Reservation-Based Community-Determined Program

The Reservation-Based Community-Determined program is “reservation-based” with classes held within the community and “community-determined” by placing value on existing community knowledge, utilizing community members as guest instructors, and instituting participatory research methods.

We believe students are best served by a well-defined, consistent program that balances personal authority, indigenous knowledge and academics.

• 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 community knowledge.

Our interdisciplinary curriculum is developed in collaboration with Native leaders to include the areas of community and economic development, leadership, tribal administration, sustainable environments, intergovernmental relations, indigenous knowledge, and tribal law. Students who want to develop a more specialized course of study may do so with faculty approval. Students gain a solid foundation needed to enter most areas of public service and tribal government as well graduate school and other professions.

Who Should Apply

This upper-division program serves students with 90 or more college credits with strong connections to their tribal communities. In addition to Evergreen’s application, an intake packet must be completed by all prospective RBCD students. To obtain the packet, contact rbcdprog@evergreen.edu.

• Students attend class two nights per week at Muckleshoot, Nisqually, Peninsula, Port Gamble, Quinault, or Tulalip. (Makah, Lower Elwha, and Skokomish are approved sites and can be reactivated contingent upon enrollment.)
• Students attend class four Saturdays per quarter at the Longhouse on the Evergreen campus.
• Students work toward a Bachelor of Arts degree.

For students with fewer than 90 credits, The Evergreen State College partners with Grays Harbor College (Aberdeen, Wash.) and Peninsula College (Port Angeles, Wash.) to provide an Associate of Arts direct transfer degree that is reservation based and intended to prepare students for the RBCD Bachelor of Arts Degree program. The Colleges are able to deliver a program comprised of a unique set of courses particularly relevant to tribal communities. For more information on the Reservation Based programs, please visit www.evergreen.edu/tribal, the Grays Harbor College website: www.ghc.edu/distance/reservation, or the Peninsula College website: www.pencol.edu.