Over Spring Break, the Anderson School of Management played host to a meeting of the All Pueblo Council of Governors for the first time.
The meeting was held for informational purposes, as the council members in attendance numbered one shy of a quorum, thus no voting action was able to take place.
A formal council discussion was held after an introduction by University President Bob Frank and a brief powerpoint presentation by Craig White, interim dean of the Anderson School of Management.
“Our opportunities to work with you are very important to the University; we view our relationships with all of you as critical,” Frank said in his address to the council members in attendance. "If there’s (anything) we can do, please relay it to Dean White today, and he’ll pass it back to me.”
White and his administrative team’s presentation included a breakdown of the school’s degree programs, its mission, the educational environment at the school, demographics and scholarships available to students.
“(The monthly meeting of the All Pueblo Council of Governors) usually happens at the cultural center, or on the Pueblos themselves, but through some of our contacts here at Anderson, Alicia Ortega, one of our graduates, found an opportunity to host it here,” White said. “Physical proximity; that’s always the best way to establish relationships (and) get to know people.”
He said it is important to maintain a mutually reciprocal flow of knowledge, especially with people of different cultural backgrounds.
“That’s what’s going on, it’s all really nice; new conversations about what kind of needs (the Pueblo people) have, what programs we have (and) how can we help each other out,” White said.
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This was the first time the Anderson building physically opened its doors to a meeting of the All Pueblo Council, he said, noting the historicity of the event. When asked about the success of the meeting, White said it was a “homerun from Anderson’s perspective."
There are 179 Native American students currently enrolled at the Anderson school, White said, roughly 10 percent of the Anderson student body.
Ortega, who is from both the Santa Clara and Pojoaque Pueblos, currently serves as the Policy Coordinator for the All Pueblo Council of Governors. Ortega studied at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in the Anderson School of Management.
Ortega said she was proud of her time at Anderson and said she was especially grateful to members of the Native American Student Success at Anderson.
“Just the excitement around reaching out to the tribes more, and getting more of a Native student presence, a Pueblo presence here at Anderson; it was important to all of us,” she said. “It was important to me because I want to see our tribes succeed, and we do have a lot of enterprises, and business, and the goal here is really to kind of connect Anderson, which is a great resource for tribes in terms of being able to help them build capacity within their own communities so that their people, their tribal members can become the managers, the CEOs, the decision makers for the tribe. It’s nice to have the community involved.”
Jae Francis, designated coordinator at NASSA since 2012, said she has served Native American students at Anderson in similar ways, on a voluntary basis, since 1994.
Francis said it was the students that prompted her to enter this field of work.
“Being that I was probably the only Native American on staff here at Anderson, the native students kind of gravitated toward me; it was a familiar face (for them),” she said.
Francis said that, in her 20 years of service to the community of Native American students at Anderson, her passion for the work she does has only grown stronger.
“Thank you, thank you very much,” Governor E. Paul Torres of Isleta Pueblo, Chairman of the Council of Governors, said at the conclusion of the Anderson school’s presentation. ”It’s very exciting to see that there’s a lot of Native students here, and that’s great; this information (we have received), I hope that my education department, higher ed, (already) has this information, I’m sure they do.”
Torres thanked Frank, Anderson and UNM, then opened up the floor for an informational council discussion. The council deliberated over matters such as the importance of Pueblo voter turnout in state and federal elections, as well as important changes to Pueblo and Indigenous demographics in and around Albuquerque.
Regis Pecos, lifetime council member from the Cochiti Pueblo, said in an address to the council that there was still much work to be done and many problems to be addressed, but said he was happy with the event.
“This meeting (was) long overdue,” Pecos said, ”(it was an opportunity to focus) on building human capital, important for any community development; this a very important dialogue which, (due to) more trust and confidence, is going to lead to looking at ways of formalizing partnerships to help build that common agenda and shared responsibility.”
Johnny Vizcaino is a staff reporter at the Daily Lobo. Contact him at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @thedailyjohnnyv.
