U.S. Secretary of the Interior tells Haskell grads she’s committed to tribal sovereignty, including in education

Sally Jewell, secretary of the Department of the Interior, center, points to a beaded Superman medallion worn by Chebon Dawes, Lawrence, during the Haskell Indian Nations University commencement ceremony Friday, May 8, 2015. At left is HINU president Venida Chenault.

Haskell Indian Nations University has lower enrollment, less funding and more competition from other colleges than decades past.

But the school is as relevant today as ever, if not more, especially for shaping well-rounded future tribal leaders, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said.

“The priority of this school has really been around bringing this diverse group of students together from all these different tribes with all these different backgrounds into one place,” she said.

Jewell was the keynote speaker at Friday’s Haskell commencement exercises and spoke further with members of the media following the ceremony. She is the highest ranking official from the U.S. Department of the Interior — the federal department over the Bureau of Indian Education and, thus, Haskell — ever to speak at Haskell graduation, school leaders said.

Just over 150 students received degrees Friday at Coffin Complex, about half bachelor’s degrees and half associate’s degrees, according to Haskell acting vice-president of academics Cheryl Chuckluck.

Jewell, formerly CEO of REI and an avid outdoorswoman, said in her speech that the class of 2015 had representatives from 65 tribes and 40 states. She encouraged students to take care of themselves, get outside and find strength and pride in their native heritage.

Jewell noted that Haskell’s beginnings as an Indian boarding school were during a time that was “dark” and damaging to Indian pride.

“Kill the Indian to save the man was the philosophy in those days,” she said. And later, to cheers, “assimilation is no longer the law of the land.”

Jewell said she and President Barack Obama were committed to tribal sovereignty, including in the area of Indian education.

Indian education also has been underfunded for decades, Jewell said.

She said Obama has put forth an “aggressive” budget for 2016 that includes significantly more dollars for Indian education.

“We really need Congress to step up and support the budget for Indian education and Indian Country in general, as we are obligated to do by our trust and treaty obligations,” Jewell said.

Jewell stressed that Haskell — one of two federally run higher learning institutions in the country; the other is in New Mexico — is just one part of a larger system.

While money for the university is important, she said, the Interior’s biggest priority right now is restructuring the overall Indian education system, primarily early childhood through high school education.

That will help Haskell, though, Jewell said.

Currently there are students entering Haskell reading at an elementary level, and the school must divert funding and resources to catch them up.

“We owe it to Haskell to actually do a better job on the end of the young people that are going to end up there,” Jewell said.

“You can’t focus here without focusing on those young people that are feeding into Haskell and having to do a couple of years of really hard work to make up for where they should have been when they got here to begin with.”

When asked where she’d like to see Haskell in 10 years, Jewell said she hopes it has more money, a more robust faculty and better cultivation of assets to take pride in.

One in particular that captured the attention of Jewell, who was visiting campus for the first time, was Haskell’s long-shuttered but historic Hiawatha Hall.

Jewell mentioned Hiawatha — which school leaders have estimated needs roughly $5 million to correct structural issues and renovate into functional space — in her speech to graduates and also to reporters.

“I certainly hope to see Hiawatha Hall renovated,” Jewell said. “That builds pride in this institution, and it helps tell the story of Indian Country.”