Advanced degree program launched by Muckleshoot Tribe, UW Tacoma

The University of Washington Tacoma and the Muckleshoot Tribal College of Auburn have teamed up to launch what is likely the first doctoral program to be taught on tribal lands.

The inaugural classes of the Muckleshoot Cohort program began on June 29. The 15 students will spend the next three years earning their Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) degree, with an interdisciplinary focus on indigenous leadership and education.

Students are either tribal citizens or have worked closely with indigenous education before. Four of the students enrolled are connected to the Muckleshoot Tribe, while the other 11 come from other tribes such as the Lummi Nation, the Makah Tribe and the Cochiti Tribe. Some students are commuting from as far as New Mexico and Oregon to attend classes, which occur over the span of a weekend once a month.

While UW Tacoma offers an Ed.D. degree onsite, this new program will be taught at the tribal college instead of UW Tacoma’s campus, and it will have more of a focus on indigenous topics. The program’s instructors are all either native or have experience with tribal education.

Muckleshoot Tribal College academic affairs instructor Amy Maharaj, who is part of the first cohort, commented that the indigenous specialization is why she chose the program.

“I feel that if I were to attend another program, it would more than likely be from a heavily colonized perspective, which I do not relate to,” she wrote in an email. “Instead, I would much rather learn from an Indigenous, decolonized perspective in which I can appreciate the beauty, traditions and customs of Indigenous leaders and communities.”

The program will lead to more indigenous students receiving a degree from UW. According to Ed.D. program director Robin Zape-tah-hol-ah Minthorn, 118 out of the approximately 5,216 students currently enrolled at UW Tacoma are indigenous, and few of them are in the graduate programs — the Ed.D. program’s first Native American graduate will finish his studies this summer.

Minthorn said that the existing Ed.D. cohorts and the Muckleshoot Ed.D cohort will come together over Zoom to get to know one another. While the Muckleshoot cohort’s classes follow a different curriculum, she said the Ed.D. program has always been centered in social justice and critical scholarship.

“We are evolving and we’re growing, and we’re wanting to be responsive to the times we are living in and the needs that we have to make sure that we’re centering convos around races and social justice and inequities, which has always been a part of our mission,” Minthorn added.

The partnership between the two colleges arose when Maharaj reached out to Minthorn when she arrived at UW Tacoma in August 2019. From there, the two held six months of meetings alongside Muckleshoot executive director of adult and higher education Denise Bill, UW Tacoma professor Michelle Montgomery, and UW Tacoma Ed.D. graduate advisor Ashley Walker.

The program was finalized in February, and applications closed at the end of May. Over those three months, Minthorn said over 50 people contacted them, interested in the cohort.

“There’s a need and desire to have these indigenous-focused programs,” Minthon said. “And it just speaks to the need to create more of these within the Pacific Northwest.”

This program is the first official educational collaboration between UW Tacoma and the Muckleshoot Tribal College. But the two, alongside other UW campuses, have been in conversation for the past five years, which led to a collaboration with UW Bothell to offer a business operations and management certificate at the Muckleshoot Tribal College over the past two summers.

Because of the coronavirus, the program has taken place online so far. Bill said that the group still tried to practice their culture on the opening ceremony Zoom meeting, with the Muckleshoot Tribe cultural director Willard Bill singing a song in the Muckleshoot TK language and Minthorn mailing homemade “cultural bundles” to each of the students.

Cohort member and Muckleshoot Tribal citizen Huda Swelam said her experience starting her doctoral degree in a pandemic has been hectic, amidst a family health crisis and having to watch over her three small children while taking classes.

“I’ve made it through (the first week), and I’m looking forward to finding balance as we move forward,” she said. “I’ve always been a lifelong learner, and education has been my saving grace throughout my life. It keeps me motivated and gives me hope.”

Swelam said she feels honored, humbled and inspired to be part of the first cohort and that her experience will have an impact on her tribe, family and children.

Bill was the first Muckleshoot Tribe woman to earn a doctoral degree, graduating from UW Seattle’s Ed.D. program in 2012. She said her positive experiences in the program with a supportive advisor and a dissertation of Native American educational leaders in Washington state made her want to continue to work with UW in the future. Her father, Muckleshoot tribal historian Willard Bill Senior, graduated from UW with a Ph.D. as well

Bill wants people to know that anyone is welcome at the programs at Muckleshoot Tribal College, whether or not they are native. She is excited and heartened by the potential of the students in the program.

“They’re taking this degree not just to get a degree or get a title, but to take it to their heart,” she said. “Then they’ll take it to their native people and communities and do great work because of the education that they’re getting.”

This story was originally published July 11, 2020 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Advanced degree program launched by Muckleshoot Tribe, UW Tacoma."