photo by: Dmitry Martirosov/Journal-World

Haskell Indian Nations University President Alex Red Corn posing for a photo in his office on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026. Red Corn, who served as interim president since January, was appointed as the university's permanent leader last month.

Alex Red Corn, the newly appointed president of Haskell Indian Nations University, has a robust list of priorities for the school he now leads. But one key principle outshines them all: control what you can control.

And that couldn’t be truer in Red Corn’s case. Haskell is a federally controlled university and there are limits to what its leaders can do. That puts Red Corn in a unique position as he takes the reins of a school that saw multiple leadership changes over the last handful of years.

It also helps explain his almost singular focus on strengthening Haskell’s external partnerships, which he said is a key component of the school’s soon-to-be-released strategic plan.

“Collaboration, collaboration, communication, communication,” Red Corn emphasized in a recent interview with the Journal-World.

Red Corn was appointed Haskell’s permanent president last month after serving as interim president since January. He brings significant experience to the job, having previously held a dual role at the University of Kansas as its director and associate professor of indigenous studies and as associate vice chancellor for the Office of Sovereign Partnerships and Indigenous Initiatives.

His appointment comes as students and faculty are hoping for stability in the nation’s oldest continually-running university serving American Indian students. Leadership turnover is just one issue that has plagued Haskell recently. The university has been hit by federally-mandated layoffs last year, had its accreditation put on notice, and is now facing a significant cut to its budget, which consists almost entirely of federal dollars.

photo by: Dmitry Martirosov/Journal-World

Students walk at Haskell Indian Nations University’s campus on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026.

None of that deterred Red Corn from accepting the job. The leadership position has always intrigued him, he said.

“The work is just too important,” Red Corn said.

University leaders are in the midst of putting the final touches on the school’s strategic plan, said Red Corn, which will be posted to the school’s website soon, and includes everything from boosting Haskell’s digital infrastructure and online education, to improving its student wellness, to expanding the school’s curriculum.

The digital component will be a significant part of the plan, Red Corn said, noting that there are several initiatives in place to target improvements in specific buildings on campus for hybrid and online education. The school is looking to hire a director of distance learning, Red Corn said.

Leaders are also deciding which programs to add to the school’s course catalogue as it seeks to expand its curriculum. Agriculture, computer science, health and wellness, pre-nursing and pre-law are all being considered, Red Corn said, but final decisions are still pending.

“These are all things that we are starting conversations as we get our foundation of systems in place,” Red Corn said.

As a tuition-free tribal university that is funded by the federal government, Haskell’s challenges are of a different sort than its higher education peers. The university is tightly controlled by the Bureau of Indian Education — which is part of the larger U.S. Department of Interior. Many see Haskell’s governing model — based in Washington, D.C. bureaucracies — as an issue, if not an impediment to Haskell’s success.

photo by: Dmitry Martirosov/Journal-World

Haskell Indian Nations University President Alex Red Corn posing for a photo in his office on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026.

In 2024, for example, Republican U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran sent a scathing letter to then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, demanding a “systemic overhaul” within the Bureau of Indian Education and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the two primary Haskell funders. The letter included a list of allegations of wrongdoing at the school going back several years.

Several months later Moran and other Kansas lawmakers proposed legislation to wrest control from the Department of Interior and let Haskell govern itself. Last summer, Moran filed the “Haskell Indian Nations University Improvement Act,” which would do that, but the measure did not advance. Problems mounted three days later when the Higher Learning Commission notified Haskell that its accreditation status has been put on notice.

Red Corn enters a challenging environment, but his big-picture principle remains his focal point. Again and again, he kept returning to it: Control what you can control, and establish partnerships as a buffer against those external forces.

“If you build those relationships, when things out of your control start to influence what’s happening within your own institution, you have more resources and expertise to connect to so you can navigate those situations,” Red Corn said.

photo by: Dmitry Martirosov/Journal-World

Haskell Indian Nations University is the oldest continually running university serving American Indian students.