Page 26 - November report 2023

SIPI SITE VISIT
OCTOBER 2, 2023
SIPI Meeting Participants
Dr. Tamarah Pfeiffer - President
Rodney E. Greer - Business Instructor
Val Montoya - VP Instruction
Christopher Harrington - Department Chair Melynda Mitchell - Financial Aid
JSF Participants
Richard Williams - Indigenous Program Consultant John Glover - Indigenous Program Consultant
Program Management
SIPI awarded nine scholarships for the fall and spring of 2022-23. Some of the students were full-time, and the majority of the students were part-time. SIPI still needs to make the awards for the Fall of 2023. We strongly advised that they need to award all of the scholarship money.
One of the SIPI’s most complex challenges is that 82% of the incoming students are not “college ready.” This fall, 90% of the students are taking classes online.
Another interesting aspect of SIPI is they have over 60 students enrolled in “dual enrollment.” Dual enrollment students are high school students taking a college credit class at SIPI.
The AIBL program is not operating and is not active.
We met the new President and raised our concerns about unspent funds.
We met with three young men who will receive awards this fall. One student was a former casino employee who wanted to increase his professional capacities to do more for his tribe.
Desk Audit
Unlike last year, the files were complete and in order. We got a letter from SIPI certifying that all awardees were eligible for financial aid. We need to monitor this school closely. I recommend closely reviewing the upcoming December report to ensure they follow our policies. Two students who received funding last year had GPAs below 2.0. The largest award was $6,000, and most were smaller.
It should be noted that there was no representative at the JSF meeting in Scottsdale.
The news release announcing the new SIPI president is available at this link: https://www.bie.edu/news-article/dr-tamarah-pfeiffer-selected-president-southwestern-indian-polytechnic-institute
Page 24 November Report