we can grow it, or maybe this is going to be, you know, satisfactory enough, but I think we'll have more data after this first year.
Have you gotten calls from students saying, tell me about this?
I've gotten a lot of calls. My poor admissions department is, like, probably overwhelmed by people I'm sending their way, but it's really fun because, you know, family and friends are reaching out to, and I'm getting to, like, say, yes, they'll qualify.
And I will say, I also got to call one of the students who's already here on campus.
She's a student from LeCouda Ray. Her name's Callistra. Callistra, she joined us this week while we were announcing the program.
And as I was describing the program to her, she just got silent and then very excited, and I was even a little bit overwhelmed by it all because I just got to tell someone we were going to take care of them.
That's awesome. Carla, V2. Thanks very much.
Thank you.