The doctoral program, Gilbert Lucero said, “was exciting for me when I learned about it.” He said it represents a development opportunity that could help improve conditions for the tribe now and in the future.

Located 35 miles northwest of Albuquerque, the Zia Pueblo is a remote enclave off a little-used stretch of Highway 550 tucked into the steep slopes and canyons of the Sierra Nacimiento Mountains.

The community looks much as it did generations ago. Mud adobes and small outdoor pottery ovens surround the 400-year old Our Lady of Assumption Catholic Church. The other structures are modest HUD homes, provided decades ago by the federal government. Horses roam freely, occasionally stopping drink from the Jemez River.

War, disease and droughts have threatened to wipe out the tribe several times, and its population dipped to 97 people nearly 100 years ago. Today, the Zia Pueblo boasts more than 800 members.

Lucero came of age in the 1970s at the end of a national Native pride campaign, led by American Indian Movement. But he wasn’t concerned with such matters back then, he was consumed by rock music, TV and sports.

Between garage band rehearsals, school dances and football games, however, Lucero’s father would remind him that the tribe could call at any point.

“My dad,” Lucero said, “was essentially saying, ‘Have fun now, son. But when you turn 18, it’s time to become a man.’”

The call didn’t come right away, and Lucero went out to find himself. He attended the University of New Mexico, but dropped out in 1987 and bounced around. He worked a state fair ticket booth, sold mutual funds door to door and worked at a bank.

Lucero said that by 1999 he began to mature and the tribe asked him to serve as a governor’s aide during a time when his father wasn’t in office. He said he kept his job as a retail accountant at Wells Fargo Bank but worked for the tribe in his downtime.

The next year, he took a full-time administrative position in tribal government, and his first assignment build a new elementary school.

Lucero, as project manager, guided the planning and construction of the $7.6 million T'syia Day School, which opened in 2002. The 18-month-long project finished on time and $1.2 million under budget. With the extra funds, he added a courtyard, assembly area and full-sized gym.

From there Lucero was responsible for grants and contracts with private, state and federal agencies — a job he worked for eight years.

“Ken always tries to incorporate integrity, honesty and fairness in all of his decision-making,” said Venita Yawakie, Lucero's girlfriend.

In February, just months before graduating with his doctorate, Lucero took a position as a tribal liaison for New Mexico’s junior U.S. senator. Lucero helps draft proposals on issues from economic development to public safety. He also has been involved in health care policy work, drawing on his experience as a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services board member.  

But that’s just his day job. After work, he returns to the pueblo and reports for a shift as a community sheriff. Lucero said he patrols the community five days a week, keeping the peace and responding to emergency calls.

He also mentors young people as others mentored him.

“I remind them as my father did me that even though they might not see it now, one day they’ll be role models and future leaders of this community,” Lucero said. “When they know they are cared for and there are expectations of them, they act more responsibly.”

Lucero went back to the University of New Mexico in 2010 and obtained his bachelor’s degree in Native American Studies.

From there, he entered the three-year ASU fast-track program that allowed him to earn a masters and doctorate, which has had a benefit already, he said. 

“When you’re out in another community or at a meeting and you’re acknowledged as a doctor it’s helpful,” Lucero said. “People will say, ‘Oh, Dr. Lucero, I guess I’d better listen to what he has to say.’”

Lucero said even though it took him a while to emerge as a community leader, he doesn’t regret the past.

“My life experiences, serving my tribe and having the support of my family gave me the wherewithal to complete my PhD,” he said. Without those experiences, “I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Brayboy, a President’s Professor and director of ASU’s Center of Indian Education, along with Sumida Huaman, an assistant professor of indigenous education, justice and social inquiry in ASU’s School of Social Transformation, connected with the Santa Fe-based institute to identify potential applicants and turned out an inaugural class with deep backgrounds — as teachers, advocates, lawyers and health care professionals — working on social issues facing New Mexico pueblos.

About a year later, the program launched with financial support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which provided the Leadership Institute more than $600,000 to cover tuition, fees, books and travel. ASU, meanwhile, offered scholarships to cover tuition for two students.

ASU professors flew to New Mexico to teach the courses. The scholars, meanwhile, occasionally visited Tempe, Arizona, and also traveled to study with other indigenous doctoral students around the world, including the Sami in Norway and the Maori in New Zealand.

