Advising with Culture & Community: Empowering Native and Indigenous Students - Adventures in Advising

In Ep. 118 of the Adventures in Advising podcast, Leander Yazzie, tribal relations liaison at the University of Washington Tacoma, facilitates a discussion with Devon Williams, Green River College; Alexis Perez, University of Washington Tacoma; and Cynthia DePoe, Pierce College Puyallup.

Panelists share their experiences and roles in supporting Native and Indigenous students, the challenges of advising non-traditional students, and the significance of cultural integration in academic advising. The conversation highlights initiatives, increasing visibility and community for Native and Indigenous students, and emphasizing the need for personalized, community-centered advising practices. 

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hello and welcome to the adventures in advising podcast. We are at Episode 117 and on today's episode, I am thrilled to welcome back previous guest and today's guest host, and that is Leander Yazzie, Tribal Relations liaison in the office of indigenous engagement at University of Washington, Tacoma. Leander is one of our OG guests, having been interviewed way, way, way back in episode 11 from May 2020 titled overcoming obstacles meander. Welcome back, my friend.

Leander Yazzie  
Thank you for having me, Matt. It's really good to be back, and there's so many changes that has happened over the over the years, and things are really, really rockin and rollin right now here at the State of Washington regarding our our work in helping and supporting our indigenous and Native student populations.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and you're doing a lot of excellent work. And hey, this is your episode today, so I'm gonna stop talking. I'm gonna turn it over to you, and you got some friends of yours, some guests that you want to introduce. 

Leander Yazzie  
All right. Well, good afternoon, everyone. There, I shared my my clans with you. I am a member of the Navajo Nation, and I currently work at the University of Washington Tacoma as the travel relations liaison, previously working at Green River College as I served in multiple capacities there. I was there for about 10 years. I worked in Workforce Education and also in advising, which is where I spent a lot of my time a little over seven years. And from from that, you know, I transitioned over to the Tribal Relations Manager, where I was able to create the indigenous Student Success Center at Green River College. And so, yeah. So from there, you know, I made that transition here to the university and and serve as a travel relations liaison. So without further ado, I'm just going to go ahead and have my my guests introduce themselves, and we'll go ahead and start with with my colleague, Devon. 

Devon Williams  
My name is Devon Williams, and I am an enrolled member of the fort McKay, First Nation from Alberta. Fort McKay, Alberta, Canada, primarily comprised of Cree and Dene people, and I'm currently an educational planner at Green River College in our schools, trio SSS program, and I'm also currently serving as the staff advisor for our schools Native American Student Organization, or NASO, as we call it, which is operated out of Our Indigenous Student Success Center that Leander was talking about. Yes, great to be here. Thank you for the introduction. Alexis, great to see you out there. Where are you?

Alexis Perez  
Sunny, San Diego, California, 

Devon Williams  
Lucky. 

Alexis Perez  
Yeah, I'm doing some advice on my own and refilling my cup, but I will introduce myself. Buju anin, Alexis. Hello. I'm from Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin. I'm Ojibwe and Potawatomi. I am currently a senior at the University of Washington, Tacoma, studying environmental sustainability, with my focus being in law and policy. I'm going to complete a minor in American Indian Studies. And I am a veteran, so I actually work on the campus as well. I am the veteran navigator, which is a WD VA position, so I serve as that it's, it's not necessarily like an employee. It's more or less a contract. And we service the entire Pierce County. Well, I should say I'm servicing the entire Pierce County, and we essentially have eight of us all across Washington. We're hoping that we can do enough that we increase the demand next year. They dropped from about 50 the prior year, so now we're only at eight. So we're hoping that we do a good job this this time around, and then that we can get more funding allocated and have more of us. But essentially, what I do is I help service veterans in Pierce County, the veterans on the campus, and I try to help them get connected with services that they might need, resources that they might need. And so I do referrals, things like that, and I also offer advice and advising in the capacity, as far as what I have obtained as a student at the university, I'm also an advisor. So essentially what that is. Is it's veterans that have already had time at the university who want to take on the role of helping other incoming students that are veterans to navigate being that we're quite a niche population, and on top of that, being that I'mIndigenous, I felt the need to take on this role to also address the needs of native veterans, and so I've been doing a big part with that. And so I'm actually serving on the native veteran advisory board with, and I also am the President of the Cedar Circle on the university campus that I helped essentially, I founded it with a couple other students on the campus, and so that's a registered student organization that is set to create community and space and identity, like visibility on campus for us Indigenous students, but also for us to just have a place to be together And to find community and that kind of communal community that you can find anytime you go to any event that has indigenous people, pow wows and things like that. So we're trying to get our people here on campus more involved with the local tribes and the communities there in that capacity, and also increase our visibility on campus. So those are my roles that I do in at the university while I also study there full time. 

