SUNY Potsdam is Awarded National Indian Education Professional Development Grant

POTSDAM, NY (12/04/2014) The State University of New York at Potsdam has been awarded an $878,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education, through the 2014 Indian Education Professional Development program.

SUNY Potsdam will prepare and train qualified Native American students to become teachers and school administrators over four years through the program, which is coordinated through the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Indian Education.

“SUNY Potsdam is very proud to be able to offer this much needed program. With our long history of excellence in teacher education, and our longstanding relationship with the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, the College is uniquely positioned to support Native American educators,” said Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Margaret E. Madden.

SUNY Potsdam’s School of Education and Professional Studies will partner with the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe at Akwesasne, and other native nations in New York State. The College will also work with local school districts with a significant number of native students.

Through the project, SUNY Potsdam will recruit and select a cohort of 10 Native American students studying education, with the goal of creating a support network and preparing them for success teaching in area schools. The College will also design innovative courses hosted and taught by Mohawk educators, as well as bringing Native American issues into the curriculum through a faculty advocate.

In the long term, the grant will allow the College to develop an education curriculum integrating Native American pedagogy, as part of a culturally responsive approach to teaching. This will ultimately allow SUNY Potsdam to attract and train more American Indian teacher education students in the future.

“As director of the Native American Initiative at SUNY Potsdam and a resident of Akwesasne, I am thrilled that the College can offer this opportunity to Native American students wishing to become teachers,” said Sheila Marshall, who also directs the Center for Diversity. “What a great match this is -- the Indian Education Professional Development Grant and SUNY Potsdam’s School of Education. It doesn’t get much better than this.”

The purposes of the Indian Education Professional Development program are: to increase the number of qualified Indian individuals in professions that serve Indians; provide training to qualified Indian individuals to become teachers, administrators, teacher aides, social workers, and ancillary educational personnel, and improve the skills of qualified Indian individuals who serve in the education field.

SUNY Potsdam was one of five campuses nationwide who were awarded the competitive grant this year. The others winners include the University of Massachusetts Boston, Portland University (Oregon), Arizona State University and Southeastern Oklahoma State University.

SUNY Potsdam is more diverse than ever, with nearly 30 percent of the student body identifying as being students of color. The College also has one of the largest Native American student populations in the State University of New York system.