The mood about Kwiyagat Community Academy is upbeat though there are challenges finding licensed teachers in this remote corner of Colorado
Fort Lewis College
These Colorado programs are helping beginning farmers overcome huge challenges
The programs are especially critical given that farmers in the U.S. are aging faster than young farmers are getting in line to take their place. One-third of the 3.4 million American farmers are over the age of 65, according to latest Census of Agriculture.
“It’s scary”: The housing shortage has reached a crisis point in southwest Colorado
DURANGO — Pagosa Springs paramedic Matt Robison was living with two friends in a 1,200-square-foot house until this summer — when his rent would have leapt 60%, to $2,400 a month. Robison hit the road, working wildland fires and living out of his truck. Sixty miles west, professor Rebecca Clausen has heard from faculty at […]
On the Navajo Nation, “putting seeds in the ground is our greatest act of resistance,” Fort Lewis students learn
SHIPROCK, NEW MEXICO — From foraging sweet berries in slickrock canyons to harvesting corn and fresh veggies from manicured fields and gardens, Kayla Yazzie learned about land from her great-grandmothers. Her childhood memories span the eastern portion of the Navajo Nation, from Tocito and Shiprock in New Mexico with her mother’s family, to St. Michaels, […]
After years of calls to correct its whitewashed history, Fort Lewis College is owning up to its Indian boarding school past
By Paolo Zialcita, CPR News The origin of Fort Lewis College in Durango is a dark stain on American education and the state of Colorado. The school’s own leaders have said as much. Once a post-Civil War army post, the land was converted into a federal, off-reservation Native American Boarding School, which forced tribal students […]
A new Colorado law granting Native Americans in-state college tuition is already attracting students
About 200 Native American students enrolled in state colleges and universities should each see their annual tuition slashed by about $15,000 this year under a new law that provides in-state status to members of 48 tribes with historical ties to Colorado. While the number of students immediately impacted is small, education officials and proponents of […]
Students who kept Colorado’s resort-town economies alive during COVID are now headed back to school
A sign outside Butte Bagels advises customers that this popular breakfast stop, in the alley behind the Crested Butte post office, is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. A gaggle of tourists gathers close to peer at the sign, at the “help wanted” sign next to it, and through the darkened windows before they give up and […]
Colorado is more diverse than ever, but its college professors are overwhelmingly white
By Jason Gonzales, Chalkbeat Colorado In a state that’s become increasingly diverse, the professors who teach at Colorado’s four-year colleges are overwhelmingly white. Of the 3,500 professors who have tenure, just 15 of them are Black women. Another 38 are Black men. Hispanic students now make up about 20% of the state’s universities. But Hispanic […]
Colorado’s 2022 budget boosts K-12 spending, reverses higher ed cuts
By Jason Gonzales and Erica Meltzer, Chalkbeat Colorado Colorado’s $34.1 billion proposed state budget restores deep cuts made last year to K-12 and higher education, provides more money to help students who have traditionally struggled to complete college, and creates a substantial reserve for K-12 schools that could lay the groundwork for future reforms — if […]
Fort Lewis College will require students to be vaccinated for coronavirus to enroll for the next academic year
By Sarah Flower, KSUT Public Radio Fort Lewis College in Durango on Friday said it will require its students to be vaccinated to enroll in fall of 2021. The college, a public institution, is the first of higher learning in Colorado — and one of the first in the nation — to make such a […]