Chief dull knife college (cdkc) is a fully accredited, open-admission, community based, tribally controlled institution. The mission of the college is to provide affordable, quality educational…

Chief dull knife college (cdkc) is a fully accredited, open-admission, community based, tribally controlled institution. The mission of the college is to provide affordable, quality educational opportunities to residents of the northern cheyenne reservation and surrounding communities. One of the goals of the college is to provide college transfer programs that increase the educational level and meet the training needs of students and the community. The college has a total enrollment of 350 students and 91% of the students are native american. The average student age is 28, and 64% of the students are women (the female/male ratio is higher in math and science courses 75% women to 25% men). Chief dull knife college is located on the northern cheyenne reservation in southeastern montana (120 miles away from the nearest city - billings, montana). The reservation has a land base of 466,000 acres of agricultural and forest land and 4,800 residents, approximately 65% of whom are under the age of 25. Dropout rates at northern cheyenne high schools are approximately 50%. The project proposed builds on prior assessment research conducted in relation to the two tcup projects conducted at cdkc over the last ten years and addresses more extensively key issues concerning tribal college student retention and completion in stem fields. This requires further development and coordination of the data sources available from the tcup i and II projects along with other cdkc departments and programs. The proposed research agenda includes new, more detailed and theoretically informed questions that relate not only to retention and success among cdkc students but are also relevant to other tribal colleges and institutions serving american indian and minority students. The overall goal of this project is to discover, as recommended by trowler (2005), how and why tcup supported innovations have contributed to the enhancements of teaching and learning among students in this tribal college. The following sections review the literature that serves as a context for this project.