Samantha Maltais, the American Indian College Fund Law Scholarship recipient headed to Harvard Law School, was interviewed last night on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell program on MSNBC live. She gave a shout-out to the College Fund for her law scholarship, the Full Circle Scholarship program that funded her education at Dartmouth, spoke about murdered and missing Indigenous people, and shared her career goals.
See the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XnWg1wiAiQ
During the first week of February, representatives from 36 tribal colleges travelled from across the country to Washington, D.C. to remind Congress that supporting TCUs is not optional — it’s part of the federal government’s trust and treaty obligations. TCUs are not only here; they are creating a ripple of generational change with every student who walks through their doors.
The American Indian College Fund awarded a total of $96,063 to seven new faculty fellows in the spring 2026 cohort. This program supports tribal college and university faculty and staff in their graduate studies to increase the academic capacity of TCUs.
In recognition of the fact that the leadership experiences of Indigenous women is an under-researched topic, two Native leaders at the American Indian College Fund co-authored a journal article on this topic. Their team analyzed 18 peer-reviewed articles to identify key concepts and available support for Indigenous women’s leadership.
