Jesuit Journeys
Winter 2002
Creighton University's Office of Multicultural Affairs
Creating a family feeling far from home
Food, fellowship
and friendship
are ingredients
in a recipe
for helping
Native Americans
and students
from other cultures
succeed at Creighton
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Above: Tami Buffalohead-McGill,
student services coordinator for Creighton University’s
Office of Multicultural Affairs, and Fr. Ray Bucko, SJ,
put the finishing touches on a Friday night potluck
dinner for Native American students.
BY PHIL NERO
The crowd of Native American students is slow to leave the potluck
dinner at St. Ignatius Hall, one of Creighton University’s two Jesuit
residences. Their hosts for the evening, Fr. Ray Bucko, SJ and Tami
Buffalohead-McGill are busy preparing care packages of leftover desserts.
“You know, Harpo Marx was asked once how many children he
planned to adopt,” says Fr. Bucko from the kitchen, loud enough for all
to hear. “He pointed to his large Hollywood home that had a lot of windows
and said, ‘one for every window so when I come home at night
there will be a child standing and laughing at every one.’ ”
Fr. Bucko pauses a moment and looks around the room before concluding
his thought. “This was a good night because we had someone
laughing and sitting in every chair.”
After the meal,
Fr. Bucko (right) boxes up leftovers (wateca in
Lakota) for a student. A professor of anthropology
when he came to Creighton in 2000, Fr. Bucko also
assisted in putting together a menu of classes that
helped create a Native American Studies Program.
Creighton is the only university in Nebraska and the
only Jesuit university with such a program.
The occasional Friday potluck dinners are among the ways Fr. Bucko
and Buffalohead-McGill help the students feel welcome on the campus –
connected to each other and the larger Creighton community, especially
other Jesuits.
“Any time you have a social setting where they can interact, it will
transfer into the classroom in a positive way,” says Buffalohead-McGill.
As student services coordinator for Creighton’s Office of Multicultural
Affairs, her mission is to recruit, retain, and help graduate a growing
number of students from different minority cultures.
Having grown up in part on a reservation, she is
especially sensitive to challenges faced by Native
American students, a sensitivity Fr. Bucko shares. So
when he came to Creighton two years ago to teach
anthropology, he and Buffalohead-McGill formed
bonds of friendship, in part linked to their mutual
interest in Native students.
“It was like meeting someone you knew all your
life,” says Fr. Bucko, who began developing ties with
the Lakota Sioux on the Pine Ridge Reservation in
South Dakota while teaching at the Red Cloud
Indian School early in his Jesuit formation. He has
returned there often over the years to work, visit,
volunteer, and study.
Stella “Candy” Iron Cloud answers a question about Lakota quilts during a lecture in the
Creighton University student center ballroom. Iron Cloud was one of several lecturers
who came to the university during Native American Awareness month in November. Her other lecture was on Native health issues. She also played a role in the Friday night potluck dinner, preparing the fry bread for the minifeast.
A majority of the Native Americans at
Creighton grew up on a reservation, many on the
Pine Ridge. Reservation life is unlike anyplace else
in the country. Most other minorities reside within
or near the fringes of the majority culture. Lines of
separation are blurred. Social interaction, if not
encouraged, is generally unavoidable in at least
some scenarios. Reservations, however, are by
design insulated from the majority culture. At the
same time, the Native Americans living there are the
majority within the clearly defined area. Interaction
with outside cultures, though not prohibited, is
inhibited by poverty, distance, and a cultural gap
widened by years of misunderstandings, broken
treaties, and a lack of trust.
“When Native American students arrive at
Creighton, they share much in common with first-generation
immigrants arriving in a new land,” says
Buffalohead-McGill, who, as a 1989 graduate of
Creighton, speaks from personal experience. “They
long for connections and to make the new familiar.”
But when things get difficult, home is fairly near,
and the temptation can be strong to return to what
is safe and familiar.
A typical day for Buffalohead-McGill begins in her office. On a mid-November morning, a steady
parade of students of varying cultural backgrounds creates especially heavy traffic. It is early registration time and they are scrambling to put schedules together. Buffalohead-McGill helps get them into closed classes by facilitating a special permission process called an override. It also gives her a chance to offer a guiding hand and group several minority students in selected classes.
“They feel more comfortable speaking up, and it prevents a situation where one student feels
like they must speak for their entire culture or even all minorities,” she says. It also makes for better class participation, which helps their grades and keeps students one step further from academic risk. Besides clustering students, Buffalohead-McGill also reviews preliminary grade reports and intervenes when necessary with assistance, guidance, and support.
Tami Buffalohead-McGill, student services coordinator for Creighton University’s Office of Multicultural
Affairs, helps Cassandra Gray solve a second semester scheduling problem. A records glitch delayed Gray’s
registration process and shut her out of several classes. Buffalohead-McGill worked with teachers and
administrators to set up a workable class schedule.