Leander Yazzie  
The Indigenous woman with many hats, there you go. Yeah, I'm just impressed by by the work that you do Alexis here at UWT. And you know the constant connection you have to the university. And you know, how much you you give and you know, and I really appreciate your your time with us, you know, to kind of share your story. And the reason I did ask you to be on this podcast is because, you know, I mean, like you're, you're working with our student veterans. And you know, most times, you know, you are running into some of our native veterans as well. Who are, you know, I mean, jbom is right down the road, and so we have a lot of native veterans who do come through. And you know, I, myself, was one of those native veterans who came to UWT, actually, my first class here at UWT, I was still in my my ACUs, and so, why I walk in with my ACUs my in my boots, and, you know, the it seemed like the whole class turned around like, what? What's going on? So, I mean, and that was back in, I think I started in 2013 So, but great. You know, we will be having, we are expecting one of our other colleagues to jump in here. She was caught up in a meeting. Her name is Cynthia DePoe. She is a academic advisor at Pierce College, and think she's in the Puyallup campus, so she will be coming on soon, and if not, then just gives us more time to to answer some questions and to share, share more about the work that we're doing. So yeah, let's go ahead and just jump into the first question that I have for you both. You know, in your opinion, what are the most common misconceptions that students have about academic advising whether they be non native or native.

Devon Williams  
You know, that it pretty much that it's that it's a transactional experience. I think at least in the work that I do as an educational planner in in trio, it's more of an ongoing relationship, and each meeting is just kind of working one step toward their success in college. It's not like choose your classes and you're done and get out of here. And I think sometimes students are surprised when I start asking them questions about their life and and everything else that goes on, asking about where they're from, with their family and stuff like that, because it's an ongoing professional relationship, and I, at least I have the capacity to do that, and that's what my position calls for. And especially with our Indigenous students, that's a big, big part of their lives. And you can't separate the two of those, their personal life and their academic life. I mean, applies to a lot of non native folks too, but especially for indigenous folks, that that community is so integral to their identity. So I I try and I try and dig into that. And I think that that's a big misconception, is people think that it just ends at the door.

Speaker 1  
Yeah, I agree, and I'll piggyback off that in that my personal experience as a student, I remember at my first community college, one of my advisors. He kind of relayed that for him when he went to a bigger university or a bigger school, that the advisors were literally only bringing you in to say, yep, this fits your these classes fit your program, you're good to go. And that was it and they were passing them through. And so he really emphasized the relationship building aspect with us. And so he was very much like you were he really asked where I was seeing myself in five years and things like that and and what I wanted to get out of what I was studying and things like that. And so I think it's very important for us to meet our students where they are and to understand, listen to their background, what they have and how they feel that they want to navigate it. Because, again, it's their educational journey, and they should have the ability to dictate how they want to navigate and go about that educational experience.

Leander Yazzie  
Yeah, and that's, that's totally, I mean, like, I think, as a, as a completion advisor, I served in Green River, we did wrap around type of advising, you know. And at one point I tried to use some intrusive type of advising and asking questions, you know, what are you doing? Like, how are you doing things? Or, you know, how's the family doing? Or, you know, and sometimes, you know, like, the student will be comfortable answering some of those questions. But I think it just, it just felt, you know, when I was doing some advising and working with students, I was just kind of like, so, okay, so we're here to talk about, we're here to talk about your degree plan. And you know how far you vote your progress is. And then you know, in, somewhere in between there, there would be something that would come up about being, being Native, or whatever. And so, as you can see in the back of my my office, you know, I have some of my native art up, you know, I try to include some, some things that are more relevant to them. And some, some of those, some of those items do create that, that that connection and and so they ask about, Oh, where did you get that painting at? You know, like, or what does that painting mean, you know, and so, and then that opens up for more, more conversations, which also builds on that relationship too. So yay looks like we got Cindy on the line.

Cynthia DePoe  
Hello, everyone. Sorry, we had a division meeting. 

Leander Yazzie  
Right on, you know, I really appreciate you. You being here and you giving up your time to to record this, this podcast, and this podcast is basically coming off of my experience and attending the, my very first NACADA conference back in 2019, I think About four years ago, and at that time, and I don't think I mentioned it while we were recording, but at the time, I was able to connect with the tribal colleges and university community. And so, you know, there were a few native advisors that were that were in attendance of the conference, and, you know, was able to make that connection with them. And eventually I did take over as the chairperson, and I couldn't take on the additional duties of that chair. So I think I was the chair for like, a year or so, and then I couldn't continue. So I hope that this, this this podcast will, will, will kind of bring that back and that, you know, we will get some some attention from some of the native and indigenous folks throughout the nation and also into our, you know, our international folks as well. It's just, it's amazing. So let's go ahead and have you introduce yourself. We just kind of introduce, gave her an introduction that was comfortable to you, and then I'll give, go ahead and give you the mic.

Cynthia DePoe  
All right. Well, hello everyone. I'm I'm Cindy DePoe. I work at Pierce College. I'm a student success coach. I'm a member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz. I'm Cheyenne, Arapaho, Chippewa, and, of course, Siletz. So our family started in Oklahoma, so now we're coastal, so we have a pretty our family is pretty involved. I have a sister that works at the state level and the Gaming Commission, so you'll see her last name. She does that scholarship that's out there, the WGIA scholarship, if you haven't seen it. And my younger brother actually just ran for the Department of Natural Resources, so that was a relative to you. So we are, we do try to stay involved. I have a couple family members on tribal council in different states, so, but yeah, my my grandfather, we have a city named after us, and if you've ever been to Oregon called depo bay that's named after our family. It's family name. Wish we still have property there. But anyways, that's just me and a little bit. I'm a veteran. I don't know if Lee under said he was but I served 31 years in the Air Force, so kind of old, though. But anyways, that's me. 

