Allyson Two Bears
Environmental Science major
Sitting Bull College, North Dakota

Allyson's mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother were all medicine women. Knowledge of traditional medicinal plants was handed down to Allyson throughout generations. >> MORE

Alan Waukau
Criminal Justice major
College of Menominee Nation

As a member of the Menominee Nation, Alan lives under a sovereign and independently self-governed tribal system within the United States. Alan studies criminal justice in hopes of someday working as a tribal police officer. >> MORE

Sekoya Bighorn
Physical Education major
United Tribes Technical College

Sekoya is already making strides - mental and physical - to help her people. She is a basketball star, devoted to her workouts, and a physical education major at United Tribes Technical College in North Dakota. >> MORE

Dan Hawk
College of Menominee Nation
Mathematics and Nutrition major

Born and raised on the Oneida Indian Reservation in Wisconsin, Dan says he "grew up poor." He had a difficult time in high school, and entered the Army National Guard. Following that, Dan enlisted in the U.S. Navy, where he served for eight years on fast attack submarines in the Atlantic.
>> MORE

How Think Indian Was Born

The Think Indian campaign was created in collaboration with the American Indian College Fund's Portland, Oregon-based longtime advertising partner Wieden+Kennedy, which has volunteered its creativity to the Fund to advertise its mission to educate American Indian students. Wieden+Kennedy is known for its signature work for Nike, Target, and Coca-Cola, and was named Adweek's 2008 Global Agency of the Year.

Wieden+Kennedy has partnered with the Fund for more than 15 years to tell the story of the American Indian College Fund, American Indian students, and tribal colleges. This distinguished body of work has been printed in magazines such as The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, U.S. News and World Report, Fortune, Marie Claire, Outside, and appeared on television and radio.

The Think Indian public service advertisement campaign is the next chapter of the American Indian College Fund's story. Rooted in the stories of real students at our tribal colleges, the campaign shares how the unique cultural thinking of American Indians is being preserved at tribal colleges, and that inner cultural landscape is being used to solve modern-day problems for all people.

Tribal college students are combining Native cultural knowledge with modern business, science, and other studies to come up with solutions for modern diseases, preserving modern habitat, develop sustainable businesses and cities, and implement sustainable agricultural practices on this planet—and in space. Our students have the responsibility to preserve the Indian way of thinking for the next generations to solve age-old and modern problems. It is not only our students that benefit when you make a donation to the American Indian College Fund—the entire world is a better place thanks to Indian education.