This thesis argues the need for major change in higher education options currently available to Native American students in the United States. Universities and Tribal Colleges represent the most common choices that Native students opt for in seeking degrees in tertiary education. However, for the most part, Universities and Tribal Colleges are not working effectively enough to produce the levels of success that are significantly transforming of the wider social, economic and cultural crisis conditions within many Native American communities. This thesis will focus on how to develop a major transformation of the higher education sector generally, a focus which also positively includes the underdeveloped potential that lies within the Tribal Colleges and Native programs in various university sites. This thesis attempts to clarify what has gone wrong in the higher education of Native Americans and to propose a national, innovative strategy for intervention. Identifying what is problematic in existing approaches will build critical insights that will inform the new strategies for change. The overall argument is that new institutions which are more sensitive and responsive to Indigenous aspirations first and foremost, need to be considered as a key in transforming Native American higher education performance. Rather than define absolutely all of the possible ingredients of what might be included in a new higher education model, this thesis works first to identify and aggregate a number of key barriers and constraints by collating different information streams. Once identified these critical elements, practices, values and structures that are deemed to be the major barriers to Native success are then used to inform the proposed new institutional framework. While a single institution model is ultimately proposed by this thesis, it should be regarded as ‘an’ answer, not ‘the’ answer. A broader intention of this thesis is to bring more focus to this area of concern and underdevelopment within Higher Education and suggest that there are different answers and possibilities (as the Maori examples have demonstrated) that are truly innovative, and which can profoundly impact Native American individual and community social, economic, cultural and political development and advancement.

This thesis argues the need for major change in higher education options currently available to Native American students in the United States. Universities and Tribal Colleges represent the most common choices that Native students opt for in seeking degrees in tertiary education. However, for the most part, Universities and Tribal Colleges are not working effectively enough to produce the levels of success that are significantly transforming of the wider social, economic and cultural crisis conditions within many Native American communities. This thesis will focus on how to develop a major transformation of the higher education sector generally, a focus which also positively includes the underdeveloped potential that lies within the Tribal Colleges and Native programs in various university sites. This thesis attempts to clarify what has gone wrong in the higher education of Native Americans and to propose a national, innovative strategy for intervention. Identifying what is problematic in existing approaches will build critical insights that will inform the new strategies for change. The overall argument is that new institutions which are more sensitive and responsive to Indigenous aspirations first and foremost, need to be considered as a key in transforming Native American higher education performance. Rather than define absolutely all of the possible ingredients of what might be included in a new higher education model, this thesis works first to identify and aggregate a number of key barriers and constraints by collating different information streams. Once identified these critical elements, practices, values and structures that are deemed to be the major barriers to Native success are then used to inform the proposed new institutional framework. While a single institution model is ultimately proposed by this thesis, it should be regarded as an answer, not the answer. A broader intention of this thesis is to bring more focus to this area of concern and underdevelopment within Higher Education and suggest that there are different answers and possibilities (as the Maori examples have demonstrated) that are truly innovative, and which can profoundly impact Native American individual and community social, economic, cultural and political development and advancement.

The Dog Child site (FbNp-24) is located within the confines of the Wanuskewin Heritage Park, approximately 3 km north of the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It is a multicomponent site containing six occupation levels. The site was excavated throughout the 2004, 2005, and 2006 field seasons with the assistance of the University of Saskatchewan archaeological field school and the Saskatchewan Archaeological Society field school. Projectile point, pottery, and other technologies deemed specific to a cultural period, in addition to radiocarbon age assessment, have revealed six occupations related to five different series or complexes. These include the Plains Side-Notched complex, Prairie Side-Notched complex, Duncan/Hanna complex, Oxbow complex, and Mummy Cave series. Two levels have been ascribed to the latter series. The Mummy Cave series occupation is an area of focus as it contributes to our knowledge surrounding Northern Plains occupation during the Mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum. The archaeological artifacts and features in addition to the geoarchaeological setting have been documented in order to create a comparative survey expressing the context and extent of these cultural periods.

