Native Pathways Program

The Native Pathways Program (NPP) promotes life-long indigenous scholarship by placing value on cultural and traditional ways of knowing, working with indigenous research methodologies, and expanding indigeneity through academia. This is an academically rigorous 12-credit program that provides opportunities to learn through western and indigenous pedagogy, while maintaining and promoting an indigenous worldview.

Locations and Schedule

• Olympia (Evergreen campus)
  Tuesday/Thursday 6 pm – 9:30 pm
• Salish Sea Hybrid
  Canvas on-line classroom w/ designated meet times
• Tacoma (Evergreen Tacoma campus on Hilltop)
  Monday/Wednesday 6 pm – 9:30 pm
• Quinault (TANF in Hoquiam Taholah)
  Monday/Thursday 5 pm – 8:30 pm
• Peninsula (PCC Longhouse, Port Angeles)
  Tuesday/Thursday 5:30 pm – 9 pm

All NPP sites meet 3 weekends per quarter at the Evergreen Longhouse on the Olympia campus. Longhouse Gatherings begin at 10 am on Saturdays and end at 4 pm on Sundays. Campus housing is available for the Longhouse Gatherings for registered students. 

Eligibility

Interested students should contact Dawn Barron, Director at barrond@evergreen.edu for more information or to register for the NPP upper-division program. 

For students with under 90 credits, please contact Dawn to find out about our NPP affiliated courses that are open to all level students.

Curriculum

The core 12-credit NPP curriculum is designed to expand knowledge and skills in research, rhetoric, writing, critical thinking, service-learning, and community leadership through an indigenous lens. We believe students are best served by a well-defined consistent program that balances relationality, personal authority, indigenous knowledge, and academics.

• Relationality emphasizes the balance of indigenous relationships (kinship, cultural, community) with academics; by utilizing this students remain full circle.
• Personal authority challenges students to be personally accountable for their attendance, engagement, and learning, and to declare the nature of their own work.
• Indigenous knowledge honors the founding principles of the program and its commitment to involving our community’s keepers of cultural and traditional knowledge as teachers and valuable human resources.
• Academics give breadth within the liberal arts through reading, writing, research, and other scholarly pursuits that complement personal authority and indigenous knowledge.

Credit Equivalencies include, but are not limited to:

• Native & Indigenous Studies
• History
• Literature
• Communication
• Political Science
• Art
• Sociology 
• Writing
• Research
• Environmental Sustainability

Students can also choose areas of emphasis that match their academic and career goals. Students can earn a BA degree that prepares them to enter fields such as social services, public service, tribal governance, or continue on to graduate school.