The Intermountain School started in January of 1950, being converted from vacated arm hospital to a boarding school for Navajo students. Funds for the support of the school are appropriated by Congress through the Department of Interior and the Indian Bureau. The school is exclusively for Navajo students, and it grew as fast as facilities were remodeled and new buildings were constructed, until capacity was reached. During the first school year, 1950, there were enrolled 503 students. This has increased each succeeding year until capacity was reached in 1954-55 when 2,311 students were enrolled. The staff of the school has increased proportionally with the student body. At the time of this writing, school year 1954-55, there are 445 staff members. These include personnel for administration, supervision, instruction, guidance, accounting, health, food and clothing, custodian service, protective service and maintenance.

This study was conducted to continue the investigation of apparent differences in cognitive ii abilities between Navajo Indian children and non-Navajo children. Subjects were 248 second-grade students, ranging from 7 to 9 years old. The Navajo sample lived in the Shiprock, New Mexico, area of the Navajo Indian Reservation, and the non-Navajo sample lived on the east side of Salt Lake City, Utah. Data were collected using six tests designed to measure spatial abilities in primary grade children. Results indicated that the non-Navajo children scored significantly higher on two individual tests and on the total test score under timed conditions, with no differences between groups when timing was not a factor. Two factors were identified for both groups. Factor loadings were different between the groups. As the scoring moved from timed to extended time, it changed for the nonNavajo children but remained the same for the Navajo group. Discriminate function analysis indicated a moderate ability to predict group membership using these tests. Gender differences were noted as well, with females scoring significantly lower than males on timed but not on extended time. Some race/gender interactions also were recorded. Suggestions were made that differences may be related to varying strategies used by not only different racial groups but by both genders as well. The within-group variability indicated a need for investigation of individual differences as well as group differences. Suggestions included using a greater number of instruments, an exploration of strategies, and using a examiner familiar to the students.

This is a creative thesis comprised of three short stories centered on the experiences of three Navajo protagonists living on the Navajo reservation. The short stories fit within the field of Native American Literature and highlight issues of mortality, sexuality, and ceremony. The stories illustrate the experiences of modern-day Navajo youth grappling to understand how to connect traditional knowledge with modernity. The three stories featured within this thesis are offered as a way to understand these challenges. Each protagonist is faced with an issue of morality, sexuality, or ceremony, and each reach differing conclusions about these topics within their lives. This collection is comprised of three short stories entitled “Dormant,” “Under the Porch Way,” and “The Missing Morningstar.” The first story, “Dormant,” is about a young female Navajo protagonist and her budding relationship with her math teacher. She has a pregnancy scare and considers the meaning of motherhood and her sexuality. The second story, “Under the Porch Way,” is about an adolescent Navajo boy who is being haunted by his father’s ghost, and has a traditional ceremony done, but it fails to work. Instead, after attempting to have sex with his girlfriend, Jenni, under the porch, he finds that his father’s ghost has left him. The final story “The Missing Morningstar,” is about a young two-spirit woman whose romantic interest is kidnapped and left for dead in a ditch. The protagonist considers her sexuality and traditional Navajo identity.

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This thesis thrives to promote community health and wellbeing through smart design, celebrating culture(s), and offering efficacious and real-world solutions to mitigate certain challenges arising from the imminent threat of climate change and the gradual depletion of our planet's natural resources. The projected building harnesses naturel forces, minimizes energy consumption, and uses natural/passive strategies like thermal mass and natural ventilation. Interior spaces enjoy an abundance of Natural lighting, biophilic attributes, and thera-serlized or uninterrupted views. It generates electrical energy due to adequate solar power and clear skies, especially in hot and arid climates like the proposed location of the project in Tuba City, AZ. In my proposal of a sustainable, community-focused, wellness center, this project will attempt to embrace diversity, celebrate the Navajos heritage through incorporating their belief system and culture into the genius Loci of the place, which will have a long-term healing effect on patients during their journey of recovery. The Navajo nation is a native American reservation and a self-governing community located in the southwest of the US between four states (UT, AZ, NM, CO). Since it's an Underserved, marginalized, and medically under-resourced community, the Navajo Nation was prone to COVID-19 onslaught in 2020, which resulted in substantial number of cases compared to other US states. / Master of Architecture / In Dec 2020, the World witnessed the first case of Coronavirus disease or COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. The disease has since spread rapidly worldwide, leading to an ongoing pandemic. Like many countries across the globe, the health system in the United States of America has to grabble with this deadly virus by inducing measures such as mask mandates and lockdowns in many US states. Unfortunately, and due to economic and social disparities, COVID-19 pandemic has brought injustice and inequity to the forefront of public health. Some communities were hit hard due to lack of emergency response, the availability of health professionals, and healthcare infrastructure. Tuba city, which is the Diné or the Navajo nation second-largest community in Coconino County, AZ, was majorly hit with COVID-19 resulting in a significant number of cases compared to other US cities. This project is a critical component of an emergency preparedness matrix that can firstly; help absorb the shock of such outbreaks by providing primary and outpatient services. Secondly; it offers community-focused and wellness service that can empower underserved, under-resourced and valuable communities like the Navajo Nation. This project is unique due to its inherited and embedded characteristics of bringing the Navajo tradition into the spirit of the building, by celebrating their culture making it a key component in a patent's healing process.

This study focuses on the wealth stratification system of the Navajo of the Kaibeto Plateau. The Kaibeto Plateau was settled by the Navajo in the mid-nineteenth century. By the 1930s they had developed an economically and socially stratified society rooted in a livestock economy and influenced by institutions of the surrounding society. In the years since livestock activities have been severely constrained by the federal government: Holdings have been radically decreased and pastoralism has ceased to be the main source of income and subsistence. These changes are described and analyzed. Wealth stratification is conceived of as a phenomenon to be explained and one which has implications for the study of social change. In the 1930s a handful of families owned most of the livestock in the region. These families were, uniformly, descendants of the wealthier and more prominent early settlers. Even after federal programs destroyed the economic advantage these wealthy families possessed, the children of the relatively wealthy have, at least until recent years, continued to prosper (relative to their poorer neighbors) in various ways. They have, on average, higher levels of educational attainment and better occupational profiles. The different responses of individuals at different levels in the social hierarchy have effected the composition of the rural population. More descendants of the wealthy have moved away and/or married individuals from distant communities. Social structures which functioned in the livestock economy to integrate families in the region have disintegrated. The chapter has emerged as an important social and political unit. Although the wealthy families seemed to have dominated chapter politics initially, recent elections indicate a declining influence. The historical facts reported here indicate the importance of social variability in the study of social change. It is argued that the Navajo were never a socially homogeneous group. Thus institutional pressures and shifting government policies have not affected all families in the same manner. Such findings have implications not only for the way in which anthropologists theorize about tribal people and social change, but also have implications for those responsible government officials who seek to formulate solutions to perceived problems on contemporary American Indian reservations.

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This textual record of the making of the social issue documentary film A Native American Dream examines theoretical and practical considerations of the filmmaker during the pre-production, production, and post-production stages. It also examines the disciplines of anthropology and ethnography in terms of modern documentary filmmaking and evaluates the film within these contexts.

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