“I’ll typically meet with 90 kids in one week after the [early grade] reports come out to see if it’s academic problems, study problems, social problems, or an economic issue,” she says. “We develop a plan of action. We’re very hands on.” Sometimes grade reports aren’t necessary. A professor will e-mail or call with an early warning sign. If students might benefit from mentoring, she will try to connect them with an older student or a professor when possible. “It’s all about building a support network.”
Buffalohead-McGill is no clock watcher. She makes herself available into the evening, sometimes
walking around campus in places she is likely to encounter students who need her. More times than
not, it is the Native American students who spot her first. This night a scheduling problem comes up in casual conversation.
She herds a small group of students to a computer on the lower level of the student center. While solving the problem, other students are drawn to the group as if by magnet. If the issues aren’t solved in the moment, she encourages a trip to her office the next day.
Three Native American students are advised by Tami Buffalohead-McGill after an evening lecture to help them with scheduling conflicts. Sometimes a phone call can open up previously closed
classes, create a good student-professor fit, help students maintain a manageable schedule and stay on track academically.
Whatever it takes to get a student to say yes to Creighton, then maintain the grades to stay there,
Buffalohead-McGill is willing to do. While the Jesuits at Red Cloud Indian School recommend
many of the Native students, she uses a range of recruiting techniques to attract students from other reservations and other minority cultures where there is no direct link to the university. Her emphasis is on personal contact.
“She was a big part of why I came here. She went out of her way to call me and to bring me
information about Creighton,” says Nancy Kelsey, a sophomore who is descended from the Little River
Band of Ottawa Indians. Unlike most Native American students, she grew up in a city, Cleveland.
“There aren’t a lot of Natives in Cleveland. Coming here was a cultural awakening for me.”
Tetonia Dunlap, an Eastern Shoshone from Ft. Washakie, Wyoming, “kind of stumbled on Creighton
at a high school fair. Not long after that Tami called, first my mother, then me. She just seemed interested, like I was important. She recruited me, kind of. If she hadn’t called, I’d probably be at some community college in Wyoming in the middle of nowhere.”
Fr. Bucko’s enthusiasm makes the students feel more welcome still.
“He always makes those potluck dinners for us. He’s always cooking for us. He must really enjoy it,” Dunlap says. “And he’s a good teacher. He taught me a lot about Native culture and history, which I thought I already knew, but didn’t.”
Kelsey enjoys his sense of humor, which she says “makes him more approachable. He brings us into his house. We meet other Jesuits. He’s nurturing, supportive, and always willing to help.”
Successful students become recruiters of sorts themselves, talking up their positive experiences to other prospective students. As the number of multi-cultural students on campus continues to grow, so too has membership in the campus Native American Association, which numbered 3 members
when Buffalohead-McGill came to Creighton in 1996 and now boasts 25.
“Recently we’ve had a succession of firsts among our Native American students on campus,” she
says. Jon-Paul LaVenture (Pawnee) is the first Native on the school cross-country team. Francine Parmentine (Oglala Lakota) is the first to play women’s basketball. Albert Two Bears (Standing Rock Sioux) came to campus last fall from Little Wound High School on the Pine Ridge Reservation and successfully ran for a Student Union seat, making him the first Native American to win
elective office at Creighton.
“One of our older students, Nakina Mills (Oglala Lakota), came up to me and said they’d wished they’d have thought of that when they came to school. I told her she helped make it possible for Albert,” Buffalohead-McGill says. “Without the work of the Native American Association, without the network of support we’ve built here over the years, Albert’s success would not have been possible.”
Wesley Sato, of Aiea, Hawaii, brings a lab conflict problem to Tami Buffalohead-McGill’s attention.
A pre-dentistry sophomore, Sato’s schedule presents unique challenges because science lab times often conflict with his other required courses. This time many students shared the same problem.
The administration responded by adding an additional lab section.
When Buffalohead-McGill needs support, she often turns to Fr. Bucko as her guide through the somewhat unfamiliar world of academe.
“I grew up on a reservation and, until coming here, always worked in Indian country.What my students go through, I experience on a professional level. Ray knows all the issues,” she says.
In turn, when Fr. Bucko needs someone to bounce an idea off of, he’ll often turn to
Buffalohead-McGill. “Hers is the only phone number on campus I’ve committed to memory,”
he says, rattling off her four-digit extension to emphasize his point. Their informal team
approach is helping the full range of Creighton’s multi-cultural student population improve their
overall academic performance.
And every now and then on a given Friday, Fr. Bucko and Buffalohead-McGill are breaking
out the folding chairs to make room at Fr. Bucko’s potluck dinners where laughter and a
feeling of togetherness is always on the menu.
For more information about Creighton University
and the Office of Multicultural Affairs write to
2500 California Plaza Omaha, NE 68178-0522
or go to the CU website: www.creighton.edu
Return to Winter 2002 issue
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