A collaboration of all seven of Montana's tribal colleges (TCs), in partnership with the University of Montana (UM) and Montana State University (MSU), proposes to carry out a tribal college faculty enhancement program consisting of summer workshops and TC faculty terms-in-residence (TIR), where TC faculty will spend a term or academic year in residence at either UM or MSU. The main objective of the workshops is to explore new teaching methodologies in areas such as math-science integration, inquiry-based learning, practical/experiential learning, integration of research and coursework, and incorporation of new technologies. The TIR will provide additional opportunities for professional development. During a TIR, individual TC faculty members may take courses that will enable them to expand and enrich course offerings or lead to an advanced degree, conduct research with university colleagues, co-teach courses with university colleagues, and participate in educational reform efforts. An important additional benefit to the TIR is that tribal college faculty, through collaborations with university faculty, will provide leadership in developing strategies that are more conducive to the education of Native Americans in the university system. Participation in the workshops will be open to 20 TC math-science faculty as well as four university faculty per year. Workshops will take place during the summers of 1998 and 1999. Participation in the terms-in-residence program will be selective and based on the quality of sub-proposals submitted to the steering committee. The development and reinforcement of collaboration between TC and university faculty will be of long-term benefit to higher education across Montana. In particular, tribal college faculty will enrich their knowledge while simultaneously enriching the university system with methods that have proven to be successful in the education of Native Americans in science and math.
