This qualitative study seeks to determine the critical elements and activities that comprise the cultural history of Dine College as the first tribally controlled college in the United States. An oral history methodology utilizing a narrative Dine "story-telling" inquiry approach allowed this study to blend stories, songs, prayers, and ceremonies from the Dine creation stories to challenge a host of social, educational, and cultural issues which the Dine people confronted in establishing the first post-secondary educational institution on tribal land, owned and operated by tribal people. Goals of this institution were to prepare students for further academic studies, employment, and culturally astuteness. Cultural history reflects the traditional stories, songs, prayers, and ceremonies of a people, and is used here to reconstruct the events of the past to gain a fair, accurate, and objective understanding of Dine College's unique philosophy of Sa'ah Naaghai Bik'eh Hozhoon and its related components: Nitsahakees-Thinking, Nahata-Planning, Iina-Living and Siih Hasin-Achievement. Through oral history narratives of four key Navajo individuals who were directly and indirectly involved in the College's founding, five key themes are revealed: land, leadership, mission, philosophy, and curriculum. They converge together to weave the cultural history of Dine College.

This research is an exploration of students' meaning making around physical concepts through connections to students' funds of knowledge. This qualitative case study, influenced by Indigenous methodologies, focused on two Native students in a tribal college introductory physics course, exploring the personal, cultural, and philosophical connections that were voiced in dialogic interactions among the students and instructor. The data were collected through audio recordings of class sessions and reflective journaling by the instructor/researcher. Analysis identified dialogues in which meaning making took place, and the funds of knowledge that students brought to bear on these dialogues. The results of the analysis of these meaning-making occasions are presented by physical concept. For both students, the cultural connections they brought in were ways for them to incorporate their out-of-class identities and to consider their cultures from a scientific perspective. The influence of the students' personal connections was just as important as that of the cultural connections; the shared classroom context was also a valuable resource in the for collaborative meaning making. Both students both enjoyed examining the philosophical and spiritual implications of physical ideas; these dialogues provided windows into students' thinking that would not have been accessible in other ways. The students also made meanings about the nature of science that meshed with their identities and created a space for them to identify as scientists, and both came to view science as part of their cultural heritage. Allowing students free reign to make connections and empowering them to make decisions about their own learning were means of encouraging students to develop meaningful conceptual understanding. By investigating the meanings students made around physical content, we can learn about what motivates them, what is important to them, and potentially how to structure curricula that will better support their meaning making in other courses.

In this case study, I examine the graduation patterns of students attending Chief Dull Knife College located on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Lame Deer, Montana. While comparing the characteristics of students attending this college with that of two-year colleges nationally and tribal schools throughout the nation, we begin to understand the unique situation that this community faces. With the use of logistic and linear regressions, I explored the characteristics of those who graduate and ask the question, who graduates and what makes them unique? This study found that the credits attempted per semester, the number of credits they earned divided by the number of credits they attempted, and the number of semesters enrolled were the most significant factors. Using the information collected from the literature review, this study then used linear regressions to explore the effects of the initial variables on these three significant variables.