A grant to the American Indian College Fund will further the Foundation’s support for Native intellectual leaders and the development of research tools and resources for Native leaders and communities. For several years, the College Fund has made a concerted effort to bolster tribal colleges’ research capacity, and this grant will provide renewed funding for faculty to attend research conferences, participate in writing workshops, and publish their work.

“We are honored to partner again with the American Indian College Fund to support tribal college and university faculty,” said Sean T. Buffington, Vice President of the Henry Luce Foundation. “TCUs are among indigenous nations’ most important resources; their faculty are teachers and mentors to their students and are also critical knowledge makers and knowledge keepers in their communities. The Luce Foundation is proud to provide these leaders with the resources they need for their essential work.”

The American Indian College Fund (the College Fund) will continue its work to strengthen the leadership at tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) and the institutions they serve in American Indian communities with a two-year, $250,000 grant from The Henry Luce Foundation. The grant will create research opportunities for TCU faculty with the goal of establishing a culture of research across the TCU system of postsecondary institutions serving remote, rural Indian reservations and communities.

TCUs are unique institutions of higher education chartered by tribal governments as sovereign acts of reclaiming higher education for tribal citizens and communities. The majority of TCUs operate much like community colleges while providing culturally and place-based higher education for Native people. Faculty members tend to carry heavy teaching loads and demanding administrative duties at their institutions, and although they are not expected to conduct research, many TCUs have recognized the need for research projects within and for TCUs and tribal communities and to grow their own leaders and researchers.

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