Deon Eagleman\u2019s<\/strong> was the White Mountains; his\ncustomers were teenagers looking for a future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McKenna Parker\u2019s<\/strong> was the Coconino National Forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The three Northern Arizona University students had unique summer jobs in 2019. They were part of the inaugural Weyerhaeuser Indigenous Conservation Crew (WICC), a program funded by timberland company Weyerhaeuser and the School of Forestry. It was designed to introduce students to a variety of career paths available in forestry and adjacent fields, encourage more Indigenous students to go into these industries and provide a good-paying summer job for students. By all accounts, it worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis opportunity sealed my passion for working in natural\nresources,\u201d said Parker, a junior studying forestry and a member of the Navajo\nNation. \u201cI come from generations of hard-working, independent women, so this\nfield of work suits me well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The result was 12 weeks of manual labor that provided solid\nskills all of the students will use in classes and in their future careers, a\nnice salary for the 40-hour workweek and the opportunity to build relationships\nwith industry and government partners, NAU professors and Native foresters\nthroughout the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It also was an interpersonal and culturally enriching experience\nfor the six of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s what I really dug about the crew\u2014we all come from\ndifferent places, we all pretty much have one thing in mind,\u201d said Eagleman, a\njunior forestry major, former wildland firefighter and father of a little girl\nwho narrows down his Native lineage to Chippewa, Cree and Blackfeet on his\nfather\u2019s side and Apache on his mother\u2019s. \u201cWe do appreciate getting a degree,\nwe appreciate well-being for ourselves and our families, but we\u2019re thinking\nabout Mother Earth. We\u2019re thinking about how can we get status to make changes\nand to be a powerful voice. In the land where mediocrity is accepted, we want\nto push that bar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Weyerhaeuser reached out to forestry educators at NAU\nearlier this year and invited them to apply for a grant, said Cheryl Miller<\/strong>,\nthe manager of Centennial Forest. Facing a shortage of workers in the next\ndecade as the boomer generation of foresters retired, the company wanted to\ninvest in the next generation. They were particularly interested in NAU\u2019s focus\non bringing Indigenous students into forestry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Miller, who runs Forest Friday in the Centennial Forest and\nis well-versed in hands-on forestry education, submitted a proposal that, upon\napproval, morphed into WICC. Weyerhaeuser donated $25,000, and the School of\nForestry matched it. Miller hired a crew and started calling local conservation\ngroups, federal agencies that work in forestry fields and NAU researchers,\nsetting up weeklong work sites for the students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cForestry is a lot like being a doctor,\u201d Miller said. \u201cOnce\nyou get your degree you can do dozens of different things, and it\u2019s really\nimportant in school to figure out exactly what you want to do. And you have to\nlearn by doing. The students were able to get out and actually do things on the\nground before choosing their career path.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Miler wanted the crew to have a different assignment each\nweek, so as she planned, she reached out to local nonprofits, local governments\nand agencies within the federal government, as well as her colleagues at NAU.\nThe schedule she put together, although assignments got moved around and\nchanged in order, had the crew doing manual labor, natural resources research,\neducation and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The crew, led by Iliana Castro<\/strong>, who is working on a graduate certificate in geographic information systems, included Julio DeHose<\/strong>, a senior social work student and a member of the White Mountain Apache Tribe and Hawthorne Dukepoo<\/strong>, a sophomore forestry major, along with Parker, Nez and Eagleman, started their summer in the Centennial Forest. They did forest \u201ccleanup\u201d\u2014clearing out dead trees and undergrowth, building trails, fixing up NAU\u2019s field campus. From there, they moved to Camp Colton, which the Flagstaff Unified School District owns, and helped with their forest restoration curriculum by doing an inventory of trees, marking trees for removal and aging the trees that came down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After that, they did forest restoration at the Hart Prairie\nPreserve, contributed to the School of Forestry\u2019s chip and ship project<\/a>\nat Camp Navajo, collected data in the area of the Museum Fire just before it\nbroke out in late July, helped research crews capture bats and record data in\nGlen Canyon Recreation Area; built and stocked a fish pond for a USGS research\nproject; and spent a night on the San Carlos Apache reservation, talking to teenagers\nabout the opportunities available to them in forestry and, whether they\nintended to or not, acted as role models for kids with similar life\nexperiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They also spent a few days at the Intertribal Timber Council\nin Florida, which offered the opportunity for the six Arizona students to meet\ntribal members from all over the world and learn about opportunities available\nto them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nez, a senior biology major, hotshot firefighter and a\nmember of the Navajo Nation who\u2019s interested in either medical school or a\nPh.D. when he graduates, said his favorite experience was a tossup between\nworking at Glen Canyon National Park and working with the U.S. Geological\nSurvey. In Glen Canyon, the team helped rangers with bat monitoring; in return,\nrangers took the whole crew on a kayaking trip up to Antelope Canyon. They also\nhelped a USGS ranger who studied the endangered humpback chub. This meant\nfishing for several hours a day, which Nez says with a smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis really opened my eyes to natural resources research,\u201d\nhe said. \u201cI was only familiar with lab-based research, and this opened my eyes\nto what\u2019s going on in the natural resources realm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Parker, it was her first time experiencing forestry work\noutside of the classroom. Not only did it cement her interest in a forestry\ncareer, it\u2019s coming in handy in class. In one of her classes this semester,\nthey went to Camp Colton for research. