FY 2016 Awards

Alaska Humanities Forum (S356A160041) $394,999 The Rose Cross-Cultural Exchange (RCCE) project proposed to address the challenges of Alaska Native students through a two-program approach of building networks of cross-cultural understanding that transcend the urban-rural divide. The Educator Cross-Cultural Immersion (ECCI) addresses the needs of Alaska Native students through their teachers and Sister School Exchange (SSE) supports students and their communities. These reinforcing programs work in tandem to increase cross-cultural awareness and understanding in classrooms, schools, and communities statewide.  The four priorities of the RCCE are: Enrich, enliven and strengthen the educational experiences of Alaska Native students by (1) Training educators through cross-cultural immersion to use culturally-responsive pedagogy; (2) Developing Alaska’s youth as cross culturally competent leaders who honor and steward the many forms of Alaska’s cultures; (3) Establishing networks of cross-cultural understanding that transcend the separation of Alaska’s communities through advisory councils, community engagement, and mentorship; and (4) Quantifying the long-term impacts of cross-cultural immersion.  These goals will be most effectively achieved through immersing students, teachers and community members in cross-cultural experiential education at the intersection of Western and Alaska Native worldviews.  The RCCE objectives include supporting authentic cross-cultural immersion experiences for participants, developing publically available curriculum, engaging stakeholders to guide program delivery, establishing a state-wide mentor network, and conducting long-term research.  The activities of this project include: cross-cultural immersion, cross-cultural education, leadership curriculum development, and formal research.  This project will directly impact 70 SSE teachers, 350 SSE students, 70 ECCI teachers, 112 communities, and 140 classrooms. Indirectly, the RCCE project will impact students of 70 ECCI teachers during the three years of the grant and their students during the years to come

Alaska Native Heritage Center (S356A160028) $684,332 The Alaska Native Heritage Center’s (ANHC) High School After School program has been a highly successful in delivering an after-school program designed with the cultural and social needs of Alaska Native students in mind and has proven the ability to impact students’ decisions to stay in school and improve grades. ANHC, in partnership with the Anchorage School District (ASD), Southcentral Foundation and Cook Inlet Tribal Council (CITC) proposes this after-school program for Alaska Native high school students.  The goals are to teach students a variety of intellectual, social skills, vocational skills and concepts that will serve them both in school and throughout life, and to motivate and mentor them to stay in school while planning for the future.  Students will attend the intensive after-school program during the school year, and will have the opportunity to continue for credit classes in the summer and/or work at the Center during winter weekends and the summer months. In addition, ANHC will also outreach and include participation by middle school students in leadership, Native Games, language and dance at their schools through an after-school Native Culture Club and regular Physical Education classes. The outcomes will include greater achievement in school, higher graduation and retention rates, improved emotional and social learning, restoration of culture and the demonstration of acquired work skills and employability.  The Center will serve 125 different Alaska Native high school students and 60 middle school students each year.

Kenaitze Indian Tribe (S356A160071) $446,934 Kenaitze Indian Tribe-Alaska Native Education-Naqantughedul “The Tide Is Coming Back In” Kenaitze Indian Tribe (KIT) is a federally recognized Tribal Government reorganized in 1971 under the statutes of Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, as amended for Alaska in 1936.  Through Dena’ina values this project proposes to maximize waitlist children’s potential and prepare them for successful entry into Kindergarten, providing age-appropriate culturally relevant educational programs and language skills development through 18 hours of service per week for 32 weeks. Improve parent/family support for social/emotional and cognitive development in pre-school children.  Improve the skills of the ANE staff through up to date training in Positive behavior management, screening tools and use of assessment to drive instruction.  Through Dena’ina values maximize K-3rd grade children’s potential for success by providing age-appropriate culturally relevant educational programs and language skills by providing a minimum 15 hours of service per week for 32 weeks of the school year and ten (10) weeks Science Summer Camps.  Improve parent/family support for social/emotional and cognitive development in K-3rd grade children.  Collaborate with Alaska Christian College (letter of agreement) to provide internship experiences for enrolled students.  Provide 50 days of Science Summer Camp.  This will prevent loss of skills over the summer, support further development of social/emotional skills, as well as, academic and literacy skills.  This project will provide services for minimum 17 of the 45 children who are on the Head Start waitlist, 30 K-3rd grade children, 1 high school intern and 8 college students per each project year.

Koniag Educational Foundation (S356A160007) $241,807 Koniag Educational Foundation (KEF) goal is to strengthen Alaska Native secondary student graduation rates and higher education pursuits toward attaining career goals through community engagement and a career pathways mentorship network. This project can be adapted by other rural Alaska Native entities statewide.  KEF will implement four strategies, with these outcomes: (1) Community Engagement: Empower Community as Advocates Through Training & Planning: increase Alaska Native community engagement in schools by 30% through training to develop active roles and best practices for improving academic outcomes and career planning. (2) Data Collection & Analysis: Expand Native Student Tracking & Assessment to Grades 5-12: improve communication and advocacy between families and schools to foster local data-based decision-making by setting community action plans to better support student academic outcomes. (3) Student Mentorship: Increase Access to Career Pathways, Cultural & Higher Ed. Mentorship: increase the Alaska Native graduation rates for Kodiak Island high school students from 68% to 82% by improving student access to opportunities, career pathways, and academic support. (4) Teacher Mentorship: Increase Access to Culturally-Relevant Curriculum and Community Orientation: improve teacher retention by 60% (20% annual growth) through teacher orientations and training Rural Education Advocates as cultural liaisons for teachers.

Mt. Sanford Tribal Consortium (S356A160058) $395,436 Mt. Sanford Tribal Consortium (MSTC) proposed to create applications and links to language and cultural knowledge that are in archival recordings to teach current and future generations with video from precious Elders who have already passed. Program Goal and Deliverables: The project supports language and traditional knowledge by producing over 7.5 hours of completed traditional instruction, on subtitled video products, in archival DVD, and formatted for our website links to short traditional knowledge subjects, while we still have a few Elders to comment on them. Also, two applications will be developed for increasing fluency language through the popularity of Apple & Android products.  The project creates one new job with archival training and it has 3 objectives:  (1) increase and catalogue MSTC’s video and image archive; (2) Work with specialists to create two language applications featuring games and quizzes with 1,000 words in sentences; (3) Work with specialists to create full and short subject venues on — Moose Hide to Moccasins; Field Dressing a Moose; Elders Speak about Community History; Batzulnetas Culture Camp; and How to Make a Potlatch, which is the central, ceremonial gathering of clans and tribes. All materials will be distributed to Tribal Members and held in trust for the community.