Native American Studies

American Indian Studies programs have often been accused in the past of charges of political advocacy and of lacking a certain objectivity that is the standard for disciplines of academic scholarship. Several colleges in the Southwestern region of the U.S. began Native American Studies programs in the late 70's and early 80's. The University of Arizona started the first A.I. studies Ph.D. program in the nation, and University of California at Berkeley became a popular location for American Indian studies. The political rhetoric that was used in defense of keeping these programs in the 70's was one affirmative action and civil rights, and later shifted to the need to educate minority students to meet the growing needs of a shrinking and increasing technologically developing world. The interdisciplinary nature of the field has seemed so far to be best suited to the more focused aspect of graduate study. The challenge for Native American studies is that they are held to the standards of scholarship that must conform to the institutional norms, with strict adherence to written documents- which doesn't offer much flexibility to oral literatures and histories that Native Americans created.