Leander Yazzie  
Alexis, what was your What was your branch? Again? 

Alexis Perez  
Navy.

Speaker 2  
All right, yes. All right. So we got the Army, we got the Navy and the Air Force. All right. Well, good deal. All right. And then, of course, we got, we got our first nations representing as well. So that's and we got it covered here. All right, cool. All right. Well, well, thank you, Cindy, for that introduction. All right, so let's go on to the next, the next question. So the question I have for you guys is like, how do you approach building a strong relationship with your advisees? And I know, earlier I mentioned, you know, having, like, there was a strategy that I use by putting up, you know, these native art or, you know, some of the, you know, like plaques or whatever that I have, and sometimes some of that stuff would capture the attention, and we would just kind of have the, when I would meet with my students, we would have, like, small conversations about certain things. Or I'd have books up, and students would like, Oh, you like that? Or, you know, just have a small conversation aside from the, you know, academic advising piece, you know. And then we, of course, we'd go back to it, but yeah, let's go ahead and let you guys share your thoughts on that question. 

Speaker 1  
For me, I noticed when I'm real personal with them, in the sense of something as simple as remembering their name, but it's personal in that you you know, you took the time to know how it's pronounced and things like that, but the fact that when you see them the second time and you remember their name, you say, Hi, Gina, how you doing? Whoever it was, and to see the them realizing, you know, they pay attention. And so being able to to have that connection with them, to to know that like I'm actually listening to you, so being able to instill that by doing simple things like remembering their name, remembering something that they mentioned the previous time, and following up with them about that in the personal level, before even getting into the business, you know, kind of, you know, warming them up to the way you would with a friend when you Oh, my God, you know, kind of catching up. And so being able to have that interpersonal relationship is super important. So I try to make people laugh, and I, like I said, I try to remember something personal to them from the time before connect that back in and kind of just get them, get them feeling like, Okay, this is my friend. Let's let's get to working because, because I genuinely care. And so I wouldn't be doing that if I didn't. And so it's kind of one of one of those things where I want them to know that I care, and then once they see that, they're gonna feel like, okay, like I can open up to this person and actually relate things to them. So I think having that personal touch to it really goes a long way. And even like passing them off, like, if you're like, oh, you know you you don't have the answers, having an interpersonal handoff that you can give to them, not just being like, oh, contact this person, but being like, here's so and so, here's, this is the person of contact and going over there, introducing them. And the best thing for me is in person. So if you can introduce them personally, walk them over and introduce them to that person, that's the best. But being able to have those one on one conversations in person. I always, if I'm communicating over email, I try to be like, can you come in and talk? Like, I prefer to just catch up in person whenever possible.

Leander Yazzie  
That's, that's, that's, that's totally, you're right on point, you know, I mean, like, I think that's, that's kind of how I, how I did, did some of my advising, and especially I, one thing that I really, struck, struck me was, you know, that handoff piece, and then one thing that always, like, seemed, and this is just me thinking, you know, one thing that I always seem like, you know, like, especially if I'm taking them to say the registrar, or to the Financial Aid Office, which, you know, at Green River, those offices were, were amazing, you know, like they, I mean, the staff there were truly supportive, you know, of the work that that came out of the indigenous Student Success Center. And so, like, you know, when I was with, you know, would it make those connections? You know, the interaction between myself and that other staff member was always, it was always good. So then the student would feel that by, you know, so, yeah, I mean, I agree with you on that. What about you, Cindy?

Cynthia DePoe  
For me, I just the same thing. I try to make that connections. I have a little cubicle. You can kind of see part of my office right now. I have native art, or, yeah, have a couple native pictures, and then different tribal colleges information, the scholar, the college fund, the natives college fund. So that way they see these things, they can ask questions, because I might forget to mention it, and that way I can like, okay, let's send you that information, that link, and because the they had two presentations here in the Puyallup School District, because I I have a lot of Running Start students that I help out with. And so I don't know if you guys are familiar with pill up, but they have their own like PTA group. So parent family gathering, and they meet once a month. So I my my kids graduated from here, so I was part of that family group for a bit. And so I can just they don't care who goes to those meetings. So if you ever wanted to just join a meeting, they meet once a month, and they have dinner there. Well, then you get to meet the families and the kids as well. So I don't have any of the well, actually, I just, I have a student. She's not one I'm supposed to keep because she's studying dental hygiene, but she does not want to go to somebody else. And she was just in the office a couple weeks ago and and she was talking about culture events, and she's one of the student leaders, and she has the club at her high school. She's like the vice president of the club at her high school. And so I was telling her about an event that Leander and I went to with downtown Puyallup. So she was taking pictures of the link so she could go to those she goes, that'd be great for my club, and so, yeah, so that's when you like really want you're making that connection. It makes you feel good. But for me, it's hard. I I advise over 400 students and to know who is native and not ask again. So I'm trying to figure out how to do it incognito so that I don't forget, but they're very good about telling me who they are. So I like that, because I just had a student we had walk in advising this week, and I had an another Native student that had not seen, did not know there was a native advisor, and he seemed pretty ecstatic, but he's getting ready to graduate. So I was like, I'm so sorry, but yeah, because he didn't know about the college fund. I mean, goodness, you know, it's too bad they don't know about the other resources, because his tribe, he said, Oh, he's Navajo Leander. He said, in order to get money from the tribe, he has to do the some kind of language class, and he hasn't done that, and his mom's been after him to get that done so he can get his benefit. But he didn't do that. So, yeah, yeah. Like, yep. So I felt bad. I said, well, they should probably, probably do that, you know.

