Building the Foundation for Success: Case Studies of Breaking Through Tribal Colleges and…

“In 2009, Walmart Foundation recognized that Breaking Through had strong potential to serve tribal colleges and universities. At the foundation’s request, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium joined in partnership with Jobs for the Future and the National Council for Workforce Education to pilot a Breaking Through project specifically for [six] institutions” (p.2).

“Each tribal college serves a large number of nontraditional adult learners, many of whom desire short-term training programs leading directly to jobs. Over the years, the tribal colleges had implemented various strategies targeting this goal, but they often met with limited success with those students who were not yet ready for college…Tribal Colleges Breaking Through [TCBT] sought to improve the success rates of these underprepared learners by challenging the colleges to implement one or more Breaking Through strategies", which include accelerated learning, comprehensive support services, labor market payoffs, and aligning programs for low-skilled adults (p.3). (Abstractor: Author and Website staff)

Full Publication Title: Building the Foundation for Success: Case Studies of Breaking Through Tribal Colleges and Universities 

• “TCBT has led to an institutionalization of workforce development, leading to changes in policies and practices regarding developing workforce programs and accommodating nontraditional teaching pedagogies and nontraditional scheduling. • A second theme was the expansion of existing and new college partnerships with tribal government agencies, area employers, Tribal Employment Rights Offices, state agencies, unions, Workforce Investment Boards, and other state and tribal agencies. Many of these relationships provide new resources for the college, including access to services and funding support. • Breaking Through also increased the visibility of an often-overlooked population of students at these colleges: adult learners who often did not see themselves as college students” (p.30). • .... “Cultural contextualization and utilizing tribal members as faculty and mentors proved hugely successful for most of the TCBT programs” (p.30). • “By experimenting with a wide range of Breaking Through strategies and sub-strategies customized to their unique institutional environments, each of the six institutions demonstrated positive impacts on student success and made transformational changes in the way they served adult learners” (p.30). (Abstractor: Author)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2013
• Author(s): His Horse Is Thunder, Deborah; Anderson, Nate; Miller, Darlene G.
• Organizational Author(s): Tribal Colleges Breaking Through Initiative; Jobs for the Future
• Funding Source: Walmart Foundation
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: India Johnson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies