QEM Network received support from the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP) to offer two cohorts of a TCUP STEM Leadership Development Institute (LDI) from August 2006-August 2007 and from August 2008-August 2009. The LDI was designed to support and encourage broader participation by Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian faculty and staff in leadership roles of STEM projects at their home institutions. Participants in the three-part LDI came from tribal colleges and universities (TCUs), Alaska Native-serving institutions (ANSIs), and Native Hawaiian-serving institutions (NHSIs) that had multi-year projects supported through the TCUP program. LDI cohort members were prepared and expected to take a leadership role in the design, promotion, and management of new STEM Projects for their campuses and to provide enhanced support to the principal investigators and project directors of the TCUP projects at their institutions. To be eligible for participation in the LDI, applicants also had to be enrolled or affiliated members of a federally recognized tribe/entity or have a demonstrated long-term commitment to and involvement in STEM education at TCUs, ANSIs, or NHSIs.

Highlights from LDI Fellows:

• Wannetta Bennett is President of White Earth Tribal and Community College
  
  
• Meredith Berthelson, Mathematics Department Chair at Blackfeet Community College, is pursuing a graduate degree.
  
  
• Michael Ceballos, formerly Director of the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Research Lab at Salish Kootenai College (SKC), has opened the Native American Research Laboratories (NARL) at the University of Montana to offer students and faculty from indigenous backgrounds exposure to modern instrumentation and state-of-the-art techniques in biological and chemical sciences.
  
  
• Ida Red Bear has assumed a leadership role in Oglala Lakota College's STEM Teachers of Excellence Education Program (STEEP). The STEEP initiative strives to create new highly qualified teachers in secondary and elementary math and science, and to develop collaborations between area school systems and the local community.
  
  
• Jason Tinant has assumed a leadership role as Co-PI for Oglala Lakota College (OLC)'s TCUP Phase II Project, designed to develop new research projects based on the Pine Ridge reservation that incorporate undergraduate teams and OLC faculty. The projects collaborate with local OST agencies and are designed to meet the needs of the Pine Ridge community. Mr. Tinant also heads OLC's Great Plains Riparian Protection Project (GRIPP), which prepares students for a career in environmental sciences and the use of GIS remote sensing as well as collects data to provide solutions for the future use of the land. GRIPP, funded by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, is the agency's first grant to be awarded to a tribal college.
  
  
• Michael Price has made presentations related to Culture and Science at several national meetings/workshops. He is now the Academic Dean at White Earth Tribal and Community College.

Cohort I Fellows:

Cohort I Workshops:

Cohort II Fellows:

Cohort II Workshops:

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