Devon Williams  
Cindy said something interesting about, you know, having, kind of the students not aware that there is an Indigenous advisor, just because that's the situation I'm in at Green River, where currently I'm the only native advisor, at least in student affairs. And so I do find a situation where I'll have some student, I'll be meeting with a student, and we'll sit down and come into my my office, and in the same way, like with everyone here, there's, there's native art around, I decorate the office with all this stuff. And then they start my conversation, are you native? And then he's like, Yeah, I didn't. They didn't even expect that there would be an indigenous advisor. And so having that representation is great. And I do find that that some, some of the native students at all advise will, like, bring their friends, or they'll they have, like, another, they have a family member, and they'll try and set them up in my office so then we can speak and so it there is definitely that really cool word of mouth community piece to it. I love the fact that it's we all do the art. That was something that I actually took from from Leander, because I was a student at Green River College, and lander was my advisor, I think, yeah, prior to that, I hadn't seen I didn't think there was necessarily a space for indigeneity in higher education, because I had, personally, in my experience, never seen it up until that point. And so when I had the opportunity to be advised, and I saw the cool artwork and and landers office, that made me feel very at ease and seen and kind of brought down a lot of barriers or kind of hesitance and resistance that I might have had up. And so I think just those little things about creating the welcoming spaces in your environment is really powerful. I'm really glad that we're all doing that.

Leander Yazzie  
Yeah, yeah, yeah, space is important. And that's one thing, you know, that's, that's one of the areas that you know we talk about, you know, in as as educators, as Indigenous and Native educators, is like we talk about space, you know, do we have, do we have a space for our students to study and feel like they belong? Do we have space for, you know, our, you know, professional natives who are working with these students, you know, do we have a space, you know? And so a lot of that is really important in in this work, you know, in this overall, you know, work, when we're we're talking about, you know, supporting and, you know, making sure that we're putting our students first. And next question I wanted to ask too. Oh, well, actually, first of all, I was like, Do you guys have any any, any questions that you want to you want to ask? Is there anything that's burning that you want to ask the group about? 

Cynthia DePoe  
Just recently, we are starting to like, include some kind of events. So like for me, for the last two years, we've done a MMIW display, and so a lot of people don't know about that, and the Student Life approached me because I had talked about it. I did a presentation one year, and then we decided the following year we put up red dresses.

Leander Yazzie  
So what is MMIW, can you share?

Cynthia DePoe  
Missing, Murdered, Indigenous, Women and and people. And so what we did is we have a maker space. I don't know what it's called at other colleges, but I cut out the red dresses and they were just wooden, wooden dresses, and they were all painted red. And then we put all the people from Washington that have gone missing and the date they went missing. And so we put those out around the campus, and then they had QR codes so that they could explain that a student could scan that QR code and understand what that was. And so we've been doing that consecutively now for two years. And so I have also done a presentation on campus through to the faculty about that, so they're aware and they can incorporate that in, you know, some of their meetings. But the students were very upset the ones in student life that had done it the year before, because our numbers did not decrease, they increase this last year. And so that upset them, because they were redoing the signs, because they were trying to find the ones that were found and then found out they instead of removing signs, they were adding more. So it was kind of depressing. But yeah, so it's just educating, educating, found or educating, but we're also on Indigenous Peoples day, I don't know if Leander gets tasked to but I get tasked a lot because we don't have a lot of natives employees, but they kind of like, last minute, asked me to talk about boarding schools because I knew a little bit about that, so we talked about that so but just trying to educate people on campus about different things. 

Leander Yazzie  
Alexis,  you had something to add?

