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Zah receives Lifetime Achievement Award for his work with Native students

Peterson Zah, who has promoted Native American education during his entire career and has helped double the number of Native American students enrolled at ASU, received a prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Indian Education Association at their annual convention Oct. 30 in Phoenix.

Former president of the Navajo Nation, Zah has served ASU as Advisor to the President on American Indian Affairs since 1995, helping with recruitment and retention of American Indian students. Since that time the ASU Native American student population has increased from 672 to 1,276.

Zah is considered to be one of the keys to the increased enrollment and retention, having helped create the Native American Achievement Program, a partnership with tribes which provides scholarships, mentoring and advising to students. Student persistence and retention rates in the program increased from 43 percent to 78 percent. These numbers are among the highest of any major college or university in the country.

He is a Diné, a member of the Navajo Nation, who attended Phoenix Indian School as a youth, graduated from ASU with a bachelor’s degree in education, and has received honorary doctorates from Colorado College and the College of Santa Fe.

Early in his career he taught at Window Rock High School and worked for the Navajo Nation as a construction project estimator. From 1967 to 1982, he was executive director of DNA People’s Legal Service program for the Navajo, Hopi and Apache people in the Four Corners area.

He was elected chairman of the Navajo Tribal Council from 1983 to 1987, and in 1988 he became director of the western regional office of the Save the Children Federation and established an office in Albuquerque, N.M. In 1990, under a new tribal government organization, he was elected to a four-year term as the first president of the Navajo Nation.

At ASU he works closely with students, meeting with them regularly, and he presents guest lectures and represents ASU in external relations with American Indian communities and federal and state governments.

The National Indian Education Association is the oldest and most representative Indian organization representing American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian educators and students. Its mission is to support traditional Native cultures and values, enable Native learners to become contributing members of their communities, promote their control of educational institutions and improve their educational opportunities and resources.

Zah gave the keynote address at the convention, which was attended by about 5,000 educators, students, elders, advocates and tribal leaders. He was honored with a reception afterwards.

“I feel privileged and honored that such a huge, representative organization would do this for me and my family,” said Zah of the award. “It’s one of those things you don’t expect, but you keep working every day, every year, trying to produce positive things for people. I never expected at the end that this satisfying a reward would be given to me.”