00:00:04.080 - 00:00:16.920

Okay. All right. Cool. Um, so before we started, do you have any questions for me? Um. No, I think I'll, uh. Yeah.

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I don't think I have any questions. Okay, great. Um, well, if you want to start off by just, like, giving an

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introduction to who you are, um, maybe where you, uh, where you find yourself now and then reflect back on your experience and what it was like to be a part of the program. I think that's a good place to start.

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Okay. Uh, so, yeah, I'm Mari Hicks. I am a citizen of Wyandotte Nation. Uh, the work I do now is I'm the capital strategies manager for

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Roadhorse consulting, um, which is an indigenous led firm that we do a lot of indigenous wealth building and, um, health evaluation work. Um. My experience with WINS it's

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been a long time. About 12 years, I think. Yeah. 12 years. Um, it was good.

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I think there were there were some parts that were kind of frustrating in terms of the administration of the program, but I think overall it was a really good experience. I am still friends with some of the people that I met in the

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internship. I still live, um, in Washington, D.C. since doing the internship. So I've been back in D.C. for

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about nine years now. Um, and. Yeah, I, uh, my internship was at the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

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Um, so I think I was one of the the lucky ones who didn't have to work at Social Security Administration and take the shuttle bus every morning at, like, 7 a.m..

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Um. Yeah, I guess. Do you have any more specific questions about my experience? Yeah, I would, um, I would love well, I have a couple, so I guess I'll start with the first thing that was mentioned, which is if

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you want to speak to any of like, the challenges being a part of the program. I think that's, um, definitely something worth knowing.

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Um, so, yeah, if you if you're open to it, we'd love to hear a bit more about any challenges that maybe you faced while being a part of the program as well. Um, yeah.

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I think some of probably the biggest challenge was the fact that the checks were always late, Which I felt like was hard for me, particularly because I still had like my phone bill, my car insurance, you know, all those

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things that were still piling up even when I was like my housing was paid for and my food at the university was paid for. Um, there were still those other bills that I had. And any time that I wanted to, like, go out to lunch with my

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coworkers, that was a little challenging when the checks were late. Well, yeah, I have not. I had not heard that yet, so it's definitely important to know.

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Um, so thank you for sharing that. I also, um, would love to hear more about, I think across the interviews, I've heard a lot about sort of, um, these relationships being a real key part of people's

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experiences in WINS. So if you wanted to speak more to maybe the friendships, um, how those were formed through WINS and then how that shapes, like what those relationships look like now

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and your kind of professional life or personal life. Yeah. Um, so I guess I will start with my friendships.

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Um, I guess one of my longest running friendships I got through WINS Um. Yeah, it's been nice. We've, like, kept in touch through

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the years. Um, this has been a person that has, you know, like, recommended me for jobs when I was job searching.

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Um, he is, like, fed my cats. You know, sometimes I've. I have gone and fed his cat. Um, so it.

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Yeah, it's a really good it's a really good friendship that formed, um. Yeah. I would say in terms of the

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lastingness of the friendship, I think it's that we both, um, kept in touch even after the internship. Like I kept in touch with a few people. But, um, for this particular friendship we have, like.

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Both of us worked hard to keep the friendship alive, and, um. You know, just being there for each other, um, and for the other relationships, I would say, um, one of the big ones is Miller Willey, who still lives here in DC.

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Um, and I met him. I think he was like a mentor when we were doing WINS. And he.

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You know, it was just always down to, like, meet Nguyen's interns, um, connect them to people if he could. And he also has helped me by, like, recommending me for jobs, um, serving as, um, he helped me do, like, interview prep for a job

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that I applied for. It's just things like that that have been really helpful. Awesome.

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Um, yeah. It's cool to hear, uh, how that has showed up and, you know, different people's lives, but definitely consistent across all the interviewees so far.

