Michael Little Crow CM 417 / 480-423-6579 michael.littlecrow@sccmail.maricopa.edu Michael is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe of Belcourt, North Dakota.  He is an adopted member of the Mandan / Hidatsu from New Town, North Dakota and a member of the Swift Fox society of the Northern Cheyenne of Lame Deer, Montana.

Brief Biography of Michael Little Crow:

I was born as Michael Eaton Gutherless in Seattle Washington in the spring of 1962.  After traveling around the country due to my father?s employment with the space program, my family finally settled down in Beaverton Oregon in 1968.  I attended the Beaverton public school system and graduated from Sunset High School in 1980.  After traveling to Thailand for one summer with my adopted Thai brother, I entered the University of Washington to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering.  I transferred to Portland State University the next year to be closer to family.  After rethinking what I wanted to do with my life I changed my major to Math Education and transferred one last time to Oregon State University where I received my B.S. in Math Education in 1985.

I tried to apply everything I had learned in school about teaching.  But this style did not fit me and I could not discover the true teacher inside of me until I was allowed to be myself.  I taught as a substitute teacher in the Corvallis School system for one year.  The next year I accepted a full time position with a home mortgage brokerage firm.  Four years later I moved on to a Financial Planning Agency where I worked as the executive assistant to the firm?s president.

After 8 fulfilling years in this industry I decided that it was time to return to my true love, teaching.  I began by taking evening classes while I continued to work.  After three terms of this, I entered OSU as a full time graduate student.  The support I received from the Native American community allowed me to find my inner teacher.  My course work taught me much, but my students taught me more.  I completed my requirements for my M.S. in Math Education in May of 2000 and accepted a position as a fulltime math instructor in the Educational Opportunities Program at OSU.  During a Cheyenne Sweat Lodge Ceremony on the winter solstice of 2001, spirit gave me the new name of Michael Little Crow and I began my journey to bring light out of the darkness. 

Currently I am a full time math instructor at Scottsdale Community College with a summer appointment at the University of Hawaii.  My work focuses on making the mathematics that is taught in school culturally relevant to students of diverse backgrounds.  I am continually looking for new ways of explaining concepts for maximum understanding.

My ultimate career goal is to move more into curriculum and program development to assist native students in bridging the gap between the technological world of today and the traditional world views of the elders.

SCOTTSDALE COMMUNITY COLLEGE 

Scottsdale Community College is a public community college located on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in Scottsdale, Arizona.  SCC has an average full time enrollment of 10,000+ day and evening students. 

SCC is a multi-ethnic campus which features an American Indian Program (AIP) office that provides student support services on American Indian related academic programs and community outreach services.