Leech Lake Tribal College
Site Visit 8/6/02

Leech Lake Tribal College is located at Cass Lake, Minnesota on the Leech Lake Reservation. LLTC's mission is "to provide all persons a quality education grounded in the spirituality, history, and culture of the Anishinaabeg." I met with Eric Bailey, Information Technology instructor and ADEC PCO.

Over the last year LLTC has been utilizing the Tachyon CPE separate from the college's network. The equipment provided internet access to the IT computer lab only and was tasked to provide access to a two-way videoconferencing distance learning course in remote sensing. The lab also provided general internet access for faculty and students. With new grant monies Eric is procuring a multi-port server that will allow the network to run over their partial T1 and the Tachyon CPE. This will provide for better and expanded use of the CPE.

One of Eric's biggest concerns is course sharing amongst the Tribal Colleges. He gave the example of his A+ certification courses, as they aren't available at most Tribal colleges. On the other hand, there are a number of courses taught at other TCU's that aren't available at LLTC. With this type of technology, the possibility of course sharing is very real. He is interested in discussing these types of solutions as evidenced in his posts on ADEC's Tribal Listserve.

There is a great deal of IT support at LLTC - from the President, Lenny Ross, on down. I talked with Mr. Ross briefly during the meeting. He stated the importance of providing advanced technologies at LLTC. He has shown this support monetarily by helping to provide the funds for expanded science and computer labs. LLTC is a growing college putting a strong emphasis on the technology infrastructure.

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