Cohort members said it was a brutally busy period.

“There were times when we all wanted to quit because it was so intense,” said Michele Suina, a cohort member from the Cochiti Pueblo. “I remember more than a few late night phone calls with Carnell, who was able to talk me into staying. We all drew on each other in those three years.”

Chosa said he considered dropping the program, but he didn’t want to let down himself or others.

“Completing the doctorate meant I could help influence or shape the dreams of the future of a child in our community,” he said. “My community helped shape me, and now I’m in the position to do the same for someone else.”

The 44-year-old Chosa was raised on the Jemez Pueblo, a closed reservation surrounded by mountains about 55 miles northwest of Albuquerque. He was raised by his mother and his grandparents, but he said his support network was much larger.

“In our pueblos you don’t have one parent, you have 10,” Chosa said. “You have aunts and uncles, cousins and a community of adult neighbors that can nurture and discipline you and take on a parental role to make sure you grow up the right way.”

He said his mother, Martha, an Army veteran, returned to Jemez, a farming community of about 3,800 people, to raise him so that he would learn to speak Towa.

“There’s something very special about speaking a language that only very few people in the world know,” Chosa said. “It connects us as a people, which has kept us together for a long time.”

That connection helped draw Chosa back home after he went to New England for college. He received his undergraduate degree at Dartmouth in 1994 and his master’s at Harvard two years later.

He returned to New Mexico and established the Leadership Institute, alongside co-founder Regis Pecos, which he has run ever since.

Today, the institute runs 17 programs focused on leadership, community service, public policy and critical thinking. Its cornerstone is the Summer Policy Academy, a four-week summer mentorship for high school students that focuses on indigenous issues at the tribal, state, national and international levels.

This year, that signature academy celebrated its 10th year. It’s graduated nearly 250 students, all of whom created and implemented community service projects and developed youth policy position papers on issues of their choosing.  

Albuquerque attorney Aaron Sims attended the inaugural Summer Policy Academy in 2006 on behalf of the Acoma Pueblo. He said it changed his life. “At the end of the program,” Sims said, “you have to answer, ‘What will your contribution be to your community? And how will you help keep them going?’”

Sims said Chosa has remained a valuable friend and mentor. “He takes enormous pride in seeing others succeed.”

Chosa’s Leadership Institute is getting bigger. Last month, the program received a $630,000 expansion grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The foundation’s director of New Mexico programs Kara Carlisle said the Leadership Institute provides “long-term solutions that support the well-being of pueblo children and families.”

For Brayboy, the success isn’t surprising. Chosa “is innovative, deeply engaged in his communities — and the communities surrounding him — and is one of the best people I know. He is a gift.”

An appearance by ASU women’s basketball coach Charli Turner Thorne resonated with Makayla Roman, a 17-year-old from the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.

“She had a great way of connecting with us and didn’t sugarcoat anything,” Roman said. 

SPIRIT participants also completed ASU 19, a one-week course designed to set them up for academic success by introducing electronic tools and processes such as Blackboard, Digication e-portfolio and Writing Pal. They also completed an argumentative writing assignment and practiced attending office hours.

Pomo Tribe member Mica Sanchez traveled from Alameda, California, to attend ASU. He found ASU 19 especially helpful. “It teaches you etiquette with instructors and staff members, how to find homework and that almost everything is done online.”

Fitness instructor and ASU alumnus Dion Begay (pictured below) visited the Tempe campus on Wednesday to remind students not to spend all of their time on the computer and to incorporate exercise into their daily routines. 

Dion Begay instructs students in the seven primal moves that will support their bodies with strength and flexibility in the Staying Active program during the SPIRIT workshop at the Sun Devil Fitness Complex on Aug. 10. Begay, an ASU alumnus who is an exercise physiologist and personal trainer, taught half the 70 students about taking care of and strengthening their bodies while they transition to their first year at ASU. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU Now

“Everybody knows about the freshman 15, and I fell into that trap, too,” said Begay, a Navajo Tribe member who studied kinesiology at ASU. “In that first year of college, students get away from regimented eating and exercises. Sometimes they overindulge, lead sedentary lives and work out a lot less. Over time that will lead to health problems.”

