photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Osceola and Keokuk halls are pictured in the background at Haskell Indian Nations University on Tuesday, July 20, 2021.

A new partnership between Haskell Indian Nations University and the College of the Muscogee Nation, a two-year tribal college in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, aims to create a smooth transfer process for community college students to Haskell.

Monte Randall, the president of the College of the Muscogee Nation, told the Journal-World such partnerships, commonly referred to as articulation agreements, are fairly standard between higher education institutions. They define course equivalencies between colleges to ensure that classes completed at one school will be accepted when students transfer to another.

Randall said accreditation with the Higher Learning Commission, broadly speaking, gives students the ability to transfer their completed course credits to any institution across the United States, but articulation agreements take it a step further. Sometimes, he said community college credits don’t transfer as smoothly without an agreement between schools, and having one in place essentially guarantees students will jump straight into their junior year of college after transferring.

“Any time we can partner with an institution, we try to enter into these articulation agreements,” Randall said in a phone call with the Journal-World Monday. “… What you come into with community colleges, the graduates, is sometimes their credits don’t easily transfer, depending on the degree program. So these articulation agreements, they ensure graduates that the other institution is going to receive the degree, and therefore all of those credits into a bachelor’s degree program.”

Additionally, Randall said both schools are in the same region of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which includes all 35 tribal colleges in the country. Their proximity means a partnership makes a lot of sense.

It also helps that Randall himself is a Haskell alumnus, as are a number of College of the Muscogee Nation employees. Randall said that even before entering the articulation agreement, his school would bus students to visit days at Haskell.

With 39 federally-recognized Native American tribes located in Oklahoma and the College of the Muscogee Nation being the only tribal college in the state, Randall said it’s great to be able to send his school’s graduates to Haskell.

“For me, being a tribal college graduate from Haskell Indian Nations University, being able to partner with that institution to be able to send Muscogee Creek citizens and other tribal members who graduated from the College of the Muscogee Nation, that’s what we’re all about,” Randall said. “Sharing in the Native American education, the values, the resources we provide as tribal colleges. Any time I can share that with any of our graduates and our citizens, definitely that’s a win-win for us.”

Haskell’s President’s Office and representatives with the Bureau of Indian Education did not respond to the Journal-World’s requests for comment on this story.