Education

Back in high school, Rachel Yazzie went to a college fair and was immediately discouraged.

Rhiannon Sorrell, an assistant professor in the Diné College School of Arts, Humanities & English, was selected as one of 15 fellows for the Rare Books School’s second cohort of the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage.

For years, federal law has required all school systems to publicly report how well they help children learn. But the federal government’s own Bureau of Indian Education has failed to do so, despite repeated warnings about the quality of education Native American children receive in its schools.

Sherralyn Sneezer, Diné, has been selected from a highly competitive field of applicants as the first Ph.D. student in energy sovereignty research topics, via the Energy Sovereignty Institute and its partnership with the Golisano Institute for Sustainability at Rochester Institute of Technology.

After a school year of adjusting to new learning routines, weekly Zoom meetings, and countless hours in front of a computer screen, the time for celebration had finally arrived.