American Indian College Fund Faculty Advisory Council member Stephen Wall, a descendant of the White Earth Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and Cattaraugus Seneca, was named a Fulbright Specialist and spent a month in Sydney, Australia, working with an Aboriginal Registered Training Organization (RTO).
RTOs provide vocational training and, in some cases, leadership development, to communities throughout Australia. The Fulbright Specialist Program gives U.S. academics and professionals opportunities to participate in short-term, project-based exchanges with institutions around the world.
Wall, a longtime faculty member at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), a tribal college in Santa Fe, New Mexico, applied to become a Fulbright Specialist in Indigenous public administration and governance.
His connection to the Australian project began when he met the executive director of Tranby, one of the oldest independent Aboriginal-controlled organizations, at the 2022 World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education. She later asked Wall to assist the RTO.
During his month in Sydney, Wall provided Tranby with cultural education, training and lectures on Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous governance models. He also analyzed governing documents developed through a collaboration between Tranby and another Aboriginal RTO.
To conduct the work, Wall participated in yarning sessions, a traditional form of discussion among Aboriginal mobs, the local term for Tribal communities. He also facilitated conflict-resolution sessions.
Wall drew on his experiences at IAIA and with the American Indian College Fund to advise the RTOs.
Tranby’s six-week training courses reminded Wall of IAIA’s “low residency” master’s programs. Both approaches require less time on campus for in-person learning, recognizing that students and participants have jobs and families to care for.
Tranby’s newly formed advisory board also reminded Wall of the uncertainty he and other founding members of the College Fund’s Faculty Advisory Council initially faced. At first, they were unclear about whom they reported to, what their duties were and what their overarching roles within the organization would be.
Wall was able to offer Tranby Advisory Council members guidance on those issues, as well as professional development training that he believed would be most beneficial to them.
Now back in New Mexico as a new school year begins, Wall is continuing his work in education.
His tenure as interim provost of IAIA has ended, and he is in the final year of his service as a member of the College Fund Faculty Advisory Council. After 22 years working at IAIA, Wall is now a faculty emeritus and continues teaching courses on decolonization for personal and professional development.
Wall hopes his experience with the Fulbright Specialist Program will inspire others, particularly Indigenous people, to participate in international exchanges that connect Indigenous communities around the world.
“I hope Indigenous people can meet with similar communities around the world and share experiences,” Wall said.
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