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Um, so I guess with that, we can kind of transition into your professional path. Um, if you could speak to how participating in the program, if at all, you, you know, if it did

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or if it didn't, um, if it if you felt like it had influenced your professional path and in what ways? Um. I think it definitely. Influenced me to still want to

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work with native communities and still, um, be part of the community and give back. Um, it did. It wasn't a very linear, um, path.

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Uh, when I went back to college after my internship, I only had a couple semesters left. Um, but then I couldn't find a job right away after I graduated. Um, so I still, like, was trying and interviewing.

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Um, I finally did get a job that landed me back in DC, but it wasn't, um, a native related job at all, and so. But that allowed me to like get back into the DC native community. And through that I was able to get.

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A job at the administration for Native Americans or contracting with them, um, which I also got because there were quite a few people who had cycled through the agency as contractors who had done WINS.

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Um, so it was it was good to have that kind of base that folks kind of already knew what my background and capabilities would be because I had done WINS Um, yeah. And that kind of just led to.

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Different other jobs, um, including to the job that I'm at now at Roanhorse Consulting. Awesome. Um, cool.

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Even you know, myself, I'm, like, fairly early in my career search, so it's cool to, like, see the ways people navigated kind of those early career moves. Um, great.

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Well, um, I will also ask, so like I said, don't really know. Um, you know, where these interviews will go. That's definitely like part of this process is figuring out, um, what we're going to where this will head.

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Um, but, uh, curious to ask if there was programming, um, either at AU or elsewhere, do you have ideas of what it could look like? Um, or, you know, things that maybe you would adopt from wins and say like, oh, we should definitely do that again, or

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things you're like, oh, that wasn't really that useful. Um, maybe we'd do that differently. Okay. Um, I would say one of the things

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that I really appreciated about my first semester at wins, um, there were only five of us that semester. So we integrated a lot with the, um, Washington semester students. And I think that was good for both programs to kind of learn from

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each other and, you know, learn what what each program was doing. Um, so I think I really appreciated that. And any future one, I think I would like to have a little bit more integration.

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Um, the other thing that I would say to keep is I really appreciated in the application process that a letter from a council member or an elder or somebody respected in the community was part of the the

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application and was required. Um, I think that's a a good way to make sure that we're getting like quality students that are connected to their community.

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Um. As far as the things that would that I would change with a potential future program, um, I would definitely make sure that there was somebody ensuring that the billing and the paychecks were running smoothly, because I think

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it was on both sides. There wasn't somebody making sure that the federal agencies were paying their bill, that they were supposed to pay for their intern.

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Um, and I think that was part of what led to you. The program stopping is that there wasn't somebody making sure the because the agencies were supposed

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to pay and you know nobody got accepted and brought in if there wasn't a sponsor. So just making sure that that American University gets paid, um, or whoever gets paid so that they

00:12:11.790 - 00:12:26.710

can pay the interns. Awesome. Um, okay, I just have a couple more questions for you. Um, and then, of course, if you have any questions for me, um, the

00:12:26.710 - 00:12:32.870

first question. Oh, actually, I'll just I'll lump them together. So one, is there anything I didn't

00:12:32.910 - 00:12:43.150

ask that you think is really important to share? I know these you know, these questions are pretty broad. So like feel free to get specific as you'd like. And then what you think the most important thing is for us to know,

00:12:43.190 - 00:12:57.090

walking away from, you know, this conversation, um, whether it be winds, impact or, um, you know, a need for future programming. Feel free to interpret that how you wish. But so anything we ask that you think is really important for us

00:12:57.090 - 00:13:23.130

to know. And then most important thing for us to know walking away from this conversation. Um. I guess it might be important, um, if, you know, a future program

00:13:23.130 - 00:13:41.010

might have some more, like, cultural elements and what those might be, knowing that people are coming from all different tribes and like, what's the the best way to be inclusive? Um, and especially like some people coming from urban

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communities or communities where there aren't a lot of other natives around. And it's for the most important thing to know.

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Is that the network is still strong. And I feel like. Trying again would get a lot of support because I think, well, for

00:14:07.500 - 00:14:18.020

me personally, I didn't know that the program was in trouble until after it had already closed. So I felt like I didn't have any opportunity to do anything to save it.

