A History of United Tribes Technical College
Throughout its entire history, the College has maintained its commitment to the economic, social, and cultural advancement of Indian families. The College provides housing, recreational facilities, a child development center, and an elementary school for its students and their families. It also provides counseling, placement, medical services, transportation and other support services, all focused on the unique social and cultural context of its students. For over 39 years, UTTC has served over ten thousand American Indian students from more than 75 federally recognized Indian Tribes across the nation.
United Tribes Technical College was first founded in 1969 by an intertribal organization, the United Tribes of North Dakota Development Corporation. It is a nonprofit corporation chartered by the State of North Dakota and operated by the five tribes wholly or in part in North Dakota. Those tribes are the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Nation, the Spirit Lake Tribe, the Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. The College is governed by a ten-member board of directors made up of the chairperson and one delegate selected from each of the tribes.
The College was founded to provide a community in which Indian people can acquire an education and obtain employment. Programs which have been added over the years have kept this initial purpose in mind, providing not only occupational education and training but also individual and social skills in a culturally-relevant setting, with an emphasis on children and families.
The brick buildings that house the College near Bismarck, North Dakota, were built from 1900 to 1910 as a military base -- the second Fort Abraham Lincoln. During World War II, Fort Lincoln was designated as an alien internment camp operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the U. S. Department of Justice. A portion of the fort was fenced off and some of the buildings were used to detain German merchant seamen from impounded freighters and several thousand civilian Americans of German and Japanese descent (Snow Country Prison). In 1948, Fort Lincoln was designated the headquarters for the Garrison Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, serving as the planning center for the Garrison Dam Project. The Fort was declared surplus by the military in 1966, remodeled, and used as a Job Corps Training Center until 1968. It was also used by the Peace Corps for training in 1968. When that closed, United Tribes obtained the use of the property as its campus. It acquired ownership in 1974.
Initially, United Tribes was a residential employment training program which was named United Tribes Employment Training Center. The Bendix Field Corporation provided training services for the Center in its very early years, turning operation and control over to the United Tribes of North Dakota Development Corporation in 1971. It was, thus, the first "intertribally controlled and operated postsecondary vocational school in the nation."
As times changed so did the College. In 1975, it became United Tribes Educational Technical Center to reflect a change emphasizing technology. With further change, the Educational Technical Center changed its name again in 1987 to United Tribes Technical College. This change reflected the vision to provide increasingly relevant postsecondary education to students in an increasingly complex world.
Recognizing the need for accreditation, the College applied for and was granted candidacy for accreditation status by the North Central Association (NCA) in 1978. In the spring of 1982, United Tribes received full membership in NCA as a postsecondary vocational school. That status was continued, when, in 1987, the institution received authority from NCA to offer its first associate degrees, which was in Licensed Practical Nursing and Medical Records. In 1989, two more degrees were authorized.
In March 1993, the College was approved at the Associate of Applied Science level in all of its programs and has continually maintained its accreditation status. In 2001, the college was granted full accreditation without stipulation, through 2011.
In November of 2003, the College received approval to offer two Associate of Applied Science level degrees via online course delivery. Early in 2004, the College requested accreditation approval for three additional degree programs, and in November of 2004 approval for these programs was granted, allowing UTTC to offer a total of five degree programs through online delivery to our students, with plans of more to come in the future. UTTC is the first tribal college in the nation authorized to offer full on-line degree programs.
United Tribes Technical College is a nonprofit corporation owned and operated by the five tribes located wholly or in part in North Dakota. Tribal owners: Three Affiliated Tribes of Ft. Berthold, Spirit Lake Tribe, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, and Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.