Chief Dull Knife College serves the Northern Cheyenne Tribal community in south eastern Montana. Originally founded with a narrow focus on training workers for the local workforce, Chief Dull Knife now serves as a starting point for many who go on to pursue bachelor’s degrees through the Montana University system. As the college makes this shift, leaders are carefully weaving together two distinct forces: an imperative to center traditional Indigenous identity while helping students build skills students need to transfer to a four-year college and access living wage jobs. The college’s new student success course is a microcosm for this work: aiming to help students make meaning of their present, identify and move toward their future purpose and looking to the past to deepen their understanding of where they come from.

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College Success Skills course syllabus — Angie Hedges teaches this course to students in their first academic term at Chief Dull Knife College. Like other college success courses, this one focuses on the skills students need to be successful including, “confidence and motivation, focusing on self-esteem, self awareness, self-management, interpersonal communication, and emotional intelligence.” Unlike other courses of this type, it centers Indigenous student identity and includes a specific focus on connecting learning with local Cheyenne values and cultural concepts. 

For more information, contact Angie Hedges at Chief Dull Knife College (ahedges@cdkc.edu)