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The experience is likely to help all of them as they\ncontinue their education, about which Miller is glad. But the grant allowed her\nto make this work financially for the student as well. They got paid a generous\nwage for their hard labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI want them to see themselves as an asset: \u2018I have\nsomething to offer, and I should be compensated for that,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Weyerhaeuser officials saw a real need to recruit diverse\nstudents into the industry, Miller said. NAU, with its focus on Native American\neducation and outreach, was a natural fit. She then did her best to make the\nexperience one that was uniquely valuable to Native students with their\ncultures and backgrounds, including ensuring they had the flexibility to\nparticipate in their tribal ceremonies and family activities throughout the\nsummer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI tried to create an experience where they don\u2019t have to\nchoose one or the other,\u201d Miller said. \u201cThey don\u2019t have to choose education or\ntheir culture; they can keep a foot in both places and be strong in both\nplaces. I\u2019ve learned that for them to be healthy and balanced and strong, they\nhave to have both things. For us to ask them to choose one for the summer is to\nactually ask them to choose to be unhealthy, to disconnect themselves from what\nthey need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The trip to the White Mountains to speak to high school\nstudents was particularly meaningful. Miller made the trip every summer, she\nsaid; she gave her spiel on forestry, she answered a few questions, she stayed\nin a hotel and she went home. She was a guest speaker. This summer, she sent\nthe WICC students. They connected with the students, telling stories and experiences,\nstaying after to play volleyball and eat dinner and stayed on the reservation.\nThey were role models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That was Eagleman\u2019s favorite experience. He\u2019s been through a\nlot, he said, and he wants to help other students get to where he is without as\nmany detours along the way. He\u2019s got full custody of his 9-year-old daughter\nand he\u2019s working to finish the prerequisites he needs to get into an\naccelerated BS-MS program. Ultimately, he wants to get a Ph.D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This experience was a perfect combination of his forestry\nand Applied Indigenous Studies work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA lot of the projects Cheryl put together had to do with\ntraditional ecological knowledge,\u201d Eagleman said. \u201cOur bloodline is rooted\ndeeper on this land than anybody else. What we\u2019re trying to do is to have hope,\nto try to rise. I\u2019m glad this conservation crew was put together because that\u2019s\nbeing known. People asked for our help on their project because we get the work\ndone, we\u2019re dependable, we\u2019re polite, we\u2019re funny. We have our fun, but we also\nwork really hard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having similar backgrounds also helped the team bond,\nalthough they find plenty of differences to discuss as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe were already basically on the same frequency,\u201d Nez said. \u201cThe second day we were already all talking, already comfortable with each other. It was pretty diverse; we were from different tribes, so we were sharing our tribal knowledge. On our breaks, we\u2019d be sitting down and asking each other, \u2018what\u2019s up with your tribal stories?\u2019 \u2018What do you guys do?\u2019 It was culturally enriching.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s no guarantee yet that there\u2019ll be another crew next\nsummer; it all depends on funding, Miller said, though she\u2019s working on it. If\nit does happen, the 2019 crew has some suggestions for students who consider\nimplying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you\u2019re not familiar with natural resources, learn all you can throughout the course of the program, especially if you\u2019re not set on what you want to major in,\u201d Nez said. \u201cApply and just take it for all it\u2019s worth. If you have experience already, a program like this is a great way to get points of contact for possible employment, other internships and getting connected with researchers. That could open up pathways for graduate degrees or mentoring opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"McKenna](\"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wordpresst\/uploads\/sites\/153\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/McKenna_treecoring-e1574117709111-576x1024.jpg\")
How WICC started<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"WICC](\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wordpresst\/uploads\/sites\/153\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/WICC-graphic-768x1024.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Crew](\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wordpresst\/uploads\/sites\/153\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/AntelopeCyn-1024x768.jpg\")
Unique to Native students<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"Hawthorne](\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wordpresst\/uploads\/sites\/153\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/58A9752chipandship08082019_480px.jpg\")
![\"Crew](\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wordpresst\/uploads\/sites\/153\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Crew_SanCarlosCamp-1024x576.jpg\")
![\"Crew](\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wordpresst\/uploads\/sites\/153\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/CrewandLeader-1024x576.jpg\")
![\"NAU](\"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wordpresst\/uploads\/sites\/153\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/NAU_primary-281_3514-1-e1536853679171.png\")
<\/figure>
Heidi Toth | NAU Communications
(928) 523-8737 | heidi.toth@nau.edu<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"