Monday, July 7, 2025

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Photo: A pendant for San Carlos Apache College hung on campus. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ)

While Congress continues mulling over President Trump’s fiscal agenda, part of the White House budget proposes to essentially defund tribal colleges and universities – reducing federal funding by nearly 90%.

KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio reports on how Arizona schools and others across Indian Country are bracing for devastation.

Among them is San Carlos Apache College, which is not your typical campus.

The tribe has been building toward this dream of making higher education more accessible on the reservation for the last decade-plus.

That vision from San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler is still a work in progress, but one he’s been contributing to in ways – big and small.

“So we asked the chairman if we can borrow his podium. We didn’t know he had more than one.”

Lisa Eutsey is vice president and provost of San Carlos Apache College. She’s talking about the first commencement in May 2020.

“And so the next year, I had texted him or something and I was like, ‘Hey, can we borrow your podium again?’ But then I realized we found it, and he was like, ‘Just keep it.’”

That’s been a theme for the chairman, when it comes to piecemealing this makeshift campus together in the heart of San Carlos by slowly turning empty tribally owned buildings – including one home to old council chambers – into classrooms.

“Actually, a lot of the artwork on the walls are things that the chairman donated.”

Chartered in 2014, then officially opening its doors three years later, the college has graduated over 100 students.

“I joke I was leaving, in a way, the most fully funded, built out, oldest tribal college.”

Eutsey used to be dean of faculty for Diné College, which was founded on the Navajo Nation in 1968.

“…to come to a college with no funding, no classrooms, no faculty.”

By this fall, Eutsey says the college expects to employ eight full-time teachers and enroll 500 students but they and another 36 Indigenous schools across more than a dozen states are still dreading the worst. Trump wants to cut their federal funding by almost 90% – down to a collective $22 million.

U.S. Senators have a deadline of July 18 to decide whether to eliminate federal funding for public media.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s CJ Keene has more.

U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) sits on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. He says supporting tribal radio stations is a priority through the process.

“For our Native American reservations, there are some small radio stations in South Dakota and the United States who really rely on the public broadcasting funds to survive. We know that you want to revert some of those funds, but if you do that, some of those small stations that provide emergency service and community information – they may not survive.”

Sen. Rounds says White House counterparts have agreed to work with Congressional leaders seeking to keep tribal-operated radio functional through the process.

Over the weekend, Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) visited the command center for the Oak Ridge Fire in Window Rock, Ariz. to get updates and offer her support.

The Oak Ridge Fire is on the Navajo Nation near St. Michaels.

Gov. Hobbs says her administration will continue to coordinate with the tribe to contain the fire, and with recovery efforts.

Tribal officials, including Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren and Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley, met with Hobbs during the visit.

As of Monday morning, the fire was covering more than 10,900 acres.

It started on June 28.

Officials say the fire has not grown significantly in recent days and additional growth is not expected.

Efforts will soon be shifting to the recovery phase of the fire.

Officials say in the coming weeks, it will be critical to assess the fire’s impacts on the land, vegetation, wildlife, and cultural sites.

 

Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.