Located just outside the Fort Belknap Reservation, Aaniiih Nakoda College (ANC) serves about 100 students, Native and non-Native.
If approved by the college's accrediting body, the Computer Information Systems (CIS) program will become the school's second bachelor's degree offering. The school's first four-year degree program in cultural ecology was established in 2020.
ANC President Sean Chandler said the expanded CIS program will fill a huge community need.
"In the world we live in, with technology changing, we want to keep up," he said. "We want to advance our people and advance our community. ... Everyone is excited about it. It's one step toward growing our college and making it a completely four-year institution."
Dennis Johnson, director of the school's CIS program, said the new four-year degree builds on the success of the school's CIS associate's track. When that two-year degree began in 2007, Johnson said three students enrolled, and they learned things like how to operate Microsoft Word and Excel.
"In today's world, that's not realistic," he said.
The CIS program, he said, has since "taken off," now serving between 15 and 20 students each year. Ninety-five percent of the school's CIS graduates, Johnson said, are employed or went on to a four-year institution.
In the new bachelor's program, students will learn about computer hardware, web design, networking and cybersecurity, among other things. They will also have opportunities to hone their leadership and management skills. Johnson said these skills are particularly in-demand amid efforts to expand broadband access on the Hi-Line.
Like all programs at ANC, culture will be infused into the CIS curriculum. Johnson said he envisions inviting elders and other guest speakers to classes. The school has already installed a special keyboard, allowing students to type in Aaniiih and Nakoda languages. And the technology and library building at ANC is called WIYUKJA WICOTI in Nakoda and ʔAASÍCCƆ́Ɔ́TƆ́ƆƆNÍIINʔƆ in Aaniiih, meaning "it thinks for itself, book lodge."
Scott Friskics, director of sponsored programs at ANC, said there are no other four-year computer science degree offerings along Montana's Hi-Line. He and other ANC administrators say they expect ANC's new bachelor's degree to attract students from across the region.
Margarett Campbell, chief diversity officer and tribal liaison at Montana State University Northern in Havre, said students ask her every semester where they can get a four-year CIS degree.
"Up until now, I haven't had a place to refer them," she wrote in a message to the Montana State News Bureau. "(Now) students will have that option. The tuition is affordable (and) classes are small so students will receive a lot of one-on-one instruction."
Campbell called the new CIS program a "write your own ticket degree," saying it will "make students employable wherever they go."
If the program is approved, upper division classes will begin in the fall of 2026, and the program will see its first graduates in the spring of 2028. Plans for the new four-year degree were made possible through a $2.5 million National Science Foundation grant.
© 2025 the Billings Gazette (Billings, Mont.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
