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| 7/1/2008 9:35:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Students in the Intercultural Leadership Initiative program participate in relationship-building activities on the Indian Bowl grounds in Lac du Flambeau June 25. More than two dozen ILI participants from Lakeland Union High School and its four feeder elementaries gathered at the George W. Brown Jr. Ojibwe Museum and Cultural Center for an ILI parent-and-student picnic.
Eric A. Johnson photo
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ILI earns Honoring Nations 2008 grant award from Harvard
Harvard Project looks to publicize non-profit ILI as national model
As one of 10 2008 Honoring Nations grant finalists chosen from a pool of 160 applicants, a three-member team representing Harvard University's Project on American Indian Economic Development made a whirlwind one-day visit to Lac du Flambeau on Wednesday, June 25, to perform an on-site evaluation of the award-winning, non-profit Intercultural Leadership Initiative (ILI) program.
"It's fabulously exciting," said ILI advisory board president Michele LaRock of the program's Honoring Nations grant award recognition. "It's wonderful to get awards - the prestige and the recognition. But it's even more wonderful for an organization like ours, that has to raise funds on a daily basis, to get an award with money. We're excited for them to see ILI and to look at the possible national implications..."
ILI was nominated for Harvard's 10-year-old Honoring Nations grant award program by the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
"It's a huge honor," said ILI founder and 10-year project director Bob Kovar. "The first part of the honor is getting nominated by the tribe for the award. The second part of the honor is what we've been struggling to do here for the past ten years - getting national recognition, and I think deservedly so. There's a lot of people making this (ILI) work. This isn't just ILI staff making this work. This is our schools, community leaders, tribal leaders, businesses, individuals, service clubs ... This is a true community-wide project. This is national recognition for our community, which is really awesome. I'm proud to be a part of it. This is really something we can feel good about. It says a lot about where our community has come from - from the late '80s and early '90s and the spearfishing controversies and an idea about where we could go."
Kovar said he's excited about the opportunities that Honoring Nations will afford for promoting the ILI model elsewhere.
"Maybe it (ILI) will get into other communities," he said, calling ILI universally applicable to a variety of situations. "At its most basic, it (ILI) is about being human. It applies to all groups of people."
Also among those excited about Harvard's recognition of ILI is four-year program facilitator Matt White.
"Part of the goal of ILI is to increase [American Indian] graduation rates - hopefully it comes around from social improvement to academic success," he said. "I think having an institution like Harvard notice us makes us feel like we're getting ... progress on the academic front. I also think it (Harvard recognition) is another way for people in the local community to see that special connections are being made through ILI. I would hope that people would want to join in and make those connections bigger."
Prestigious national award
Launched in 1998 and overseen by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Honoring Nations is a national awards program that identifies, celebrates and shares outstanding examples of tribal governance.
Honoring Nations grant awards spotlight tribal government programs and initiatives that are particularly effective in addressing critical concerns and challenges facing the nation's 560-plus sovereign American Indian nations and their citizens, with honorees serving as informational and inspirational resources throughout the nation's American Indian communities and beyond.
Selection criteria for Honoring Nations recognition include: effectiveness at achieving positive and measurable results in addressing key concerns, problems or challenges facing the tribal nation and its citizens; significance to strengthening sovereignty; cultural relevance; transferability of concepts, principals and practices to other tribal governments; and program sustainability.
Granting award recognitions in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006 - and again in October 2008 - Harvard's Honoring Nations program is supported by gifts from the Ford Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Forest Country Potawatomi Foundation, the Hopi Education Endowment Fund, the Chickasaw Nation, the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, the Henderson Family, Adelina Alva-Padilla and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, L.L.C.
Based on the findings of their June 25 on-site visit, the three member entourage representing Cambridge, Mass.-based Harvard - David M. Gipp, president, United Tribes Technical College, Bismarck, N.D.; Dennis Norman, faculty chair of Harvard University's Native American Program; and Megan Minoka Hill, visiting administrative fellow, Harvard Project of American Indian Economic Development - will recommend the grant- and donation-funded ILI program for either a $10,000 "Honors" or $20,000 "High Honors" grant award.
Kovar said the Harvard team visited with Lac du Flambeau tribal president Victoria Doud and other tribal officials, ILI staff members and Lac du Flambeau Public School superintendent Larry Ouimette.
Harvard representatives also informally met with ILI students and their parents at a special mid-day ILI Student-and-Parent Picnic at the George W. Brown Jr. Ojibwe Museum & Cultural Center's outdoor "Indian Bowl" facility.
As part of their on-site tour in Lac du Flambeau, Kovar said the Harvard entourage also visited with tribal member Tom Maulson, who played a vital role in establishing ILI during his tenure as tribal president.
"His advocacy and support really helped us get on our feet," Kovar recalled.
Harvard representatives also met with Fred Maulson, chief warden for the Odanah, Wisc.-based Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), a 24-year-old co-managed inter-tribal agency committed to the implementation of off-reservation treaty rights on behalf of its 11 member Ojibwe tribes.
