For Haskell Indian Nations University, the past year has been a mix of accomplishment and frustration.

Bad news, first: Budget shortfalls forced the university to cancel summer school.

Haskell Indian Nations University students Cherie Goodluck, Shiprock, N.M., left, and Mia Peck, Pawnee, Okla., relax after a day of classes outside Winona Hall honors dormitory.

“That wasn’t something anybody wanted to do,” said Marvin Buzzard, vice president of university services. “We just didn’t have the money.”

Earlier this year, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs increased Haskell’s $8 million budget by about $250,000.

“That sounds like a lot of money,” Buzzard said, “but it’s not enough to cover cost-of-living increases for our employees.”

Also, “The university’s share of employees’ health insurance went up $20 a person,” he said. “Again, that doesn’t sound like much, but when you multiply that times 200 employees, times 26 pay periods, it adds up pretty quick.”

Also, Haskell this year is having to pay several workers’ salaries that until recently were part of BIA’s administrative budget.

By dropping summer school, Haskell expects to save between $300,000 and $400,000, Buzzard said.

Each year, between 250 and 300 Haskell students enrolled in the university’s summer classes.

“This was probably one of the most painful things we’ve ever had to do,” he added, “because we know it’s going to have an adverse impact on students as well as on employees.”

At the same time, it’s understandable, he said.

“Basically, we’re an agency of the federal government and right now, just about every federal agency that I know of has needs that aren’t being met,” Buzzard said.

“And then after Sept. 11, there just isn’t a lot money available. It’s had an adverse effect on us.”

Enrollment grows

Now, the good news:

l For as long as anybody can remember, Haskell’s enrollment has always shown a second-semester decline.

Not this year. Haskell had 1,019 students enrolled in first-semester classes and 1,021 students in second-semester classes.

“It’s been a pleasant surprise,” said university registrar Manny King.

Usually, King said, second-semester enrollment drops between 100 and 150 students.

“There are lots of different reasons why students don’t make it back,” he said. “Sometimes it’s ‘academic suspension,’ or it’s because they didn’t get their immunization paperwork in that’s a big deal or maybe they have problems at home.”

King said he and others aren’t sure what’s behind the shift in second-semester numbers.

Archiving its history

The Haskell Cultural Center and Museum is ready to go.

“It looks like the ribbon-cutting ceremony will be May 10, during commencement weekend,” said Haskell archivist Bobbi Rahder, who oversaw much of the $1.3 million project.

Plans call for the Cultural Center and Museum becoming the primary repository for information pertaining to Haskell.

“We’re working on a letter that’ll be sent to Haskell alumni, inviting them to donate whatever items they may have,” Rahder said.

Before construction of the Cultural Center and Museum, much of the university’s history thousands of photographs, documents and artifacts, literally was stored in closets, file cabinets and cardboard boxes at the main library. Now, there’s a place for everything.

The 6,048-square-foot building’s construction was financed by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, the Log Home Council of the National Association of Home Builders and several manufacturer associations.

Similar projects are planned for 30 tribal colleges in the United States.

After the Cultural Center and Museum is up and running, Rahder hopes to begin “scanning” back issues of The Indian Leader, the student newspaper.

“Once we had it ‘digitized,’ we could make it available over the Internet,” she said. “We get calls all the time from Haskell alumni, asking us to look up something that was in The Indian Leader when they were in school here.”

In continuous publication since 1897, The Indian Leader is the nation’s oldest student-run American Indian newspaper.

Rahder hopes the Cultural Center and Museum will eventually house the Haskell records and documents now at the National Archives and Records Administration’s Central Plains Region Office in Kansas City, Mo.

Also, the Cultural Center and Museum will soon house the Frank A. Reinhart photography collection, now stored at the library.

The Reinhart collection includes 809 glass plate negatives of photographs of tribal leaders taken during the 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition and Indian Congress in Omaha, Neb.

Savings on utilities

By this time next year, Haskell ought to notice some big savings on its utility bill in the wake of a campus-wide campaign that included installing new, energy-efficient windows in at least two buildings and energy overhauls in 25 more buildings.

“Our goal is to cut (the university’s) utility bill by $200,000 a year,” facilities manager Virgil Allen said.

A year ago, workers added a much-needed dressing room on the south side of the football stadium and new lighting in the north side. Also, new seats for the stadium’s north side are in the works.

Over the summer, workers are expected to begin restoration work on the stadium’s historic arch, a landmark on the Haskell campus for the past 76 years.

The work was made possible by the Prairie Band Pottawatomi Nation contributing $54,000 to a restoration campaign led by Haskell employees Ely and Mary Jackson.

During an Oct. 13, 2001, ceremony, Haskell officials unveiled a plaque bearing the names of the 415 Haskell students known to have served in World War I.