Speaker 1  
A part of what I wanted us to do in Cedar Circle was to increase that visibility on campus. And so last year, we managed to order a couple signs that we were able to put out with information regarding this subject. But one of them actually got, like, a little bit of like, I guess you'd call it vandalism or desecration to it, but they slapped a Trump sticker on it, and it was just, it was ridiculous, but we had some of those. And this year, we're planning on actually doing essentially, like, a week long awareness of it. So we're going to start on the first and go to the fifth. But what we plan to do is very similar. We want to do also the red dresses along campus. And then we wanted to increase our number of signs that we created, and have more of those signs out on campus so they have again, with the QR codes and more information. And then we also had an idea of doing a run. I wanted to do a run around. I'm not sure sure where the location will be just yet for the run, but ideally I wanted to invite an alumni. Her name is slipping my mind right now, but she was quite involved when her time here on campus. And she's a she was D1 runner, and she's Muckleshoot, I can't think her name right now slipping my mind, but she did a phenomenal job doing her part in getting that awareness out, in her capacity as she ran at state with a red hand print on her face. And so I wanted to reach out to her and for us at the university to host a run. So that would be part of one of the events for that week long awareness. And again, same thing, we were looking to find somebody who would be willing to present on the topic as another day is one of the events. But we're trying to do things like that with our Cedar Circle on the campus, and that was part of the whole reason I wanted us to create the club is so that we did have this set group of us that are kind of constantly working towards a goal to increase our visibility on campus. So it's so it's so cool to hear that you're doing it there, because I went to Pierce, and I actually went to the Puyallup extension. And I remember the first time I walked in the library and I seen the astronomy and it had an indigenous woman with a shawl. I felt so seen in that moment. And I was like, Oh my gosh. And I wish I hadn't been able to board. Time there, but yeah, that was phenomenal to see. And I liked that campus more than the still come campus, even though I live down the road from it.

Cynthia DePoe  
We have new artwork that was the only native piece of artwork we have, and Fort Steilacoom come has others, because we complained about the totem pole they have at Fort Steilacoom because it's under cover and it's not supposed to be but we have artwork from Preston Singletary, and it's, it's beautiful, if you can have a chance to come see that it has the raven on top of it, because he has his glass work up there. And then it supposedly it does something with the solar system too, down below, on the ground. So, but yeah, I helped pick that artwork. So I was so happy that we have because the one in the library is old. They need to, it looks, looks like it could be refurbished, but they haven't done anything with it. 

Leander Yazzie  
And I think, I think that is, that is amazing, you know, and that's what, that's those events are, what you know, what helps, you know, our students feel seen, as you said, Alexis, and they feel like they belong. And so, you know, just with that, you know? I mean, like the indigenous Student Success Center at Green River, you know. I mean, like we held, we had several events that had, you know, that we did, you know, and that's one thing that there was one thing that that stuck out was either Cindy or Alexis just mentioned the increase in, like, you know, not having enough staff available. And then, you know, always being, you know, task at the last minute and so, and that's where a lot of this work, you know, I mean, like when we're when we're talking about advising, you know, we're sitting here, our main focus right now, it's like advising, but our, our work, our this work With our native and Indigenous students. It expands to different areas. It expands to creating this wraparound type of advising, you know, strategy. And then also, it also takes in, you know, campus community buy in, you know, what is? What are the different offices? You know, how are the different offices on campus helping this work evolve? And that's, that's more or less like kind of getting out of those silos that we all often hear about, you know? So, yeah, and again, you know, when I was, when I was at Green River, I worked with Rosalie, you know, she, she was white, she was my student at Green River, and she is just, so she's an amazing student, amazing indigenous woman that, you know, I mean, like she, she, she meant some business, and she's just amazing. So maybe that's something we can chat about?

Leander Yazzie  
On that topic, I think it's so important that we are able to bring back our native alumni, so that we can show our current students, you know, where they can see themselves, and to have that connection, to be able to do the networking. And so that's another thing that we're planning on doing, is like an alumni dinner on a capacity of like the native alumni, we wanted to reach out to those that have gone to the UW, but just to create that opportunity for all of us to gather around food and to share a meal, and then to be able to just laugh and be able to see each other and community, and to see to just have that representation, but have the chance to also that intergenerational communication and bonding is so important. And I feel like Western culture does a very good job separating the ages and things like that. So it's like college students stick with college students and high schoolers and high schoolers or, you know, elders or elder and it's like we need the intermingling of the generations, and so having events where we're bringing back alumni, where they're in different stages of their career is going to be so important for our students to want to pursue and finish this really hard journey that a lot of them are the first ones navigating it within their families. A lot of them are first generation, and a lot had to sacrifice four or five years of their youth to go into service in order to financially afford this opportunity, or to be able to get into position where they could attend a college they might not have it within close capacity to where they did have to leave their their entire community and serve in order to get those benefits and things like that. So being able to have the alumni come back and showcase like just all their hard work and what they've been doing, and also just opportunities might open up with, oh, I have a job in here saying, and that's, and that's how a lot of the communities work anyway, is it's all about who you know. And so if we can build our native network even stronger than why not? 

Leander Yazzie  
I wanted to ask, what role can data analytics play in improving our advice, our advising practices? So you know what I mean by that is like creating spreadsheets or collecting data from our students, you know, and how many times they come into our office, you know, are they close to graduating? And, you know, and what classes are they needing to graduate? And then the other question, this is a two two point question is, you know, what are the most important aspects of students, of your students, academic plan that you need to focus on, and how does that culture, How does culture fit into, fit itself into, how you how you put those aspects into play. 