ILI grows rich history in Lakeland
Just wrapping up its tenth year, the 1998 creation of ILI was the work of founder and longtime project director Kovar, who noted that prior to ILI there had been very little mixing between Lakeland area American Indian and non-tribal youth, a situation that lead to a systemic, multi-generational cycle of fear, suspicion, mistrust and violence between the cultures.
A founding member of the North Lakeland Education Foundation, the North Lakeland Discovery Center and the Northwoods Restorative Justice program, Kovar was inspired to action after watching a report on CBS' popular 60 Minutes news magazine show.
"I had seen a show on 60 Minutes where they had brought Israeli youth and Palestinian youth to a camp in Maine and facilitated ... experiential, fun, hands-on activities to try to build relationships between two groups of people that hated each other," Kovar recalled. "That really struck me ... Why don't we do that here? We have the some problems here."
Against the backdrop of heightened racial tensions between American Indian and non-tribal populations around various treaty rights issues in the 1980s and 1990s, Kovar founded ILI in an effort to improve the academic and social success of students by focusing on the reduction of racial tensions - promoting cultural understanding through inter-cultural experiences.
Goals of the ILI program include the reduction of racial tension and conflict at LUHS, implementation of transition programs from the elementary/middle feeder schools to LUHS and the improvement of academic and social achievement rates for all participating ILI students, particularly American Indian students.
Through ILI's various initiatives - hands-on learning, play, role-playing, experiential activities, service learning projects and peer mentoring - it's hoped that students will view cultural diversity from new perspectives, come to understand the true traditions, stories and social contexts of the American Indian and non-tribal cultures, and develop conflict resolution skills to negotiate and mediate cultural misunderstandings with peaceful results.
Founded by Kovar in 1998 with ten seventh graders, five each from Lac du Flambeau Public School and North Lakeland School, the independent non-profit 501(c)(3) organization has grown phenomenally from its humble roots over the past decade, touching the lives of thousands of Lakeland area students and their families.
"We piloted with a few groups of kids and it grew from there," Kovar said.
In the recently-ended 2007-08 school year, ILI served 987 students from Lakeland Union High School, Lac du Flambeau Public School, North Lakeland School, Arbor-Vitae Woodruff School, Minocqua-Hazelhurst-Lake Tomahawk School and UW-LaCrosse.
Over the course of the 2007-08 school year, ILI coordinated 224 session days - 48 regular fourth through eighth grade elementary/middle school ILI sessions, 29 ILI activity period sessions at LUHS, 33 after-school ILI meetings, 105 after-school learning center ILI sessions and various special ILI program sessions, including a three-day LUHS/ILI service learning trip to Minneapolis-St. Paul and a four-day ILI/UW-LaCrosse Summer Camp.
Those closest to the ILI program have seen lives changed by student participation in the program.
"I've seen a lot of kids have 'aha' type moments...," said four-year ILI facilitator Matt White. "I've seen students, on their own choice, decide to cross school lines and have lunch together, instead of sitting apart. That means that connection has happened and that we've created the right kind of atmosphere ... I think that spirit of relational adventure is happening with a lot of the kids in the program."
Rhinelander resident Michele LaRock, a Menominee tribal member who serves as president of the Wisconsin Indian Education Program, serves as tribal relations and minority student services director for Nicolet Area Technical College.
Newly installed as president of the ILI Advisory Board, LaRock has seen the effectiveness of ILI firsthand during her longtime association with the program.
"There's a lot of value in the [ILI] program," she said. "To me, the major worth is bringing together kids from different areas, different backgrounds, and giving them the chance to interact and learn about each other, learn to be more respectful of each other and find constructive ways to resolve any conflicts that might come up - things that aren't always taught in schools but are skills that can be used in any occupation that someone might go into. It's hard to put a price on that ... Programs like ILI, I think, are very important for teaching those kind of 'soft skills' that really help you be successful in your life."
Perhaps the biggest change, LaRock said, can be seen at Lakeland Union High School.
"One of the major impacts that I see is when kids from Lac du Flambeau move ... to Lakeland [Union] High School," she noted. "In the old days, they (LdF alumni) went down there (to LUHS) as strangers. They didn't know anyone. They had no connections, no bonds. This program (ILI) has really impacted that. When these kids get down there now, they know staff already and they know kids coming in from the other feeder schools, because they've met them and interacted with them already through ILI. They're going in and they've already formed good relationships with a lot of kids from the whole Lakeland area. It (ILI) has been hugely beneficial for the students. There's less trepidation going in because they've already made some connections ... through these (ILI) activities. Anything that gives kids more confidence ... will help in the academic setting."
Long based in Lac du Flambeau and recently relocated to quarters at Lakeland Union High School in Minocqua, ILI today encompasses a governing Advisory Board, a 10-15 member core group of volunteers and five full-time staff members - Kovar, White, curriculum coordinator Ernie St. Germaine, project assistant/facilitator Alice McFarland and student development specialist Craig Kerr.
