Higher Calling
Director working to help Native American families understand value of college

University of Arizona Director of Monority Student Recruitment Lori Tochihara talks with Window Rock High School freshman Dustin Rockman and Monica Owens about what it takes get into the college. The school was at the Navajo Nation Museum Museum on Saturday to provide information to potential students. [Photo by Brian Leddy/Independent]

By Natasha Kaye Johnson
Diné Bureau

Karen Francis-Begay serves as the advisor to the president of the University of Arizona as well as serving as the Director of Native American Student Affairs at the school. On Saturday she talked with potential college students about her experiences in education at the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock. [Photo by Brian Leddy/Independent]

GALLUP — Billboards across the Navajo Nation are adorned with images and messages promoting higher education, and people often hear leaders encouraging young people to get a college education.

But for some families, attaining a higher education still remains of little worth.

"There's a lot of (Native American) families who don't value or understand why their child may be in college," said Karen Francis-Begay, director of Native American Student Affairs at the University of Arizona, and special advisor to the president on American Indian Affairs, Karen Francis-Begay.

Recruiting students and helping them to adjust and stay in school is one of many duties of Francis-Begay, who is originally from Chinle. But the task it not an easy one, especially when students' primary support system their family does not support their decision to be in school.

For first-generation college students, helping families understand why education is important and finding innovative ways for those families to understand the pressures students face while in college is currently Francis-Begay's most difficult challenge.

Family first?
Often times, students confide in Francis-Begay for advice when they are torn between staying in school and returning home to help their families.

"There are families where the parents may be ill or grandparents are ill, so the expectation is that (the student) should come home and take care of the family."

For incoming students who are attempting to adapt to college life and take on their new, rigorous material, the pressure becomes overwhelming. These same students, Francis-Begay said, are pressured by their families to be providers, although they may hundreds or even thousands of miles from home.

Francis-Begay shared a recent example of a freshman student who confided in her for guidance, sharing the details of the financial hardship her family was experiencing. The girl's family had been putting pressure on her to make a vehicle payment, telling her that the vehicle would be repossessed if she didn't help out, and they would have no way to come and visit her.

"These kids value when their families can afford and come down and visit," said Francis-Begay. "That must have really hurt, to feel that pressure where the transportation will be gone."

Unpaid loans
Often times, students put into these situations take out loans, not for their own living expenses, but because they feel the demand from their families to help pay for bills. Francis-Begay said students are then convinced by family members that they will help them pay back that loan.
"But it never happens," she said. " (And) they get loaded up with a lot of loan money."

What many parents don't understand, Francis-Begay said, is that students are barely able to pay their bills. The freshman girl's story is one that she has heard more than handful of times in her 13 years as a university official.

And after hearing the same story, and seeing the distress it has caused students, Francis-Begay started looking outside the box, and has become compelled to team up with tribal leaders, so that together, they can begin to help families understand the pressures new students face.

"I want them to clearly know that a lot of our students are dealing with some pretty significant obstacles," she said.

A plea for help
This past weekend, Francis-Begay and other university officials traveled to Window Rock, where they discussed with leaders how they can collaborate to address the problem. She also plans to get on the Council agenda to talk with leaders this coming summer.

"Another concern is that we don't talk about, because its very sensitive nature in general, is how alcohol and substance abuse impacts students," said Francis-Begay. "You complicate that with the family pressures, and a lot of them don't have ways to handle that stress, and they go to their outlets."

Francis-Begay acknowledged that viewing college as one big party is the culture of colleges campuses, and a way that students feel more validated for being in college, but for many Native students it can often break them.

"We (university staff) have to be the voice; we have to say what about what your family told you. How does your grandma talk to you? How do your parents talk to you?"

Of the more than 37,000 students at the university, 814 are registered Native American students, and of those, 60 percent are Navajo.

"You get to think, where do you get the students to focus on school? How do you get them on track?," said Francis-Begay. "That's another real trouble area for me."

By talking with leaders, Francis-Begay hopes they will re-emphasize to community members that they must support their children's decision to go to college, and that they must allow them to focus on their studies and not have too much expectations of them to help resolve family issues.

"It's new territory we're treading into, but we see it as very common among a lot of college students," said Francis-Begay. "We really care about this community."