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Two decades earlier, Bancroft, who is a member of the Long Pine Paiute-Shoshone Reservation of California's eastern Sierra Nevadas, started her undergraduate education as one of very few Native Americans at a large research university in California. She lasted less than two years in the pre-med program before rushing back to the familiar embrace of her Sierra Nevada homeland. A few years later she moved to Colorado so that her two young sons could experience the culture of their father, who is a member of the Ute tribe. "It was so impersonal before," she recalls. "What scared me about it was that the classes were so large, but there really wasn't anybody that you could ask if you had questions." Personal attention is one of the keys to Fort Lewis's success in the sciences. Nestled in the mountains of southwestern Colorado, with a view of Durango, the winding Animas River, and the snowcapped La Plata mountains, Fort Lewis is a part of the Colorado State University system. But it is also a liberal arts college with a student population of just over 4,000. The personal attention made possible by its small size is a big advantage for minority students — including the 500 or so Native Americans in the student body. Free tuition, a product of a 19th-century treaty, is just one incentive Fort Lewis offers to Native Americans. The college begins recruiting from the 25 reservations within 150 miles of campus as early as the fifth grade, with faculty and current and past students touting the benefits of the college. The recruiting does not end once a student has decided to enroll at Fort Lewis. Every incoming freshman with promising grades and achievement test scores receives a personal letter from chemistry professor John Ritchey touting the career possibilities made available by studying science. Then, once classes have begun, biology and chemistry faculty members—who work together closely on recruitment and retention issues—try to get to know their students, both in the classroom and in extracurricular help sessions and social events. "I have a Native American student in my introductory chemistry class who is on the verge of failing," says Ritchey. "I made a point to introduce myself to her in the beginning of the semester. Now I've written a note to her asking her to come see me so we can figure out how she can do better. I can't be sure she won't fail. But she won't slip through the cracks." The personalized attention continues as students progress. Faculty members encourage students to get involved in research and to travel during the summer to take advantage of research opportunities. They also try to get upperclassmen to help underclassmen and area high school students, in part to attract new students to the program. This attention has been paying off. "Ten, fifteen years ago we almost never had a Native American graduate in biology," says biology professor Preston Somers. Now Native Americans represent 10 to 15 percent of the biology department's approximately 45 majors per year, and the numbers are up sharply in recent years. |
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athy Bancroft had several reasons for studying biology and chemistry
at Fort Lewis College. Free tuition for Native American students was a big
incentive. The fact that she lives in nearby Cortez, Colorado, was a plus,
too. But the biggest factor in attending Fort Lewis in her late 30s, Bancroft
recalls, was her feeling of not being alone.
The personalized attention that students receive at Fort Lewis College
is also a feature of the biology program at the much larger
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