<p>Rock art documentation often draws from a range of recording perspectives, in which each framework facilitates different recording goals, preconceptions, and methods. As a result, each recording project collects different types of information from a rock art panel. The intricate and visually striking rock art murals painted on rockshelter walls in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwestern Texas demand and benefit from the application of artistic, avocational archaeological, and professional archaeological documentation frameworks. </p><p> This research provided a case study that analyzed different recording projects of the Rattlesnake Canyon mural (41VV180), a Pecos River style pictograph panel located in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands. I applied a critical theoretical framework and the concept of &ldquo;capta&rdquo; to review and analyze the rock art documentation perspectives, methods, and materials collected from three major recording projects of the Rattlesnake Canyon mural. I focused on projects completed by artist Forrest Kirkland, the Texas Archeological Society (TAS) avocational archaeological Rock Art Task Force (RATF), and an illustration of the Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center&rsquo;s (Shumla) recording process, to examine differences between artistic, avocational archaeological, and professional archaeological recording frameworks and methods. </p><p> This case study demonstrated the ways in which the specific framework or perspective of a recorder influenced the methods selected for documentation and the types of information collected during rock art recording. The results of this critical analysis showed that the different recording projects shared a similar goal: to preserve the Rattlesnake Canyon mural for future generations and continued archaeological study. The three different projects, however, drew from distinct recording frameworks that influenced the overall conception of the panel, the methods selected for recording, and the types of information collected. </p><p> In this case study, I suggested that rock art researchers, specifically those from a professional archaeological framework, value the incorporation of different perspectives and methods into rock art documentation. The inclusion of varied perspectives and methods brings different skillsets and expertise to rock art recording. In addition, each recording project gathers different kinds of information from rock art murals that can be used in different ways by subsequent recorders, researchers, and land managers. This critical analysis of previous rock art recording projects also demonstrated that existing rock art documentation legacy materials continue to serve as productive resources for further research, management, and public education purposes. </p>

<p> The Town Creek mound site, located in Montgomery County, North Carolina, is classified as Mississippian based on the archaeological evidence for intensive maize agriculture, the presence of complicated stamped ceramics, and the presence of an earthen platform mound. In my research, I studied hinterland sites within a 40-km radius of the mound site to determine how Mississippian settlement patterns in the surrounding region changed through time. I used ceramic analysis and the presence and absence of diagnostic artifacts to create an occupational history of hinterland sites. I also used spatial analysis to delineate polity boundaries and compare spatial patterns to others established in the region. When ceramic and spatial data were combined, patterns emerged suggesting that fewer hinterland sites were occupied during the height of Town Creek&rsquo;s occupation, and more hinterland sites were occupied when Town Creek&rsquo;s population was dwindling. These patterns suggest that as people moved away from Town Creek, they were relocating within the mound site&rsquo;s immediate vicinity. Spatial analysis also showed a break in hinterland sites at 18 km during all of Town Creek&rsquo;s occupation, indicating that the administrative center at Town Creek had an influence of at least 18 km.</p>

This dissertation explores the unique political and cultural possibilities that public performance held for Native American activists and artists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Not only did these performance texts, generated in multiple genres, offer a counternarrative to the mainstream discourse of Native assimilation, they also provided Native writer-performers with a vehicle for embodying tribally-specific epistemologies, cosmologies, and diplomatic histories. These Native dramatists transformed the stage into a site of political possibility left unrealized on the printed page, a site where they could revise images of their peoples from shadows and stereotypes to sovereign nations. Included in this study are analyses of the speaking tours of Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins/Thocmetony (Northern Paiute), the performance poetry of Emily Pauline Johnson/Tekahionwake (Mohawk), an opera co-written by Gertrude Bonnin/Zitkala-Ša (Yankton Dakota), and pageants performed by the Garden River First Nation (Ketegaunseebee Anishinaabe). Drawing primarily on contemporary scholarship in Native American literary studies, including American Indian literary nationalism and internationalism, the burgeoning work in Native American performance studies, and methodologies from theater history, the following chapters contextualize both printed and performance versions of these texts with tribally-specific political, economic, and cultural histories, as well as performance reviews and broader federal Indian policy of the time. / text

