American Indian Recruitment: AIR Staff Spotlight
by Mattie Varner (Cherokee/Native Hawaiian)

As the community college coordinator for American Indian Recruitment, Amber Crotty conducts outreach services to Native students and helps them prepare for college. She counsels them in a variety of areas, including academics, family concerns, and identity issues. Amber is graduating this year and recently applied to the American Indian Studies MA Program at UCLA. This is her second year working for AIR.

MV: What are some of the goals you try to accomplish within AIR?

AC: I try to solidify ways of networking with Native students. I also emphasize empowerment, and I advocate for incorporating traditional Native philosophy with Western education. I try to get my community college students to visit the UCLA
campus and have them volunteer for site (and we always can use more volunteers). This can be hard, though, because a lot of them tend to have hurdles that they need to overcome.

MV: What should people know about your work with community college students?

AC: I think the trend is for Native students to transfer in as opposed to entering as freshmen. Transfers have certain handicaps when entering UCLA, and tend to get overwhelmed. There’s no real transition time for them. I think that we need to have more events for transfer students to address these issues. Having informal events is important also, just so they know what’s going on at UCLA.

MV: Any thoughts on how AIR and RAIN could work together more?

AC: I think it would be great if AIR and RAIN could share a cubicle. It would facilitate a flow of communication, and we’re small enough projects.