Ten years of hard work by ILI staff members, board members and volunteers have paid dividends far beyond the measurable progress made in improving Lakeland area race relations between American Indian and non-tribal students at LUHS and its four feeder elementary/middle schools.
Recognitions have begun to pour in for the ILI program, which is increasingly being held up as a state and national model.
Beyond Harvard's high-profile Honoring Nations award, ILI is a past recipient of the "Legend Leadership Award" from the Mooresville, N.C.-based Dale Earnhardt Foundation and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction's "Superintendent's Standing Up for Rural Schools, Communities and Libraries Award."
At a January 2007 presentation in Madison, ILI received a "Giraffe Award" from the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families for "sticking their necks out" for children and thus having an effect on their well-being. ILI was nominated for the award by the Wisconsin Indian Education Association (WIEA).
And at a recent awards ceremony in Wisconsin Rapids, WIEA-nominated ILI was feted by Wisconsin Rural Partners, Inc. with Wisconsin Community Leadership Award "Organization of the Year" honors for its "significant and notable contributions" in the areas of community leadership and involvement (Lakeland Times, June 27).
Harvard officials impressed
Interviewed by The Times last Wednesday afternoon, members of the Harvard entourage said they were impressed with the ILI program.
"One of the things we already know is ILI is more than just a nominee - it's a selection," said David M. Gipp, president of Bismarck, N.D.-based United Tribes Technical College and a member of Honoring Nations' 14-member Board of Governors. "The question is what category of selection we will make in terms of an award later in the year - Honors or High Honors. Part of this [visit] is to confirm what we already know, what we've been told. This [site visit] gives us an opportunity to meet all the different people, see what the commitment of the community and the tribe is, and see how it (ILI) empowers the community and the tribe and all the people involved. This (ILI) is definitely a winner in terms of what we already evaluated. This [visit] provides a better confirmation of that."
Megan Minoka Hill, a visiting administrative fellow for the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, said on-site visits are a vital part of the Honoring Nations awards process, putting a human face on the applicant programs.
"We've come out to learn all we can about the program to be an advocate for it as it proceeds through the awards process," she said. "There's only so much you can learn from reading the facts and figures on paper. We're here to put it all together - talking to tribal leadership, the school superintendent, ILI board members and Bob Kovar to learn about the origins of ILI, it's importance in the community and what it has been working to do to bring about community cohesion and understanding."
Moving forward, Honoring Nations will be spreading the message about ILI across the U.S., holding up the program as a national model.
"One of the purposes of Honoring Nations is to propagate what we've learned from one community to other communities, so they can learn by example," noted Dennis Norman, faculty chair for Harvard's Native American Program. "A big part of what we're trying to do right now is learn the most that we can [about ILI] so we can get information out ... for other people to learn from."
At the June 25 picnic at the Indian Bowl, Gipp, Hill and Norman had the opportunity to informally meet with numerous ILI student participants and their parents.
Among those attending the event was Minocqua resident Paige McMullin, an incoming LUHS sophomore and five-year non-tribal ILI participant.
"I like meeting new people from other schools," she said, noting the program had dispelled a lot of rumors and preconceptions about American Indian students. "It's a great learning experience ... ILI opened my eyes ... Kids really can make a difference."
Also among those attending the ILI picnic was incoming Lac du Flambeau Public School seventh grader Audrey Wayman, a three-year American Indian ILI participant.
"It's really fun to participate," she noted. "It's fun making new friends from every single school."
Former tribal president Tom Maulson, a longtime ILI supporter, was also among the nearly three dozen individuals attending the ILI picnic.
"The ILI program has done well, as far as it's gone," he said. "It's created some good things between our young people. It (ILI) still needs to have a lot of input, not only from the Native community here in Lac du Flambeau, but the White community outside the reservation."
Maulson told The Times that he'd like to see ILI eventually expand to include the area's younger school children as well.
"We need to build stronger bridges, not only in the Indian community, but in the White community also," he said. "If we were both to fall together and be cut on the same knife and grasp our hands, we wouldn't be able to tell whose blood it is. We need to agree to disagree. And Indian communities need to do that amongst themselves, too, as we go forth into the future ... If we don't teach them (children) right, who's going to teach them?"
Lac du Flambeau Public School superintendent Larry Ouimette, also attending the picnic, called ILI a "very helpful" program in improving relationships between American Indian and non-tribal students in the Lakeland area.
"It (ILI) is a wonderful opportunity to learn about cultural differences and what's important in each other's lives," he said, noting that "virtually all" of LdF's students voluntarily participate in the ILI program.
Feedback from LdF alumni, Ouimette said, show that ILI has fostered a sense of "belonging and togetherness" among students.
"They've made (ILI) friendships that have continued into the high school," he noted.
Eric Johnson can be reached at ejohnson@lakelandtimes.com.
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