Margaret McKinney/Highlands University
Highlands University President Sam Minner, left, accepts a traditional Navajo weaving from Diné College President Martin Ahumada Sept. 12 while celebrating a memorandum of understanding between the two colleges that was signed in August. With the new partnership, Diné College students will earn undergraduate and graduate media arts degrees from Highlands, thanks to a $438,715 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that will install distance learning technology classrooms at Diné that connect to classes in Highlands new state-of-the-art Trolley Building facility. Diné is a tribal college that serves the 26,000-square-mile Navajo Nation. The Highlands media arts and technology classes will be offered at Diné’s main campus in Tsaile, Arizona, as well as its five other sites. The U.S.D.A. grant will also connect Diné students to a Highlands media arts classroom and laboratory at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque.