White Earth Tribal and Community College
Site Visit 8/6/02

The White Earth Tribal and Community College is an Anishinabe controlled liberal arts institution of higher education providing the community a culturally relevant curriculum. The college is located on South Main St. in Mahnomen, Minnesota on the White Earth Reservation. I met with Pam Snetsinger (Adult Education Outreach Coordinator and ADEC PCO) and Kathy Dewey (WETCC student and IT assistant).

The facilities for the college comprise of five connected buildings on main street. The college is exclusively using the Tachyon CPE for their internet access, as dial-up is the only other option. The CPE is located in the main building and then routed through a wireless local area network (WLAN). Some of the thick stone walls aren't fully complying in certain areas, but overall the solution is working very well.

Currently there is one main computer lab (18 terminals) with a smaller one (5 terminals for Adult Ed/GED) available as well. The main computer lab is utilized for computer and IT courses, geography and science courses, research, e-mail access, and general surfing. The lab is open to the community and is the only public internet access point in Mahnomen besides a few terminals in the public library and the extension office. This makes the WETCC computer lab a highly utilized one. Plans are being made to expand computer access in the future.

The internet access is just as important in the summer as when courses are in session. This summer K-12 students participating in the Summer Transportation Institute and Expanding the Circle K-12 to college bridge program taxed the lab with their internet research for assigned projects.

Pam Snetsinger works and teaches at the main campus as well as the outreach sites at Pine Point, White Earth, Callaway, Rice Lake, Elbow Lake, and Nytahwaush among others. Currently, some of the sites have dial-up access. In the future, Pam hopes to be able to use the Tachyon CPE to deliver a variety of distance courses to these outreach sites.

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Craig Campbell
Project Coordinator for
Tribal Colleges and Indian Affairs
American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC)
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