UA plans scholarship program with Navajo Nation officials

Under the intergovernmental agreement, the Navajo Nation would provide students from reservations with $4,000 yearly scholarships - if the UA insures they attend mandatory academic counseling, including tutoring for mid-term and final exams.

"It's an agreement that would allow us to encourage more students to come to the U of A," said Saundra Taylor, University of Arizona vice president for campus life. "It would be a program where we monitor more closely now the academic progress (of Navajo students). It's...to ensure student success."

The UA Department of Multicultural Programs and Services will host a meeting today at 10 a.m. in the Old Chemistry Building room 214 to discuss the proposal.

The proposed program, which Taylor hopes to implement by the fall semester, is modeled after Arizona State University's existing agreement, piloted in fall 1996.

"It helps the Navajo students know ASU is recognizing their needs," said Dawn Tato, a research assistant for the vice president for student affairs at ASU. "It's showing ASU is responsive to Native American needs."

Bruce Meyers, assistant dean of the UA's Native American Student Affairs program, predicted that the Navajo tribe would begin setting aside scholarship funds by June 3.

Gervase Begay, education specialist for the Navajo Nation, said the agreement was spurred by low American Indian retention rates.

At the UA, American Indians have the highest drop out rates of any minority.

In 1994, 7 percent of the American Indian students who enrolled at the UA four years earlier graduated with degrees. About 29 percent of white students who entered the university with the class of 1990 graduated.

"The goal is to reduce the attrition of Navajo students," Begay said.