By Sarah Ganley
Fairbanks, Alaska
Art, Geography
My experience has been that at Macalester you're taught to work more like a graduate student; you're taught how to think critically and how to really go deeply into a project and explore all possible avenues.
My experience has been that at Macalester you're taught to work more like a graduate student.
—Sarah Ganley |
Last summer I was awarded a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship to research immigration patterns of Native Americans. Because research in this area hadn't been done since the 1970s, I had the opportunity to do original research using the 2000 Census, talk with lots of professors and use GIS to create maps to illustrate my research.
While the results of my research didn't surprise me, I hope for others who aren't as familiar with Native American populations that it helped to dispel the notion that most live on a reservation. I found that almost two-thirds reside in urban areas. Since 1950, the American Indian population in the U.S. has grown from under 400,000 to over 4 million. The reservation-to-city relocation program the federal government adopted after World War II brought attention to this growing number of urban Indians.
I was able to present these findings at two regional conferences and one national conference in California. Doing that helped me think about my project and continue it throughout another summer. It will also inform my senior honors project.
I worked primarily with geography professor Laura Smith. Working with Macalester professors in general is a great experience. Through my interactions with students at other schools, I've been able to see the difference between Macalester and somewhere else. Professors here allow for a much greater range of interest. They find ways to for you to accomplish your research goals, even if those goals don't fall within their interests.
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