In response to a history of erasure and low graduation rates among American Indian students, American Indian leaders drew upon a self-determination framework to rethink and reshape higher education. This dissertation by Iris HeavyRunner-PrettyPaint shows how these leaders sought to found American Indian colleges that could strengthen reservation economies and tribal cultures without forcing students to accept assimilation attempts or leave home–directly resisting the long history of U.S. Indian boarding schools. Heavy Runner-Pretty Paint’s study developed an Indigenous theory on educational persistence for American Indian students. The theory was developed based on the stories of tribal college students, faculty, and staff, and shows: 1) what constitutes educational persistence in a tribal college setting, and 2) how students believe they came to persist in this setting.

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HeavyRunner, Iris. “Miracle Survivor (Pisatsikamotaan): An Indigenous Theory on Educational Persistence Grounded in the Stories of Tribal College Students.” Ph.D diss., University of Minnesota, 2009. The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition Resource Database, https://boardingschoolhealing.org/resource_database/miracle-survivor/.