A new Instructional Service Center has been established in Brigham City, Utah, to direct a massive in-service training program for the education staff of the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett said that Edgar L. Wight has been appointed director of the Center.
Wight has a background of educational experience that ranges from principal teacher in Alberta, Canada through a variety of Federal Government assignments, including a number with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He also did a stint as training director for the Development and Resources Corporation, New York, in its Khuzistan Development Project in Iran on the Persian Gulf.
Because of the Bureau's increased tempo and accent on preschool and elementary education, thousands of BIA school administrators, teachers, guidance personnel and aides will be involved in a series of three and four week workshops. They will be trained in the latest and most successful instructional techniques and media in Indian education, Bennett said.
The program is being undertaken as a result of a recent agreement with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare that will provide the Bureau of Indian Affairs more than $9 million for such projects.
To be served are the education staffs of all 253 Bureau-operated schools, as well as extension of some services to public schools which educate Indian children.
The facility is located next to the Bureau's largest Indian school, Intermountain, at the south edge of Brigham City, Utah.
Wight has most recently served as BIA education assistant area director in Alaska, and on the central office staff in Washington, D.C.
The new director is a graduate of Brigham Young University, Utah State University and Calgary Normal School. He has taken advanced graduate study at Utah State.