Devon Williams  
This is something I was thinking about just because we were talking there seemed to be that community, obviously, is pretty central to everything, and how things, at least, you know, among indigenous folks, among indigenous students, there's, it's, it's definitely, it's an identity that's rooted in community. And I think that that's something that kind of really needs to be tapped into. And, you know, as Alexis was saying, of like the sort of this western settler separation of people by age groups. There's also definitely a separation of people by their identities. And there's this idea that you can't act this way here, or you can't bring this part of yourself here. But I think if we're going to be effective at advising Indigenous students, making sure that they feel welcome in an institution that is historically marginalized their being is to definitely bring and invite their whole selves into the space like this bell hooks engaged pedagogy, idea of just you bring your whole yourself into this space, and I mean doing that through community events is huge, at least in my case, as being here in Auburn and Green River. A lot of the students that I advise definitely are kind of falling into the urban Native archetype and kind of having I that's like a common thing that I talk to students a lot about is they have a longing for belonging or being a part of an like minded group of Native people on campus. And that's honestly a big part of the plan, cademic plan, I'd say too, is just this idea of meeting people. Like, how are we going to make a plan for you to actually engage with the campus and meet people, because that's a huge part of education, is the networks that you create. So I try to do that when I meet with students, find them organizations or clubs that they can join on campus, or other internships or not well outside the campus, or if there's any work, study jobs on campus, just ways that they can engage with the community around them.

Leander Yazzie  
How about the students who, who are your, your non traditional students, you know, the students who are, who are quick on campus, you know, they're there for just to classes, and then they gotta balance?

Devon Williams  
Well, I think you, you know, a lot of times it's the students that are working, the students that are working that i Those are the students that I that I usually just drop in, drop out. I usually am very, very flexible with meeting people virtually, giving them a call, trying to find hours of the day that work within their schedule, and being really receptive to drop in times. Because I think for a lot of the students that I work with, they are working full time a lot of times, and then doing school part time, or sometimes full time. And so being able to on a win say, Yeah, I can meet now. I have to meet now is the only time I can I'm on my lunch break that is definitely, I try to be open to that, and that is very non traditional and in the least availability. Because I think a lot of the students that I would consider to be traditional college students generally have the flexibility for scheduled meetings. 

Leander Yazzie  
How about like, data? How about data collecting? How about, you know, telling the story. I know that was, that was the big thing.

Devon Williams  
I'm so I'm so bad with numbers, I couldn't tell you.

Leander Yazzie  
A completion advisor, you know that...

Devon Williams  
Yeah, you're good at the numbers. 

Leander Yazzie  
I was always like, looking at as I had this, like, Excel spreadsheet, and I would, I would look at him, and I would move students over, you know, like, oh yeah, they're over a hump, you know, like, or they're, they're, like, two quarters from graduating, you know, and then I get to send them the graduation email, you know, hey, you're, you can apply for graduation, you know. And that's, and that's one thing I want to focus on, you know, in when I'm hiring this new, new position within our office, is, you know, I want this person to have some really good just like being inquisitive about our students, you know. And I think when, when you're working with students, you sometimes, you got to put yourself in their shoes, like, literally, and say, what's going on, you know like, how, how are you walking through your day, you know? And so, yeah, I don't know if Cynthia or Alexis has anything they want to add to that?

Cynthia DePoe  
Well, I do keep a spreadsheet. We don't. I haven't seen numbers because I know you showed me numbers when you're at Green River, like how many Native students you have. We used to use something called Tableau, and I heard it broke or something, and they I don't know if it's been fixed, but I I haven't seen like, who those people are, because I don't even know, like employee Wise, who our native employees are. Only the way I know is by word of mouth and then we meet each other. But as far as you know numbers, I have a huge spreadsheet with all my people on them that I'm tracking like if the ones that are getting ready to graduate this spring, I'm trying to make sure they all got registered and that they have turned in their degree in diploma form. It's just a lot of moving pieces all the time, so it's a lot to keep track of, but yeah, I'm trying.

Leander Yazzie  
And that's, that's the, that's the whole thing about this, this, this job that we're doing, serving in sort of these advisor positions. And, you know, in sometimes, you know, like, I, I know, I know, I know, Green River has some really cool programs that they use for advising. And, I mean, they, it was just awesome. Like, it took me a while to get on board, but, you know, a little old school, you know, Excel spreadsheet was my way to go. And my, my old supervisor at the time, and she was like, oh, you know, we're gonna get, like, we're gonna get some, some program that's going to do all this for you, like, no, no, but, and that's the thing that was the personal part. That was the personal piece of, you know, seeing a spreadsheet and going down one by one. And I there was, there was a time where I, I remember, like, ID numbers, you know, like, I could see ID numbers and I recognize, you know, and somewhat typing and without having to look. And it was just, it was just really, it was a good way for me that that's kind of how I worked, even though we had all those fancy programs, you know, which was cool.

Devon Williams  
Alexis, I was curious, how many, how many students or people participate in the Cedar Circle, and how do you track that?

