Carla Vigue on Supporting Indigenous Students at UW-Madison

Frederica Freyberg:

This week, UW-Madison announced the Wisconsin Tribal Education Promise program. Starting in fall 2024, members of 11 federally recognized tribes in the state will be able to attend the flagship campus all expenses paid for undergraduates and full tuition for law and medical students. We’re joined now by UW-Madison director of tribal relations, Carla Vigue. Thanks very much for being here.

Carla Vigue:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what is the reaction to this Tribal Education Promise program from tribal nation members across Wisconsin?

Carla Vigue:

I think everyone is really excited. UW-Madison, like you said, is one of the state’s — or is actually one of the country’s premier universities, and we’ve been working with tribes for the better part of a year on this proposal and we finally brought it to fruition. Essentially what happens is if you are, like you said, a resident of Wisconsin, a member of one of our 11 federally recognized tribes and you get admitted to UW-Madison, we’ll take care of the full cost of admission, which is not just tuition, but room, board, books, fees, and a few other little things, too.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is it like for you to be able to roll this out, even as Speaker Vos, whom we just heard from, works to dismantle diversity, inclusion and equity programs?

Carla Vigue:

Yeah. I mean, it’s — there’s other things happening in the state Capitol, but really for us, we sat down with tribal leaders many months ago and we said we have this idea. Other states do it. Other universities do it, and so we talked to them and said this is an idea we have and how can we move forward with it. We’ve been very fortunate all 11 of the tribes came to the table and sat with the chancellor and I and talked it through and we shared stories. One of the tribal leaders talked about sleeping in his car while he was an undergrad and others talked about food insecurity and other things, and as we sat around the table and talked about things, this is what we came up with, and I think it’s a really good proposal. There are other things happening in the world, but this is something we worked really hard on together.

Frederica Freyberg:

As you mentioned, other states do this, but are other states offering such robust kind of packages to include all of the living expenses?

Carla Vigue:

Most don’t. I think, like I said, we weren’t the first out of the gate with this sort of plan but I think we’re the best. Maybe that’s just me talking, but, yeah, I think, you know, like I said, we sat down and we talked through all the scenarios and how many semesters and what it should include and all of those things, and I think we came to an agreement with the tribes that this is really how we should do it in order to support native students.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is it unusual as well to pay tuition for law or medical school?

Carla Vigue:

Yeah. So that was where we gave a little surprise to the tribes at one point. We said we spoke to the law school and the medical school and they both agreed to tuition and they are a different kind of student, right? They’re a little bit older, so we didn’t include some of those other things, but tuition for law school and med school, that’s a very big deal.

Frederica Freyberg:

It’s a big expense. So there are no income restrictions with this because I understand it’s about promoting a UW-Madison education to native students. Why is that important?

Carla Vigue:

Well, I think one of the things — so when I first sat down with the chancellor when I first took my position, she and I talked about this, and for us, it’s both about giving back to the community but also acknowledging that this university that we work for is built on land that was forcibly removed from the Ho-Chunk Nation, and so both of those things in combination of just wanting to do the right thing for native students.

Frederica Freyberg:

Describe for us what you say is at the heart of the native community as it relates to this program.

Carla Vigue:

Yeah. I think when we talked about it, like I said, it’s really about taking care of our community. I’m Native American. I grew up on the Oneida Indian reservation. I have two little boys, Hunter and Otto. The way we always think about community is how do we give back and how do we take care of the next seven generations, and so it’s not just about decisions that are good for me or my little boys or even their kids, but seven generations down the road, how are we taking care of those seven generations.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you have any understanding of how many students might participate?

Carla Vigue:

We do — not really. Kind of. That’s a bad answer, but so we have some numbers, but right now, people self-report. So anyone who claims native ancestry can report that they’re native. They don’t have to. But with this program, you’ll have to now, you know, show your — prove you’re enrolled in one of Wisconsin’s 11 tribes. We’ll get better data as we go along.

Frederica Freyberg:

And presumably as you said about offering this program, there was a certain amount of money set aside. Do you have an expectation as to what that will be?

Carla Vigue:

We’re rolling this out in December and the application deadline is February, so we’re not expecting this first year to be a huge number. I think we’ll see what this first year looks like and then be able to build from there. This is really the first iteration of this program, hopefully. Maybe we can grow it or maybe this is going to be satisfactory and enough. But I think we’ll have more data after this first year.

Frederica Freyberg:

Have you gotten calls from students saying tell me about this?

Carla Vigue:

Oh, I’ve gotten a lot of calls. My priority admissions department is, like, probably overwhelmed by people I’m sending their way, but it’s really fun because family and friends are reaching out, too, and I’m getting to say, yes, they’ll qualify. I will say I also got to call one of the students who is already here on campus. She’s a student from Lac Courte Oreilles. Her name is Calista. She joined us this week while we were announcing the program. As I was describing the program to her, she just got silent and then very excited and I was even a little bit overwhelmed by it all because I just got to tell someone we were going to take care of them.

Frederica Freyberg:

That’s awesome. Carla Vigue, thanks very much.

Carla Vigue:

Thank you.