Linton, Marigold, 1936-

Marigold Linton, PhD, is Cahuilla-Cupeno, and an enrolled member of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians. She was born and raised on the Morongo Reservation in Southern California of an American Indian father and a non-Indian mother. She is the first California reservation Indian to have ever left the reservation to go to a university. She is reportedly the 17th American Indian to have ever earned a PhD in any discipline.

She received her BA from the University of California, Riverside; did graduate work at the University of Iowa; and received her PhD from University of California, Los Angeles. All degrees were in experimental psychology. She redirected her research area to cognitive experimental psychology during a sabbatical/postdoctoral year with Donald E. Norman, PhD, at University of California, San Diego.

She taught at San Diego State University reaching the rank of full professor and was recruited by the University of Utah as full professor. Then interested in expanding her scope she was for 12 years an administrator at Arizona State University. During that time she served most importantly as Director of American Indian Programs serving Arizona tribes through the Rural Systemic Initiative. She then moved to the University of Kansas as Director of American Indian Outreach where she is ending her 11th year.

At the University of Kansas, Dr. Linton developed a consortium with Haskell Indian Nations University to support biomedical research opportunities for American Indian students and faculty at both institutions. To support the collaboration she has developed funding through NIH mechanisms including the Bridges to the Baccalaureate programs, Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD), Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE), Post Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP), and the Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA).

She is counted as a founder of both SACNAS and the National Indian Education Association (NIEA). She has served on the SACNAS Board of Directors for many years. She served as President in 2005 and 2006—the second woman and the second American Indian—and remains on the board as a senior advisor. She has been involved in a variety of other significant Indian education activities.

She has had a number of significant national appointments including: Committee on Equality of Opportunity in Science and Engineering (CEOSE), congressionally mandated NSF Committee that reports biannually to congress (2006-2009); NIH National Institutes of General Medical Science, National Advisory Research Resources Council (1982-1986); Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Board of Directors (1977-1985); National Research Council, Committee on Assessment for NIH Minority Research/Training Programs, III (2001-2004); and the National Academy of Sciences, Fellowship Office Advisory Committee (2009-2011).

Awards and honors include the Marigold Linton Endowed Scholarships for American Indian Students at the University of Kansas (2008), one of 37 biographies of notable Americans in Dream It Do It by S. Cook ∧ G. Sholander (2004); Pride of American Indians&mdahs;one of 100 contemporary and historic American Indians recognized (1996); and University California, Riverside 40th Anniversary: “One of 40 Alumni Who Make a Difference” (1994).

Her research on very long term memory has been internationally recognized. [e.g., The maintenance of a complex knowledge base after seventeen years. In D. Medin (ed.) The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 1996, Vol. 33, 127-163.] In 1975 she co-authored a best selling statistics book with P. Gallo. [The Practical Statistician, Brooks/Cole Publishing, Monterey, CA.]

<p>Marigold Linton, PhD, is Cahuilla-Cupeno of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians. On the Morongo Indian Reservation in Southern California, Linton overcame many obstacles making her the first in her tribe to leave the reservation to attend college. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Riverside, in experimental psychology. It was also at the University of California where Linton became the first American Indian to earn a doctorate in psychology. Linton started her career as a teacher at San Diego State University, where she reached the rank of full professor. In an effort to expand her scope, she left San Diego and became an administrator at Arizona State University.</p>

<p>I am Cahuilla-Cupeno, and a great-great granddaughter of Antonio Garra, war chief of the Cupeno who led an insurrection against the invaders. I was born and raised on the Morongo Reservation in Southern California, and the texture of those years permeate my life in many ways. We lived in a small adobe house that my parents built. Our water came from a cistern and periodic irrigation. We used kerosene in our lamps and spent our weekends gathering the wood to burn in our stove. We had a battery-operated radio and could only afford to listen to one or two programs a week. I thought the rich people were the ones with indoor toilets and electricity.Very early in life I began to have vivid dreams, some of which were powerful enough to be called visions. These dreams talked to me about leaving the reservation, something of which I was very fearful. But they also spoke of coming back. The visions told me that if I did leave I would become someone. I remember those dreams/visions almost as vividly today as when they occurred.</p>

<p>I did very well in school. My mother often said to me, “You are lucky, the school fits your mind. Your brothers are smart, too, but the school does not fit their minds.” One of the deciding points in my life was having my eighth grade teacher come onto the reservation to see my mother. “Your daughter is very smart and should go to college,” she said. This idea fit with my dreams; so that day I started saving my money to go to college. I also played tennis in high school, and I was good enough to win the county championship in both singles and doubles. The college I chose was the University of California, Riverside. It was thirty miles and a world away from the reservation.</p>

<p>Although Riverside was then a small and friendly town, I found it terrifying and I was the only Indian at the University. I struggled to do things the way the white folks did. I still had no clear idea what college was, but I could tell that I needed good grades if I was to stay and continue my quest to become “someone.” I committed myself to working fourteen to sixteen hours a day on my classes. I spent my savings frugally, living on a monotonous diet and affording no pleasures. I lived in dread of failing. When I finally received my grades at the end of the first semester, to my disbelief I found I had straight A’s.</p>

<p>I changed majors a number of times, finally settling on psychology. I avoided classes like chemistry, biology and calculus because my biologist friends had assured me I wouldn’t do well in those “real” classes. However, when I was a senior I discovered I would need these classes for graduate school, so I took biology, calculus and a course on evolution. I loved them and did very well; but by then I was an experimental psychologist. I had started doing research as an undergraduate and had two publications by the time I entered graduate school, which was very unusual for the time. I did graduate work at the University of Iowa and obtained my Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.</p>

<p>I was trained as an experimental psychologist and eventually became what is called a cognitive psychologist. This discipline is concerned with how people think, learn, perceive (see, hear, feel), and remember. My specialty is very long-term memory. My research relates to questions such as how long learned-information is retained, and if it is retained longer if you study more. Though they sound like easy questions, the answers are complex.</p>

<p>I wanted to teach at a university and do research, but at the time I obtained my degree most university positions were closed to women. I spent ten years at San Diego State University and became a full professor. I was hired at the University of Utah, the first woman to be hired as a full professor. However, I never forgot those visions of returning to my people. During the day I taught psychology classes and did research. The rest of the time I was involved in the national Indian education movement of the 60s and 70s. I served on the founding board of the National Indian Education Association. Guided by the only powerful vision I have had since leaving the reservation, in 1986 I moved to Arizona State University, where I could work more closely with the tribes. I ran a coalition mandated to improve mathematics and science education for twenty tribes in Arizona. Recently I have moved to the University of Kansas where I work closely with Haskell Indian Nations University and the Haskell Health Center to provide science research opportunities for Haskell students in the laboratories of research scientists at the University of Kansas.</p>