Roles in Support of Indigenous/Ethnic Minority Peoples

Abstract

In addition to the dual missions of providing higher education and preserving indigenous/ethnic cultures, languages, and identities, Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) and Ethnic Minority-Serving Institutions (EMSIs) also bear other roles relevant to their respective contexts. In specific, TCUs emphasize the importance of tribal nation building, and other roles are tributaries to this ultimate role. For EMSIs, in the centralized higher education system of China, their roles, for the most part, follow government policies. In this sense, the roles of EMSIs continually expand and change because of the evolving focus of the Chinese government on higher education in general or particular to Chinese Ethnic Minorities.