Dumont, Robert V.

Robert Vaughn Dumont, Jr., a member of the Fort Peck Tribes (Sioux), described as a “giant” in the field of American Indian Education, was involved with NAES College from its inception. Dumont was born June 29, 1940 in Poplar, Montana. He received his early education in the Wolf Point Public School System, graduating from Wolf Point High in 1958. During the summer of 1960 Dumont attended the Workshop on American Indian Affairs at the University of Colorado with Murray and Rosalie Wax, and for three months in 1961 he worked for the American Friends Service Committee, Overseas Work Camps in France and Poland. He received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of Montana in 1962. He was a John Hay Whitney Fellow from 1963-64 and worked in South Dakota at the Pine Ridge Reservation during this period. After completing his Master’s degree in Education at Harvard in 1966, he moved to Chicago and dedicated his life work to promoting leadership among Native communities and challenging those outside institutions which limited the capacity of tribal peoples. In the late 1960s he began working with other Native American leaders including Faith Smith toward the creation of the NAES. The College submitted its first application for candidacy for Accreditation in 1978, receiving full Accreditation in 1984 as the first and only Private Native American Baccalaureate Degree Granting Institution in America. Dumont was a respected educator and much of his work focused on research and promotion of Indian education. Dumont also served as a policy analyst for the Fort Peck Tribes for much of the last two decades of his life. He passed away on May 29, 1997.

During his career, Dumont held many leadership positions. He was a founding member of the National Indian Youth Council (1961) and founder of Native American Educational Services (1974). Other positions included assistant director of the Ft. Peck Tribal Department of Labor; Tribal Health Director for the Fort Peck tribes; faculty for Antioch, American and Northeastern Universities, and the University of Minnesota; and special consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Education for American Indians Office. He was involved in several research projects and published several articles on Indian education. He was an education planner for the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) overseeing a Ford Foundation program in educational planning for eight Indian communities and a Carnegie Corporation Indian education study. At the time of his death, he was the Vice President for Academic Affairs for NAES College.

“[Dumont’s] work exemplifies one of the early proponents of tribal specified knowledge and learning as the focal point for development. . . . He challenged those around him to think, and to act in the best traditions and interests of Native people; not to accept failure as an end but as a beginning of new learning and a vision of dynamic social change for a Native peoples.”

Source: “Robert Vaughn Dumont Jr.” Obituaries Column, Billings Gazette, Sunday, June 1, 1997, p. 8a