Flores, a member of last year’s SPIRIT cohort, said joining clubs, organizations and participating in social experiences is also important for students’ overall well-being, and helped her get through her freshman year. She said she no longer feels homesick. 

“I now have two families,” she said. “One here at ASU and one at home.”

Top photo: Criminology and criminal justice freshman Kealoha Kuamoo (left), of Hawaiian and Navajo descent, practices pushing and pulling with exercise and wellness freshman Megan Silversmith, of the Navajo Nation, as part of the Staying Active program during the SPIRIT workshop at the Sun Devil Fitness Complex on Aug. 10.

Tribes have been lobbying the federal agency to grant more broadcast licenses to Native owners on tribal lands. Since 2007, the FCC has approved dozens of new stations in Indian Country. In 2010, the agency adopted a “tribal priority” rule to make it easier for Native owners to obtain radio licenses. The agency’s former Native affairs liaison, Geoffrey C. Blackwell, who also will attend the summit, said in a 2013 statement that the rule is intended to help “provide radio service tailored to specific tribal needs and cultures” and foster “localism and diversity of ownership.”

There are more than 560 federally recognized tribes across the U.S. comprising more than 4 million people. Including the recent growth, advocates say there are currently 58 Indian radio stations and about 20 more headed toward approval. The expansion is promising, but not enough, they say.

“Most of Indian Country is still dark,” Taylor said. “We’re just not wired.”

Summit attendees will hear from FCC Commissioner Mignon L. Clyburn, who organizers say has become known as an advocate for media diversity. Clyburn didn’t return an email seeking comment for this story, but she is scheduled to speak Wednesday.   

For Taylor, the conference marks a significant moment, but it by no means signals that her work is over. With more stations on tribal lands, people will be better informed about government, public safety and other issues that affect their communities, she said. Native people also will be able to turn back negative stereotypes by telling their own stories, even in remote areas, she said.

“Radio is a technology that serves Indian Country well,” Taylor said, “because all it requires is a small appliance in the household.”

Top photo: Producer Justin Miller of KLND 89.5 FM in McLaughlin, South Dakota, takes a seat behind the microphone.

They are among the largest migrant programs in Arizona. The students visiting ASU’s campus in late June are from the Glendale Elementary district’s summer session of Conexiones, and instructor David Levesque has come along for the ride.

A technology teacher at Sunset Vista School during the school year, Levesque enjoys the dynamic nature of Conexiones. He recently taught lessons in which students created a story of the history of Arizona using PowerPoint, planned a virtual vacation using Google Maps, and learned how to calculate volume by building their own Mayan pyramids.

“It’s all about keeping them engaged,” he said. “Our goal is to give them skills they can take back to the classroom during the school year, and we try to make it fun so they don’t know they’re learning.”

Inviting the students to ASU accomplishes that along with other goals.

While 10-year-old Joan Gomez marvels at the triceratops in ISTB IV (“When I’m an adult, I’m gonna make dinosaurs real using DNA,” he asserts), students from the School of Earth and Exploration and the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering are learning about the particular educational needs of migrant students as they lead them on a tour of the building.

“It’s also about developing new relationships and making connections. And not just with the school districts but also with people in the ASU community who maybe don’t know about migrant students,” said Szkupinski-Quiroga.

On the walls in her office are black and white photographs of former Conexiones students, accompanied by a piece of writing. Some are poems, some are short essays. In them, the students describe what it’s like to be the child of a migrant worker — the beauty of the landscape they see when they travel and the feeling when they wake up and their parents are already gone, out to work in the fields.

“I remember one young man — he dropped out of school and started working in the fields when he was 15,” recalled Szkupinski-Quiroga. “But then he realized that that’s not what he wanted to do. So he went back and got his GED, and now he’s now trying to go to community college.”

And it’s cases like that, cases in which Conexiones makes “a positive impact in the kids’ lives,” as Szkupinski-Quiroga puts it, that make all the difference.

Top photo: Students enrolled in the Conexiones Migrant Student Education Program explore the large interactive Earth and Space Exploration video displays as part of a field trip to ASU's Tempe campus on June 30. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU Now; video by Ken Fagan/ASU Now