News

Community Extravaganza has fun for the whole family

This year’s Northwest Indian College (NWIC) Community Extravaganza will feature foam jousting, a bouncy house, a dunk tank, Zig Zag the clown, a barbeque, cotton candy, face painting, and a whole lot more.

The free community event will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on June 8 on NWIC’s Lummi campus.

A call for catering bids for NWIC’s graduation

The Northwest Indian College (NWIC) Graduation Committee has begun planning for NWIC’s 2012 Commencement Ceremony, which will be held June 15 at the Wex’lium Building. Community members are invited to bid for the catering of the ceremony.

The committee estimates that 600 people will attend. Food will be served buffet style, with a serving staff for main entrees.  The caterer would be responsible for picking up supplies, groceries, and fish (purchased by NWIC and filleted).

A true community garden

NWIC’s new medicine wheel garden will feed and teach the community

The first phase of the medicine wheel garden was done by Northwest Indian College students, staff and faculty volunteers and included digging trenches and drainage systems, building small retaining walls and laying pathways to and through the garden. That process lasted four days, some of which were less than ideal for outdoor work.
Members of the Lummi and Bellingham communities have joined forces with Northwest Indian College (NWIC) students, staff and faculty to create a garden on the Lummi campus that will nourish, heal and teach the community.

The project, which began in March, is the Cooperative Extension department’s medicine wheel garden, located outside the department’s new building.

The purpose of the garden is to serve as a teaching tool for students and community members to learn how to use plants for food and medicine, said Vanessa Cooper, NWIC’s Traditional Plants and Foods Program Coordinator.

NWIC’s Winter 2012 President’s list

Congratulations, Northwest Indian College students for your outstanding work this academic year. The following students made the President’s List for winter quarter, 2012:

M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust awards NWIC $400,000 grant

Northwest Indian College (NWIC) was recently awarded a $400,000 challenge grant by the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust for campus technology improvements, which will help further bring the college’s technology into the 21st Century. 

The grant will support campus-wide technology infrastructure at the college’s main Lummi campus and improve distance learning capabilities throughout its six full-service extended campuses at reservations in Washington and Idaho. The college must raise another $325,000 to unlock the full challenge grant and to complete $725,000 in technology improvements.

“Access to technology in rural areas and reservations is more limited than most places in the U.S. This grant will help create more technological access for our students and the communities we serve,” Cheryl Crazy Bull, NWIC President said. “We recognize that this is a substantial gift from the Murdock Trust and we are honored to have the Trust join us as a partner in Native higher education.”

President Crazy Bull reflects on John Trudell’s visit

On April 25, Northwest Indian College was honored to host presentations by John Trudell in the afternoon and again in the evening.

Just under 200 people packed NWIC’s Cultural Arts Center during the 1 p.m. talk and Trudell was met with standing applause as he stepped up to the microphone. That enthusiasm carried through that presentation and through his 7 p.m. presentation, as well. When Trudell finished speaking that evening, NWIC’s packed Log Building filled with loud applause and shouts of appreciation.

The following is a reflection by NWIC President Cheryl Crazy Bull about Trudell’s messages and his life’s work.

NWIC students honored at AIHEC

Second-year student Aissa Yazzie named Miss AIHEC 2012

Aissa Yazzie (Navajo) was named Miss AIHEC 2012 during the American Indian Higher Education Consortium conference in March. Yazzie is a second year student at Northwest Indian College in the Bachelor of Science in Native Environmental Science program.
The Northwest Indian College (NWIC) men’s basketball players made headlines when they won the 2012 American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) basketball championship title, but they weren’t the only students to win titles at the annual student conference this year, held in March in Rapid City, South Dakota.

NWIC students won awards in art and speech, and Aissa Yazzie, NWIC Student Executive Board president, was named Miss AIHEC 2012.

There were 12 finalists for Miss and Mr. AIHEC. They were judged on their academic performances, their knowledge of AIHEC, their commitment to carry forward their cultures and traditions, and their commitment to their communities demonstrated through participation and service contributions, said NWIC Director of Assessment and First Year Experience, Cindy Cultee, who was also an advisor to the AIHEC Student Congress for 10 years.

Career fair speakers, exhibitors draw huge crowd

Activist and actress Q'orianka Kilcher caught her audience by surprise when she began singing All I Could Do Was Cry, by Etta James, during her presentations at the NWIC-NOAA Career Fair.
From April 23 through April 25, the Northwest Indian College (NWIC) campus was alive with enthusiasm, inspirational voices and curiosity about what options lie ahead.

During those three days, the NWIC-NOAA Career Fair brought together NWIC students – some from as far away as NWIC’s Nez Perce campus – with local high school students and community members. Attendees got the inside scoop from representatives of graduate schools, tribal and government organizations and businesses, and learned how to market themselves to potential employers.  

NWIC Earth Day events included beach cleanup, garbage sort

Northwest Indian College student Charlotte Penn pulls part of an old boat out of the water April 20 during an Earth Week beach cleanup organized by the college’s Indigenous Service Learning department and sustainability committee.While the sun warmed the skin and blooming flowers filled the air with a scent we only get to experience for a couple of months of each year, Northwest Indian College (NWIC) students walked Lummi shores with their heads down and large, black plastic garbage bags in hand.

The students, joined by NWIC staff and faculty and a Bellingham community member, were helping to clean up the beach on April 20 as part of Earth Day celebrations at the college, which took place April 19-23.

Arizona frybread is coming Lummi

The “More Than Frybread” movie sensation will play one night only in Whatcom County

On June 7, the “More Than Frybread” phenomenon will hit Northwest Indian College. On that day only, students, staff, faculty and the community will have a chance to view the underground Native movie sensation, visit with the film’s writer and director and show off their own frybread making skills during a frybread cook-off.

The film tells the funny and fictional story of the First Annual Arizona Frybread Championship competition between the 22 tribes of Arizona. Each sends their local champion to compete for the coveted title of Arizona Frybread Champion. 

The film closely follows five individuals from the Navajo, Hopi, Yavapai-Apache, Hualapai, and Tohono O’odham Nations as they journey from their homelands to the state championship held in Flagstaff, Arizona.