Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced plans for converting the 480-pupil Federal Indian boarding school at Santa Fe, New Mexico, into an Institute of American Indian Arts by the fall of 1962.
Planned to accommodate eventually as many as 500 students, the new Institute will provide a full high school course and two post-high school years. It will enroll youths of one-fourth or more Indian blood from all parts of the country who show special aptitudes in a wide variety of creative arts.
In addition to such fine arts as painting and sculpture, the curriculum will include many Indians arts and crafts such as woodworking, silversmithing, leather craft, beadwork, ivory-carving and basketry.
The Institute will be headed by Dr. George A. Boyce, former superintendent of the Intermountain Indian School at Brigham, Utah, who was recently assigned to Santa Fe and will be reporting there in the near future as superintendent of the new school. His duties this coming year will involve directing the necessary remodeling and rehabilitation of the present plant, program development, equipment and staffing for opening the Institute in the fall of 1962.
Throughout the school year of 1961-62 the Santa Fe School will continue providing regular academic instruction in the first nine grades. Meanwhile plans will be developed in the Bureau Area Office at Gallup for placing the present pupils in schools which are being expanded near their homes. Most of the present pupils--Navajos and Apaches primarily--are in elementary and junior high school grades.
The new Institute of American Indian Arts will be a nation-wide Indian school enrolling students from all tribes--from Alaskan Eskimo to Florida Seminole, from Arizona Papagos to Dakota Sioux. The school will offer broad as well as specialized instruction in the creative arts and will develop vocational opportunities in applied arts and related work as new opportunities for Indians. Because of world-wide interest in American Indians, Secretary Udall said, this national Institute of American Indian Arts will give many more Indians opportunities to get international recognition through the arts."
The Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the Department of the Interior will collaborate with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in making a promotional effort to open all outlets for Indian artists to make a significant contribution to modern American culture.
Specific emphasis will be given to recruiting a first-class resident and visiting faculty trained to serve special needs of Indian youth.
Secretary Udall stated that a special school committed to these goals is long overdue. Establishment of the Institute at this time will put into operation one of the key recommendations of the Task Force on Indian Affairs which reported recently to the Secretary.