Alexis Perez  
Cedar Circle? We've been having a hard time getting the numbers up. A lot of our initial students in the beginning, we had roughly maybe six or seven that would consistently come in the beginning, but then a lot of them graduated. So now we're trying to we also lost our previous tribal liaison before Dr. Yazzie came, we had Gabe Minthorn, and he was amazing, and he's actually same concept of how we had native art displayed. So he had a blanket laid out. And I remember looking at the Involvement Fair, and I was trying to find it, because I had specifically chose Washington, the University of Washington, because I was informed that there was native professors and quite a large Native student body. And so I was looking forward to that aspect. And they said, I even think there's a club there. And so I searched for it. And when I seen his blanket, I ran over because I recognized, you know, the artwork. And so I ran over, and I was like, this has got to be where the club is. And then I was like, what? So where's the Indigenous student club? Where do I sign up? And he's like, Well, we don't actually have one yet. But I was like, So then where do I sign up to get started? So that's how it ended up getting started. But it was that visibility of being able to see him there on the campus and and then that, it just created that snowball of like, okay, we're how do we? How do we start getting more of us involved. And I literally would just use my like, Nadar and scout out other natives. I could just like, if I sensed that you were I'd be like, Okay, are you native? And then that's how I got my vice president, Charlotte. She's Macaw and she's again, we were in the same class together, studying the same degree, and so I was just finding them in my classrooms and things like that. I mean, I was able to find the four other natives on my ship of 5000 people, and there was only five of us, and so I found them. So I was like, I can, I think I can navigate the college a little bit, but I really just, it's just building those like interpersonal relationships with them, and being like, okay, like, do you want to come and create something where we can have more resources and we can have more spaces where we can do more things like this with more of us, like minded people and and to have these spaces. And so that's kind of just how it it developed, by me mentioning it to other students and then them showing up and things like that, and kind of word of mouth. But we're still working on getting our presence on campus because of the fact that there's only a few of us as active officers that do the footwork. So a lot of it relies on a few of us, and it's kind of hard, especially with me being a senior now, I'm juggling a lot of roles, and so I'm transitioning it to one of our freshmen, so hopefully he can take the reins, and I can set him up real nice so that this coming year goes out smooth, and then hopefully I'll be brought back as an alumni for an alumni dinner that he can, you know, host or something like that. But full circle, kind of like how Dr. Yazzie is full circle, with Devin being here, and, you know, the whole back on the podcast, like, that's super cool.

Leander Yazzie  
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of loop in here, you know, I mean, you've, you've also done, you've also interviewed our alumni spotlight as well. You know, a very, very powerful and very intellectual, you know, student as well. And you know, you did a great job with that too. And, you know, and also, just like with Devon, you know, I mean, Devon's really stepped up in his work. And, you know, just working with, you know, the ISSC and such and so. And then, you know, we got Cindy here. You know, she's a part of our we have this monthly meeting that we hold with our native and indigenous educators. What do we call the indigenous warriors? And so, you know, there's a bunch of us from different colleges throughout the state that come together, and we just, we just have a candid talk, you know, some of us, you know, we use, we use each other just to kind of unwind and just complain or, you know, share something happy, or whatever, you know, like we have that trust amongst each other, and that's what we have. And so, you know, it's just amazing to, you know, when, when all this stuff just kind of, it's a full circle. And, you know, like I mentioned to, like, and with this work with and, you know, the State Board and the the hiring of these tribal liaisons, and it's just, it's it's good it's all good work. It's all good stuff that is happening throughout the system here in Washington, whether it be university or within the CTCs. So with that, you know, I just want to ask one more question. I think we're coming up on our on our time. But I just wanted to ask something about, if you can remember how an advisor when you were in school, when you were a student in Lexis, this is applied to you too, as well. You know, how did the advisor help you navigate, you know, a difficult academic situation or even a personal situation on campus. You know, being an indigenous person, that's you know, on this campus where you know, like, sometimes you know, you didn't feel visible or even heard or seen.

Alexis Perez  
So my time at the university has not been an easy one. I've had quite a few different things happen in my life that's made it quite difficult, even like close to being homeless at one point and things like that. And so I've just had a lot on my plate during my whole journey throughout the university, and to have an indigenous professor say they were gonna carve out time of their busy schedule to come spend time with me, just to get coffee, just to listen to me and to hear what I had to say, and to kind of, I guess, lighten my load was so like important for me in order to keep me wanting to continue pursuing this higher education journey. Because I think I was at one point like, I don't know if I'm gonna, I don't think maybe this Western education thing isn't, isn't really my job, maybe I can't really get with it. And she really just encouraged me to continue, like, tapping into things that I find strengthen. So she really had me kind of take a step back and reflect, like, what's important to you, what's important to replenish your cup? How do you refill your soul? But to have an indigenous professor who I know has so much on her plate, have that that time to connect on such a personal level with something, it really, I guess, pivoted my whole perspective of, like, how I can do this, and I'm like, I have community. Like I'm building community, and the things I do builds community. And so it was so empowering to be like, Yes, I she sees me, and she sees my struggles, and she believes I can pursue and push through. And so having that was just everything I needed, like it was that matriarch that I needed in my life to be like, Hey, we've been through worse, and you can get through this. And so having that, and then wanting to be able to pass that forward, this is the big reason why I'm like, doing these advising roles.

