Desiree Crawford is a military veteran and single mother of a 6-year-old girl. After high school, she served as a medical lab technician and medic in the U.S. Army. Toward the end of her enlistment, she got married and became pregnant with her daughter. Later she moved back to Arizona and decided to enroll in ASU’s nursing program.
Crawford, a member of the Navajo tribe, said her education and other goals have been greatly supported by American Indian Students United for Nursing, a program that recently renewed its funding through 2016 from Indian Health Service.
Crawford, who is set to graduate from ASU in December, said her academic experiences would have been financially and emotionally stressful had it not been for the funding and resources provided for Native American nursing students through IHS and ASUN. Her sister was also an ASUN Scholar who graduated from the university in 2006.
“The scholarship that I am receiving is a huge relief off my shoulders,” Crawford said. “With this scholarship, I am able to go to school full-time and spend time with my daughter, and I don’t really have to find a job on the side.”
The ASUN program, which started in 1990, provides financial, networking and general support services to Native American nursing students at select schools around the country that have higher Native American student populations.
Crawford said she is grateful for tuition, textbooks, school supplies and other resources provided by ASUN, including a place to study and use computers in ASUN’s main office at the Mercado complex downtown. She was also connected with a nursing mentor who helped her throughout her studies.
ASUN program manager and adviser Stephen Livingston said this is the program’s sixth competitive bid for funding from IHS since 1990. The first was for three years, followed by several five-year grants, and the most recent is another three-year grant. Since the program’s debut, it has supported about 70 ASU nursing students.
Students apply for the ASUN scholarship after they have completed their prerequisites and are entering the clinical portion of the nursing program, Livingston said.
“The scholarship itself pays tuition, fees, required textbooks, your nursing supplies and tools for the trade — so in other words, your stethoscope, blood pressure (equipment), uniforms, pants, (and) shoes,” Livingston said. Students who receive the scholarship also get a monthly living stipend of $1,500.
In return for these IHS benefits, Livingston said students are required to work after graduation for an organization such as IHS, the Indian Health Board, any U.S. tribe or a private practice that serves “primarily 75 percent American Indian clientele.”
Livingston said the program is currently funding eight ASU American Indian nursing students at approximately $45,000 per student.
The program began under Section 112 of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.
“This stipulates that the funds will go directly to the universities, not to the individual students,” Livingston said. He added that other nursing colleges around the country provide such benefits to American Indian students. The University of North Dakota provides another continuously IHS-funded program called RAIN, or Recruitment/Retention of American Indians into Nursing.
Livingston said the students accepted into the ASUN program must follow guidelines to maintain their scholarship. A student “will be owing a debt to the U.S. government” if he or she either changes majors, does not finish school or does not become licensed, Livingston said.
“They have 90 days after graduation to get licensed and to find a job,” he said. “If a student completes (school) and they decide to go work somewhere else so they get licensed, then they have one year to pay (the scholarship funds) back. If they are one of those that changed majors, failed out of the nursing program or didn’t get licensed, then they have three years to pay it back.”
Livingston said a student who is no longer eligible for the program must pay “three times the dollar amount (of their scholarship finances) plus interest,” as a penalty charge for not meeting program requirements.
Calandra Baker, a mother of two and a nursing student set to graduate in the spring, is pursuing her second degree with the help of the ASUN scholarship program and services. Her first degree was in business administration with an emphasis in health services management, but she decided to shift to the clinical side of healthcare.
Baker has a two-year service obligation to IHS after she graduates, whereas Crawford must work for three years; the service time is longer depending on how many semesters the student received the scholarship funds.
“I probably wouldn’t have pursued my degree with nursing if it weren’t for ASUN,” Baker said, because the monthly stipend allows her to focus more on schooling and parenting and less on finances.
Last summer, Baker had an externship with IHS alongside several other American Indian students who did not have the same resources that ASUN provides.
“Two of us were ASUN scholars and the other two were from Gallup at UNM and NAU in (Flagstaff),” Baker said. “They didn’t know about that scholarship at all.”
Crawford was inspired by her mother’s longtime career as a nurse — as well as her own experiences in the military — to pursue nursing school. She now hopes to attend graduate school and become a midwife.
Crawford said programs like ASUN encourage more American Indians to enter the field and help students lead stress-free college careers.
Last summer, Baker worked an externship with IHS alongside several other American Indian students who did not have the same resources that ASUN provides.
“Two of us were ASUN scholars and the other two were from Gallup at UNM and NAU in (Flagstaff),” Baker said. “They didn’t know about that scholarship at all.”
Crawford said it is important to have more American Indian health professionals. She said programs like ASUN encourage more American Indians to enter the field and help students lead stress-free college careers.
During a summer shadowing experience at Phoenix Indian Medical Center, Crawford said she noticed how comfortable patients felt when an American Indian nurse assisted them.
“A lot of the older adults, they don’t really want to leave the reservation,” Crawford said. “Here, the city’s not really home to them. They’re used to living their traditional life … all they want to do is get better just so they can go home. And I think just having that one familiar face, even though that person may not be the same tribe, it would be some kind of comfort to them.”
Contact the reporter at emily.lierle@asu.edu
