The relationship between the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and Idaho State University is something that both entities hope to strengthen in the coming years. To do this, the University and the tribes have both established programs to give these students every opportunity to succeed.
The KAN program aims to help students prepare for college level coursework. The program provides skills to help students succeed in reaching your academic goals. KAN has 15 students and will address college level readiness of English and math.
“It’s people who have graduated from high school that maybe haven’t started up college and would like to do that or seek some type of training and then it’s also for the reentry students, the people who maybe started working right away and maybe they started a family and didn’t have a chance to go to school, said Dr. Murillo.”
Program coordinators anticipate the benefits will be far reaching.
“Currently we have about 198, people that have a Bachelor’s degree and of those, 50 that have a Masters level or higher,” said Dr. Murillo. ”We have 8 or 9 that have Doctoral degrees and so we want to double those numbers in the next 10 years or so. So we can consider things like starting a tribal college where it would be entirely staffed by our own community which would be a really unusual thing to happen”
To be eligible for KAN the student must:
Apply to ISU as a non-degree seeking student
Be a participant in one of the 477 tribal programs (EET, TANF, Consumer Services, or Vocational Rehabilitation)
Take the Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE) for English and math
Interview with a Tribal EET Case Manager (for final approval of acceptance into KAN)
The student will receive: Paid fees and books, Tutoring, Incentives, Culturally relevant First Year Seminar Course, Jumpstart on college readiness in English and math, a partnership in a Native American learning community and support for a successful educational journey. For registration inquiries or program details contact the Tribes 477 front desk at 208-478-3845.
