OLC-EBC students represent at AIHEC conference

[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”7″ display=”pro_horizontal_filmstrip”]OLC research assistants that presented research posters at 2025 AIHEC: (L-R) Lowanla Uses the Knife, LaShell Poor Bear, Summer Dupree, and Shikayla Faubion. (Photo courtesy of Summer Dupree)

A team of students from various OLC centers won 2nd place in the Business Bowl Competition at the 2025 AIHEC conference. Pictured with their Department chair are (L-R) are Travis Richard, Corey Rousseau-Lawrence (Cheyenne River Lakota), Marry Monroe (Business Department Chair), Sarah Molash, Frankee Little, Danishia Zephier. (Photo courtesy of Corey Rousseau-Lawrence)

 

EAGLE BUTTE SD – The American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) held its annual conference in Rapid City, SD, in March, 2025. The theme for the conference was “Ancient Wisdom, the Foundation of Our Future: Sovereignty, Unity and Strength for Future Generations.”

Alec Knight, Director of the Oglala Lakota College Eagle Butte Center (OLC-EBC), attended along with several OLC-EBC students who Knight had coached to participate in AIHEC competitions. Knight agreed to step up in mid-February when the previous coach unexpectedly resigned from a position at OLC which included responsibilities as the AIHEC coach.

Knight says he enjoyed his experience at the 2025 AIHEC and was grateful that this year’s conference was conveniently located in Rapid City. In previous years AIHEC has been held in cities (such as Minneapolis, MN in 2024) that made travel to the conference more costly and time-consuming. Knight said he is proud of this year’s students who made a worthwhile effort to represent OLC well.

Since the first AIHEC Student Conference in 1980, this annual event has grown from a few dozen participants to over 1,000 students, faculty, and staff coming together each spring to compete in academic, cultural, and artistic exercises; share stories, and best practices; participate in workshops and plenary sessions; and celebrate the Tribal College Movement.  A total of 42 Tribal Colleges competed in the 2025 conference with over 1200 attending.

OLC students Summer Dupree, Veronica Fast Wolf, Lowanda Uses the Knife and Corey Lawrence all represented OLC at AIHEC 2025.

Summer Dupree, who grew up in Dupree and graduated from Dupree High School, said that her AIHEC experience was “really good.” She competed in three categories, the Knowledge Bowl and the Science Bowl (both team events) and the Traditional Plants category, an individual competition event. She also submitted a poster presentation titled “Wako Wakan: Determining Habitat Suitability for Tinpsila on Cheyenne River, Pine Ridge and Yankton Reservations.”

Dupree’s team tied for first place in the Science Bowl. In the Traditional Plants competition, she placed third. In the Knowledge Bowl, her team took third place.

Dupree balances her educational assignments with part-time employment at the Dupree Schools Main Office as well as an OLC research assistantship. She is also the mother of two children, ages 5 and 6. She gives credit to her parents who are very supportive and provide child care when she needs to be at class, work, or away overnight.

Dupree also gives credit for her success to the unique cultural support she receives as a Lakota student at OLC. Immediately after high school she enrolled in a mainstream university and says she was not successful.

At OLC, she is close enough to her family to benefit from their support and along with other studies she learns about Lakota culture and spirituality, which has been instrumental in her success. She said that “being at OLC has accelerated my learning about my (Lakota) culture.”

Her two younger sisters are also working on their college degrees, one in education and one in accounting. Dupree says she always tries to be a good role model and “a good relative” to her immediate biological family and to the oyate (her extended family of all Native Americans). She expects to graduate in spring of 2026 with a bachelor’s degree in Natural Science with an emphasis in Conservation Biology.

Corey Lawrence (Cheyenne River Lakota) is a 50-year-old freshman business major at OLC-EBC. She said that overall, competing at AIHEC was a “very good learning and life experience” that she would highly recommend to other students. “It was very positive to meet students from other OLC centers as well as Native American students from all over the United States and Canada.”

She was one member of a 5-person team of OLC students from various OLC centers who competed in the Business Bowl and won second place in the competition. Lawrence said that studying for the competition helped her learn subject matter that she will use in future classes.

Marry Monroe, Chair of the Business Department at OLC, said she was very proud of the team. Lawrence said Monroe was “very encouraging and motivating” and that Monroe’s support was one reason for the team’s success.

Born in Eagle Butte, the oldest of ten children, Lawrence married early, raised four of her own children, and later divorced their father. When her younger siblings went to college, she helped them by providing child care for her nieces and nephews. Those same nieces and nephews as well as one of her younger brothers encouraged her to go to school after her own children were launched. They all said, “You can do this.”

Along with being a full-time OLC student, Lawrence works full-time as the office manager for the CRST Game, Fish, and Parks department and part-time at Minimart. She says both employers are supportive of her educational goals. Her significant other is also very supportive.

She thinks she will continue to work for Game, Fish, and Parks when she finishes her degree but will bring more knowledge to her position.

Lawrence has already been invited to compete in AIHEC 2026 and has accepted the invitation. Her message to other “non-traditional” (older) students is, “Don’t ever think you are too old to go to school. Age doesn’t matter.”

(Contact Grace Terry at graceterrywilliams@gmail.com)

 

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SOURCES:

 

Personal interviews with Alec Knight, Summer Dupree, and Corey Lawrence

 

https://aihec.olc.edu/

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