Leander Yazzie  
Awesome. Thank you for. Sharing. Cindy, Devon, you have anything to add to that?

Cynthia DePoe  
So I got my degree while in the military. So you don't to me, they don't see you. They just are trying to help you, nab it, maybe navigate. Because I remember work when I was working on my associate's degree, it was like, because you move so much, you get a different advisor at each location, and so you hear what you're supposed to be taking, but then coming to find out that wasn't something that you needed for your degree. So you're wasting your time. And I remember, you know, being young and just bawling because I'm like, that's not what I was told. This is what I was supposed to take, and now you're saying, No, I'm taking the wrong thing. And so being very upset, but I finally had somebody write it down, so I had it in writing, and I was able to use that to navigate. And then once I got to my bachelor's degree, it was so much easier, because I had somebody that was one on one with me and we had it already written down like this is what you're going to do each quarter that have any more issues after that. But it was just, I think the hardest for me, it was just getting that associate's degree so I could get to the bachelor's because I think Alexis said it in the beginning. You know, I was, I was the first My parents were both married a couple of times, and I was the first one to graduate high school, even though I have other siblings, and I was the first to graduate college. And it was just funny, when I was going to my younger brothers and sisters graduations, I had a relative say, so do you have a degree? And I was like, well, yes, I do. I actually graduated, like, you know, five years or 10 years before these guys, but, you know, they didn't know because their their kids hadn't graduated from college. So it was just, navigation is the hardest part. I think for all, I think for anybody, it's just, it can be very frustrating if you don't have the right person. And so as an advisor, I try to make it as plain and simple to understand, so they know what they have to do to get to that final point. They can see that, yeah, see that there's a finish line, because when you don't see it or and the other thing is, when they change degrees midstream, I mean, I try to warn them about, you know, I just had a student that was crying on the phone because they now have decided to do something totally different. And wanting to know, what can they do now? And it's their last quarter. And I'm like, there's not a lot you can do. I mean, it would been nice to know that you want to do my biomedical sciences last year, because we would have done more science classes and math. But you're at the finish line. You're going to have a degree, but you're going to have to do more schooling.

Leander Yazzie  
Just kind of, you know, being able to help them understand you can graduate, but you know, if you do want to go back and you want to, you know, if this is something you want to do, then let's look at your degree audit. Let's look at your degree progression in this other area. Do you really want to go back and take some more of these classes? Or at the university, can you they have reverse transfers here? You know, if they, if they want to take the classes at the university, and can they fall into that other degree as a reverse transfer so then they can finish that credential too? You know, that's a possibility.

Devon Williams  
You know, CIndy, that's, that's that is as an advisor, sometimes one of my worst fears is misadvising a student and having those moments, I really try to take care and not to do that, because that is especially for first generation students. A lot of the students that I advise in the TRiO program are first generation students, and not having that knowledge, I think a lot of the students will really put a lot of stock into us as advisors, and especially indigenous advisors, like as we've talked about, how sometimes we're the only Indigenous person that they know on the campus, and so there's kind of that extra added layer of trust and responsibility that we have. And so I really try to make sure, in a similar way, that, as you were talking about, that students are aware of what they're doing, make it in plain and clear terms, and to really reiterate, and I literally let them know, like, did that make did they do understand that? It's like, no, did you really did that make sense to you? I can repeat this, or I could explain it a different way, a million times. I just want to make sure that the students understand what they're doing, especially because I think education, you know, higher education, it's there's obviously a lot of moments of intense beauty and fascination and brilliance in it, but there's also a lot of moments of pain and education, higher education, especially, can be a lot of moments of pain, and it those, we have to make sure, as advisors and people that are leading these students, that those are giving them the right moments to suffer for, I guess, that they're on the right on the right track, and that they're aware that that's a long, hard road, but this is the correct road. So I'd say, you know, obviously, as I talked before Dr. Yazzie was probably the first advisor at Green River, that I had a good experience. I also had a bit of a tough experience in college, especially in the first year, and led to me not or continuing for a year. I had stopped out for a year, mostly because I did not feel welcome, and I did not feel that I was getting advising that was considering me as a person, and that was considering my needs and as a first generation student. And so having that, finally, having that, that really great moment of being able to meet with with docusi as a student coming back, was, was, was really important to me, and that was, that was probably my moment. So I just wanted to thank you to end off my turn. 

Leander Yazzie  
Thank you. Thank you, Dean. Some good words. Yeah, so I think we're coming up on time. We're really pushing. And obviously this is, this is some we're just getting started, like we're just the fire is barely getting hot. It's starting trying to get hot in here. So thank all of y'all for for for being here and for giving you, giving, giving up some of your time today. Who knows? We may, we may have another, another follow up down the road. And, you know, talk about Alexis is new, new profession. You know, whatever she, she decides to to do with, you know, with the degree that she'll get so but again, you know, thank you again. I appreciate your time, and thank you all for listening out there, feel free to connect with me. My email address will be provided and yes, thank you again. Signing off.