UCLA

This dissertation draws on Indigenous research paradigms including Critical Indigenous Research Methodology, the 4 Rs, and Indigenous Storywork to explore the ways Indigenous student affairs professionals (SAPs) navigate the university. Conversational interviews and talking circles were the primary methods for gathering Indigenous SAPs stories of their experiences working at higher education institutions. A bottom up and top down approach was used to code the interviews and generate themes. Indigenous Feminisms was used analytic lens during the coding process in order to foreground how Indigenous SAPs experience the settler colonial history of universities. Participant profiles were crafted in order to further analyze the stories that were shared. Findings are presented in the form of story composites with researcher reflections interwoven between composites. Participants' stories showcase how Indigenous SAPs draw on their experiential knowledge to translate university admission policies with Indigenous students and communities. Their stories showcase the intellectual work Indigenous student affairs professionals engage in as they move between Indigenous communities and the university, or what I call cultural knowledge brokering. Learning from these Indigenous student affairs professionals can shed light on how to inform better university policy for Indigenous students and staff at public four-year institutions by creating a cultural knowledge brokering framework.