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And I think I would have, would have wanted to, you know, I could have even done something like take a Win's intern out to dinner once a month or something. That's something I could have

00:14:31.060 - 00:14:41.900

afforded even with my first assistant job. Mhm. Yeah. No, the the network being strong is something that came through

00:14:41.940 - 00:14:59.600

like the second that um, that, you know, this was publicized on Facebook and everything, like the amount of people that were excited to chat was really, um, you know, proved that to be true. Like, I could definitely tell us that there were people that are

00:14:59.600 - 00:15:11.360

still very much well connected and still very much excited to talk about the program. So that was awesome to see. Um, to that point, do you think there is anyone else we should

00:15:11.360 - 00:15:23.880

definitely try and talk to? Um, or if you have any questions for me, I'm happy to answer any anything that. Yeah, I can kind of clear up for you. Oh, sure.

00:15:24.040 - 00:15:30.280

Um, I would say I would recommend my friend Brent Huggins. Okay. He was an intern.

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Like, I think three times. Um, and then he was also an RA, and he also did some admin work in the office. Cool.

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So. So if you haven't heard from him yet, um. He has a wealth of information. Okay, great. I will flag that.

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And I will probably, if I if we haven't heard from him, I don't recognize that name, but I can check my emails and make sure, um, I might get his contact information from you.

00:16:00.890 - 00:16:11.130

I will say there's, like, a max amount of people we can interview, so I need to, like, take stock of how many I've interviewed and then how many we have left. And then, um, we'll probably reach out to you and try and get his

00:16:11.130 - 00:16:14.130

contact information, if that's okay. Okay. Yeah. That's fine.

00:16:14.610 - 00:16:17.290

Okay. Um, great. And then. Yeah.

00:16:17.330 - 00:16:32.290

Do you have anything else that I can clear up for you? Um, I guess whatever comes out of this is, um, is there a plan to reach back out to the participants to let them know what? What happened?

00:16:32.970 - 00:16:40.010

Yeah. Of course. So, um, I am keeping a log of, like who? All I've been, um, talking with.

00:16:40.330 - 00:16:52.430

They're, Like in the wave of finals was like crazy. So, um, so picking back up interviews now after kind of like a, a lull for a second there for

00:16:52.430 - 00:17:01.710

like a week or a week and a half. Um, so I'm keeping a running track of who all we're speaking with, and we'll certainly, um, stay in touch.

00:17:01.710 - 00:17:16.270

I am a, a PhD student, so I'm around for a second, but I won't actually be on campus next semester, so I probably will not be as engaged next semester. I don't know, like, they'll probably end up having to hire

00:17:16.270 - 00:17:29.910

someone that's like actually on campus. Um, so so yes, I will make sure that that, that Passover gets, um, handed off to whoever picks up my responsibilities if it is not me, myself, to make sure that y'all are engaged throughout the

00:17:29.910 - 00:17:42.200

process. Um, I will also note that there has been like a brief conversation about maybe a potential workshop or some sort of like alumni engagement facilitation.

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Um, you know, as we kind of gather all these alumni and stuff, it feels like a good opportunity to try and engage current students with alumni and like a real intentional way. So that's like a potential avenue that could come out of this.

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Um, and if that's the case, we'll certainly reach out to y'all and see if anyone's interested in participating. Um, so all that to say, we'll definitely keep in touch. It may not be me directly, but if it's not myself, it will be

00:18:08.440 - 00:18:16.240

Amanda. And, um. And if you know not her, then it might be a research assistant that that's actually on campus.

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Um, but we will make sure that y'all are kept up to date with where? This heads. Yep.

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All right. Well, thank you so much. Awesome. Yeah.

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Thank you so much. And, um, if you have any questions or anything, feel free to follow up via email. I'm pretty easy to contact there.

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Um, and we'll let you know what happens. All right. Well, great.

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Awesome. Thank you. Bye. Have a good weekend.

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Thanks. You too.