LEWISTON, ID – Washington State University was named a recipient of a National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant to create a plan for the university’s new system-wide Native American scholarship, called Native Coug Scholars, that emphasizes Tribal nation-building principles. The Enabling Act of 1889 granted 190,000 acres of seized Tribal land to Washington to support what would become WSU.
“None of the revenue generated by these lands over the last 133 years has directly benefited Native students at WSU, even though they face disproportionately greater economic hardships due to the expropriation of their traditional homelands,” according to USDA’s Research, Education and Economics Information System. As a land-grant institution, WSU is committed to improving support for Native students while acknowledging that we can never completely alleviate the systemic inequity caused by U.S. policy.”
This plan will be transferrable to other land-grant universities.
The NIFA has also awarded two grants to the University of Idaho for New Beginning for Tribal Students. The first goes toward a project called the University of Idaho NBTS Path of Wisdom: Cultivating Indigenous Knowledge through Family and Community. It aims to increase enrollment and retention of scholars in the Agricultural, Natural Resources, Food, Human and Health Science (ANFHS) Fields. The second grant is for the University of Idaho Multicultural Scholars project that will recruit, retain, and graduate more underrepresented minority (Hispanic, Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, or Hawaiian Native or Pacific Islander) undergraduate students within the food, nutrition, and agricultural sciences programs of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
