Nobody has shied away from calling Heather Shotton’s ascension to the Fort Lewis College presidency historic.
When she steps into the president’s office on July 1, Shotton will become the first Indigenous president of a college she says is truly unique. And yes, she knows all colleges claim that – but she stands by it.
FLC is a designated Native American-Serving Nontribal Institution. About 39% of its students are Indigenous, and it’s in the process of reconciling the harms inflicted upon Native American students at the Fort Lewis Indian Boarding School, which operated from 1892 to 1909.
Shotton, a citizen of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes and a descendant of Kiowa and Cheyenne peoples, is also the descendant of federal boarding school survivors. She is also a first-generation college graduate. Reconciliation work is personal to her. She is connected to it not only by her ancestry, but by her academic interest as well. She holds a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy studies, and her research focuses on Indigenous higher education.
“My story is reflective of those of our students,” she said. “I understand those students because I am them.”
A recently adopted five-year strategic plan lays out some ambitious goals for FLC through 2030, presumably to be executed under Shotton’s leadership. The college plans to increase retention rates, which historically range from 50% to 60%, to 70%, and ensure every student has access to resources addressing housing and food insecurity.
The road ahead is one Shotton is ready to travel because, as a key developer of the plan, she helped pave it.
But her sights extend beyond FLC’s mesa-top campus, and it’s not because she’s the first Indigenous president that she hopes to put FLC on a national stage.
Shotton sees FLC as a regional and community resource. Housing and child care, she notes, are shared concerns for both the college and the Durango community – issues that might be addressed through collaboration.
The college’s work can be a model, Shotton hopes, not just for former boarding schools, but to colleges nationwide navigating the rugged landscape of higher education, and those that have an interest in addressing their histories of harm.
“Our hope and our desire is that we can take the lessons that we are learning in our process and provide frameworks and models for how you can engage with this work in responsible ways and in respectful ways, and share that with other institutions who have a desire to do reconciliation of some sort,” she said.
It’s an opportunity to show how “institutions can get it right.”
She’s headed to the president’s office after a three-year stint as the vice president of diversity affairs. That’s the kind of position that some institutions are eliminating or renaming in light of President Donald Trump’s executive order proscribing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Shotton wrote at length in her cover letter about her commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and justice, and has no intention of leaving that mission behind now. The position she is vacating will stay, she said, title and all, and her intent is to deepen those efforts.
“When we talk about equity gaps, that’s important for any student that we serve, that all of our students have the opportunity to succeed,” she said.
The college should explore and address the unmet needs of any group of students that isn’t succeeding at the overall rate of the student body – that’s the pragmatic way the new president views DEI.
As for federal blow back, Shotton’s answer is curt: “We continue to ensure that we’re complying with state and federal law.”
But don’t confuse Shotton’s commitment to closing equity gaps with a lack of commitment to academic freedom and diversity.
She is not anxious to play Monday morning quarterback on the Jackson Clark controversy. The current interim president canceled a talk set to be delivered by the contentious Durango business owner titled “Saving Navajo Weaving” after some Indigenous organizers found the premise – that white traders rescued the art form from the precipice of extinction – to be offensive, and threatened to protest.
But Shotton does stand firmly behind key pillars of the academy.
“I don’t know that it’s helpful to say what I would’ve done,” Shotton said. “What I can tell you, as president, in those situations, my approach is always to uphold full academic freedom and freedom of speech and to provide a safe space for us to do that.”
In a sentimentally decorated office – not yet moved into the executive workspace – Shotton has an air of excitement about her as she mulls a presidency set to begin in just over seven weeks, and the challenges she will face.
“I’m confident in the people that are here,” she said with a smile.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
