The Importance of the Essential Understandings with Leander “Russ” MacDonald

I’m Russ McDowell president for unite tribes Technical College located here in Bismarck North Dakota I live here with my wife Francine and their two grandkids Taylor and Isis we moved here from the spear Lake Nation reservation about nearly three years ago and we’re gonna as the president since that time it’s been really coming together well and I think one of the important pieces in regard to working in a post-secondary institution as a tribal college president is importance of partnering with other educational institutions the k-12 systems our North Dakota university systems outside of ourselves what we’re partners ships are important and so one of the main things we’ve seen I should probably back up a little bit that I was at University of North Dakota for a while as a researcher and one of the things that we’ve seen that in that work in regard to the literature and in regard to work that I did at Spirit Lake nation as a the planner of the director of planning for the tribe was do a strategic planning effort and so I became very familiar to literature and what we’ve seen one of the results of the strategic planning effort a spear lake said that from from different groups of youth elders and adults three different groups per district and there’s four districts on the Spirit Lake reservation so 12 focus groups we aggregated the results from across the reservation and the number one priority or theme that came out of that work was the importance of culture and language and regardless self-identity so we here so my actual some of my research I was done is actually tied into what I think is happening which i think is a good thing happening here with the state in regard to the essential understandings and so not for a couple different reasons one is that there’s some native families who are not familiar with the culture so that’s important for them but it’s also important for the non-native people to be to come to understanding of native people we’re already exposed to majority society so we’ve haven’t we’ve had to assimilate or adapter interact with non-native so we’re exposed to that culture many but a lot of times we are non-native relatives and friends are don’t know about the native culture but I the more I look at this the more I think about this the more I think that as we move ahead here is that if we’re really going to get along if we’re gonna really work together and collaborate and really be you recognize one another as human beings then we have to become to a better knowledge of one another and so and we recognize that we need to recognize is that Norwegians and Germans are not the same as native people and we need non natives to recognize is that the court doesn’t Recaros are not the same and so we’re all unique in whatever way in our own cultures in our language and our dances and our songs and regardless of our ethnic background and so those things are so important essential understand is piece the other piece is not just the importance of the cultural piece but also a history of what actually happened to the tribes here within North Dakota for this work I mean other work other things have happened to other tribes in other states but I think this work should be focused on North Dakota and what happened here and so we have treaties here in North Dakota between our tribes and then all the tribes here within a state our treaty tribes and so then so we need to remember that in regard to what did these tribes trade in order for them to what the federal government well the majority of them traded land and with the federal government in order to within their treaties and the government said we will provide education to your for your for your children we’re going to provide your healthcare for you we’re going to take care of your welfare and so those if you look at all the treaties that have been formed throughout the United States those are the three things that are kind of standard throughout all of them and there’s different provisions within some of them some of them have some more sometimes less you know but but I think for the most part those are the three and so I was I’m a former chairman for Sperling nation and provided testimony at the federal level in regard to that and in one of my testimonies I shared that I don’t think our ancestors signed up for inadequate health care inadequate education and inadequate welfare and so we need the US government to provide those services to at that level that is equitable to what’s provided to all other Americans and if they’re doing that effectively efficiently and sufficiently then well then I think what happens is it allows our tribes to have the resources needed in order to create Safe Communities and to have healthy environments in which to go their families and if we’re but if we’re gonna if we continue to be funded in an inadequate and inadequate levels then what happens we continue the poverty that’s going on there right now and so prior to first contact we weren’t in those situation we’re self-sufficient we’re independent and so the new federal initiatives the federal simulation practices created dependent people upon the federal government and now we’re trying to reverse that the federal government reversed that I believe we want to reverse that so as we move ahead we need to take control of what’s happening with our communities and move ahead and so as we move ahead I believe the answers for moving ahead and being independent lie within our culture and our language those two have to be provided they’re there but as in regard to this change in the world and involving societies we also have to be knowledgeable in majority of society and how they conduct themselves in regard to their culture in regard to their societies if we’re going to compete at the level that’s needed in order to create economic development Indians to create job opportunities within our communities to continue to educate and those things are all important to in regard to moving ahead and creating this foundation and providing those services that are necessary for our communities to continue to thrive or if they’re not thriving then to get them going in that direction so those things are all important in regard to that so education is important for that but underlying that is that foundation for culture and language which will help us address sci-fi self-identity and help create more successful students at the individual level which I would hope at the whole would come together in some kind of congregate format that would affect all societies and so we need to do that at the individual level we pass that down to our children our children become good people good community members they’re already that I think for the most part they’re opens I think they’re they’re kind of open slates in regard to how we want to form their clay that we mold as parents and so we have to be healthy ourselves in order to create these healthy individuals and that clay that how we do that is through our culture language and then the education only enhances what we are already no one regarding our culture and language and we move ahead and if we can do that at the family level then as it then when we bring all of our communities together then our communities become healthy and beyond that I don’t know I think that’s as far as I’ve thought you know but I think that I think that’s that’s enough for this lifetime and for maybe another lifetime for somebody else but we move that ahead and if we really invest within those children and that youth and where are the cultural language and education then they’re gonna have all the tools they need in order to keep us moving ahead and to survive within this ever-changing world