A resident of Tucson, AZ, Fischman first became interested in the idea of improving educational opportunities for Native Americans after taking a course entitled “Arizona Indians: A Contemporary Perspective,” at the University of Arizona and talking with instructor Gordon Krutz. Fischman was struck with the idea that offering qualified Native American students a chance to study at Exeter over the summer could make a big difference in their lives. So, offering both his time and money, he helped make this idea a reality.

“There is a critical need for American Indians to prepare themselves to manage tribal operations and establish long-term priorities for future community development,” explains Krutz, who has served as both guide and adviser to Exeter’s Native American Program since its inception and who has over 40 years experience working in programs that serve Native Americans. “Exeter’s training has helped many American Indians prepare for higher education and future leadership roles.” The program started modestly, with just four students the first year, six the second. The Navajo Nation Office of Education eventually saw the benefit of the program and committed $1,000 per student to help increase numbers and offset costs. For the past six years, an average of 20 Native American students—representing not just Navajos, but also White Mountain Apache, Sioux, Pueblo and Hopi, from tribes throughout the country—have been on campus.

Once they arrive, Native American students face a series of adjustments, starting with the concept of discussion-based, Harkness learning, central to all things Exeter, which sometimes runs counter to what they are taught back home. “Where I’m from,” says Arviso, “we are taught to listen to and respect our elders when they are talking, especially our parents and teachers. You don’t just give your opinion.” During his first Introduction to Psychology class, a discussion about Ritalin and other drugs used to help preadolescents in school, “people just took off and started talking right away.” Arviso, on the other hand, hung back and listened.

“Stuart was quiet, but he was always engaged,” recalls summer school instructor Patricia Pierce, who taught his psychology class. “But when he did speak, it was usually something of substance, something relating his own point of view.” Native American students must also adjust to the absence of familiar foods, family traditions and the wide-open spaces of the American Southwest, where the majority of them reside. “When students live on the reservation, they live very close to the land and the people around them,” says Darrick Franklin, a guidance counselor at Coconino High School in Flagstaff, AZ, and an adviser to the Native American students at Exeter for the past two summers. “Some of the kids feel claustrophobic at first. It takes a while to get used to the humidity and not seeing the sun every day, and to not seeing family.”

A program founded in 1985 by the late DeWitt Fischman ’35 has brought more than 250 Native American students to the summer school. Darrick Franklin (left), a guidance counselor from Flagstaff, AZ, served as an adviser to the two dozen students who attended this past summer, including (above photo, left to right) Brenda Paxson, Chanda Duncan, Wynonna Curley, Ryan Herder, Colleen Kooley and Samantha Johnson, who gathered one night to make fry bread for a traditional Southwest meal.

Despite the challenges, Franklin says coming to Exeter shows the Native American students that they can succeed in the “outside world” and opens their eyes to different people and places, all of which will ease the transition to college. Of equal significance, Franklin adds, is that summer school allows non-Native Americans to learn firsthand about Native American culture. “Just in the general interactions I saw—kids hanging out in the common room and cafeteria, playing basketball or football in the quad—people were very curious about our culture,” says Franklin, himself a Navajo. “Many of the kids, especially those from overseas, have never met a Native American before and all they know about us is from television and the movies. One of the questions we get a lot is if we still live in teepees—which we don’t.”

Student Roxanne Denetso, a Navajo from Window Rock, AZ, seconds Franklin’s comments. “I had a chance to tell curious students about reservation life; about hogan, our traditional homes; and about our language and clothing. One night, my roomate and I exchanged languages: she taught me some French, while I taught her some Navajo.”

“To say the least, my experience in the Exeter Summer School program opened my eyes to a new and much larger world than I had previously experienced,” says Debora Norris, who attended the program in 1988 as a junior from the Tohono O’odham Reservation in Arizona, and went on to attend Stanford University and become a state legislator in Arizona. “It was the first time I was exposed to so many different cultures and people with different life experiences. Part of my realization was how special I was and the realization that I too was unique and had a lot to share with the other participants. I was part of something big.”