- Details
- By Levi Rickert
Tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) and TCU students need your voice in Washington. Both Haskell Indian Nations University and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, the nation’s oldest and only federally chartered tribal colleges, are facing an immediate crisis due to the implementation of EO 14210 and the White House memo on hiring freezes.
To help, all you need to do is make a few quick phone calls.
[Editor's Note: This posting is American Indian College Fund President Cheryl Crazy Bull's latest blog.]
Follow these steps and call TODAY.
- Call your elected representative and senators at their Congressional Offices and ask for their Legislative Director. To find your representative and senators, use the CONGRESS.GOV website.
- Use this script for each call to your representative and senators:
- Hello, my name is (blank). My zip code is (tell them your zip code) and I am a supporter of tribal college education and the American Indian College Fund.
- Haskell Indian Nations University and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, the Nation's oldest and only federally chartered Tribal Colleges are in a crisis due to the implementation of EO 14210 and the White House memo on hiring freezes.
- In the last week, each institution lost over 24 percent of its staff - including student safety personnel and instructors.
- This is preventing the colleges’ ability to provide courses, programs, and student support services—and interfering with students’ completion of a higher education they paid for.
- I am requesting that Haskell and SIPI be exempted from the hiring freeze and terminated employees terminated due to EO 14210 be reinstated.
- If you need additional information, you can contact Moriah O'Brien, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium’s VP of Congressional and Federal Relations, at [email protected] or 703-838-0400.
- Thank you for your time! I appreciate your help.
Cheryl Crazy Bull, Wacinyanpi Win (They Depend on Her), the President and CEO of the American Indian College Fund, is a citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Nation. She has been in her position with the American Indian College Fund since 2012.
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