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Category: 5. Higher education; University of North
Carolina at Pembroke
DAVI001. Davis, Tom. “Devotion
to the people: the legacy of Helen Scheirbeck.” Tribal College:
Journal of American Indian Higher Education 12.4 (August 31, 2001):
33- .
Publication type: Journal article
Electronic access: Full text available in Ethnic Newswatch
This detailed, interestingly written article profiles
the extensive contributions of Helen Maynor Scheirbeck, Ed.D., now 66.
Davis notes that “Scheirbeck has been one of the most significant
voices in American Indian education since the late 1960s.” Listed
below are some of the positions she has held and programs in which she
has played a leadership role:
- As director of the Office of Indian Education in the
U.S. Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare, she led discussions
that found a strategy
to enable tribal colleges (beginning in 1973)
to obtain start-up funds
through Title III (Developing Institutions) of
The Higher Education Act.
- Assisted in the development and shepherding of the
Tribally Controlled
Community College Assistance Act, passed in 1978.
- First Indian intern for the National Congress of American
Indians.
- As a staff member for the U.S. Senate Subcommittee
on Constitutional
Rights, she helped organize a Capitol Conference
on Poverty in 1962, where
Indian leaders advocated for Indian participation
in the War on Poverty.
- Helped establish the Coalition of Indian Controlled
School Boards in 1972.
- Chaired the Indian Education Task Force of the American
Indian Policy
Review Commission.
- In 1991, became head of the Indian Head Start Program.
- From 1987-1995, served on the Board of Trustees of
the National Museum
of the American Indian.
- Since 1995 she has worked in a public programs position
with the National
Museum of the American Indian.
Scheirbeck's Head Start colleague, Roger Ironcloud, described
her this way: “We have our own Rosa Parks here. Rosa Parks changed
history by refusing to move out of the White section on a bus. Helen
Scheirbeck has changed history by altering Washington, D.C.'s attitude
toward Indian people.”
Additional Subjects: Tribal colleges | Indian Head Start
Program | Indian education | National Museum of the American Indian | Helen
Maynor Scheirbeck
This annotation was written on December 28, 2001; last
edited on June 4, 2002.
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