<p> Throughout the history of the National Park Service, the question of whether Native American&rsquo;s still have rights to traditionally used natural resources found within park lands has been debated. This debate is largely held in political, legal, and philosophical arenas, but there are ethnographic and ecological questions that need to be addressed in order for policy makers to make informed decisions. Addressing these questions also provides insight into how cultures develop sustainable harvesting practices. One of the parks that has been addressing traditional plant harvesting is Mount Rainier National Park, which has been working with the Nisqually Indian Tribe to develop a collecting agreement that would allow members of the Tribe to harvest twelve species of plants. In this dissertation, I ask two questions: first, how do members of the Nisqually Tribe traditionally harvest these plants? My other question is: what are the biological effects of harvesting beargrass (<i>Xerophyllum tenax</i> (Pursh) Nutt.) and pipsissewa (<i> Chimaphila umbellata</i> (R. BR.) Spreng,), and peeling bark of western redcedar (<i>Thuja plicata</i> Donn. Ex D. Don)? I used a combination of ethnographic and ecological methods to answer these questions. Based on the metrics I used, the Nisqually practices do not decrease the abundance of beargrass and pipsissewa. The traditional harvest of cedar bark does not change the tree&rsquo;s secondary growth rate. The lack of measureable change in these three species is a product of limiting the amount of biomass harvested to within the plants&rsquo; range of tolerance to damage. Results suggest that the Nisqually&rsquo;s methods of harvesting are based upon traditional ecological knowledge. The results of this research will help Mount Rainier managers and the Nisqually Tribe to develop policy that allows the Tribe to utilize these plants while not interfering with the park&rsquo;s mission. </p>

Utilizing data from the Oklahoma Department of Health Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) for the years 2004 through 2011, this study examines racial and ethnic differences in unhealthy maternal behaviors and the consequences of those actions on the health of both mother and child. The maternal behavior variables include smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, multivitamin use, and prenatal care utilization. The maternal health variables include gestational diabetes and hypertension. The labor and delivery outcome variables include placental issues, premature rupture of membranes (PROM), low birth weight, and child placement in an intensive care unit. This researcher hypothesized that minorities would engage in risky and unhealthy behaviors while pregnant more often than whites due to social disadvantages in the economic and educational realms. Furthermore, minorities would be more likely than whites to have unfavorable outcomes regarding labor, delivery, and health of the child due to lower socioeconomic status, poor maternal health, and underutilization of preventative care. The researcher finds that minority women seem to adhere to proper maternal health recommendations associated with personal choice, including smoking and drinking, though disparities are evident when compared to whites regarding behaviors associated with socioeconomic status, including prenatal care utilization and multivitamin use. African American women are more likely than whites to experience premature rupture of the membranes, have an underweight baby, and to place their baby in ICU, though less likely to experience placental issues. Native American women are less likely than whites to experience premature rupture of the membranes, have an underweight baby, and to place their baby in ICU, but more likely to experience placental issues. As expected, substantial changes have occurred in the maternal health and well-being of Oklahoma mothers over the course of the two PRAMS data collection phases.

This thesis uses Native American Student Affairs (NASA) at the University of Arizona (UA) as a case study to see where NASA matches and diverges from the current literature on Native American Cultural Centers (NACC). Twenty-eight current Native American undergraduates and graduates were surveyed about their views on NASA, and their responses were then analyzed for common themes. The findings showed that NASA was similar to the current research when it came to themes of community, promoting culture, feeling less isolated, networking, and having an independent space. It diverged on one demographic aspect, namely a significant portion of student respondents came from reservations, which is not reflective of the Native community in the United States as a whole. Additionally, it mentioned the importance of event hosting, which is not mentioned in the current literature at all. The majority of students identified NASA as creating a space for them to feel supported, provide resources, network, and host events that promote awareness of Native American issues. The thesis ends with recommendations for NASA based on the responses, and advocates for further research to delve deeper into the nuances of NACC's and their responsibility to continuously adapt to the needs of their students.

<p> The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to examine the relationships between demographic characteristics, self-efficacy, and persistence factors that attribute to the academic performance of American Indian college students who completed 24 semester credits or one year of college. The data collection instrument used were three surveys administered as one web-based survey. The surveys included a 10-item demographic survey, 15-item Modified General Self-Efficacy Exam, and 34-item College Persistence Questionnaire used to obtain data on student self-efficacy and factors that attribute to college persistence. The respondents were American Indian undergraduate students (<i>N</i>=201) who attended a community college branch located in the rural Southwest. The collected data were interpreted using a bivariate correlation and multi-regression statistical analysis using SPSS version 21. The study findings described characteristics of American Indian college students who showed high levels of self-efficacy. The study findings also showed that college persistence factor, academic conscientiousness, was statistically significant in predicting students&rsquo; cumulative grade point average (GPA) range. The findings of this study shed light on the need to explore additional factors that perceive to affect the self-efficacy, college persistence, and academic performance of American Indian college students in the rural Southwest. </p>