By Jaci Schneider, Opinion Editor
Interviews for summer internships at the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana will be Thursday and Friday. Students who participate in the program will spend the summer in south central Montana living with a Crow family, mentoring Crow children and developing relationships with the Crow people, said Dr. David Gotcher, associate professor of sociology and social work and the university liaison for the reservation.
This will be the sixth summer that the university sends students to Montana, Gotcher said, and this year, room is available for up to 10 students.
“This is an evangelistic opportunity for students to live Jesus to the Crow kids,” Gotcher said.
Throughout the summer, Gotcher said students form relationships with their host family and a small group of children they work with. Many activities involve outdoor adventures, including rafting, rock climbing, canoeing and camping.
The internship is paid for through gifts from the reservation and the university’s urban studies program. Students’ salaries will cover cost of living and travel expenses, but Gotcher said he encourages students to ask their churches to support them as well.
“This program has made an impression on the Crow Reservation,” Gotcher said. “ACU is about to be the only “ACU is about to be the only baccalaureate program that the Little Big Horn College will encourage students to attend.”
David Young, senior interdisciplinary major from Austin, spent last summer on the reservation and said the experience was life-changing.
“You gain a whole new perspective of life,” he said in an e-mail. “It was a whole new world.”
Young said he took children fishing, hiking and camping and worked as a music teacher for a summer camp.
“We were sent there to help these kids and become more enlightened about the native cultures about America,” Young said. “But the truth is that we were the ones helped; none of us came back the same person.”
Gotcher and Young both said that the Crow families accept the students as part of their own family.
“They include them in all family activities and Crow cultural activities,” Gotcher said.
Young said he would love to go back to the reservation.
“It was the greatest experience of my life,” he said. “I have so many new dreams and ideas now that I hardly know where to start.”
Because the program places students in such a different cultural context, interns take a cultural diversity class as part of the program. They can also attend language, culture and dance classes at Little Big Horn College. The last week of the program usually corresponds with an annual Crow powwow, where students get to stay in teepees with the family and participate in all the events.
Students can pick up applications in the Sociology Office or can print them from online at www.acu.edu/academics/cas/sociology.crowreservation.html. Students must also call the Sociology Office to set up an interview on Thursday or Friday.
