When Niki Sandoval graduated in the bottom one-third of her class at Santa Ynez High School it came as no great surprise.

Daughter of a single mother, she lived on the Chumash Reservation. What more could be expected?

As it turns out, a whole lot more.

At 36, the Lompoc resident has published 10 academic papers. She has lectured at UCSB, Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Santa Cruz; in Washington, Albuquerque, Paris, and Guatemala City; in Cuba and New Zealand.

In June at UCSB she became Dr. Nicolasa I. Sandoval, the first Chumash in tribal history to earn a doctorate degree.

Her life shatters the stereotype of indolent Native Americans with no interest in education. At key intersections in her academic career, the self-described “museum junkie” seized the initiative to take advantage of opportunities.

“I wanted to be an astronaut,” she said with a laugh as a Friday evening Olde Towne Market geared up outside the coffee shop where she sat. “But when I got to 12, I got more hip. I knew I had a place in the world, I just didn't know what it would be.”

As important as her own personal drive is her family - Native Americans who informally nurtured education from kindergarten through graduate school. “The role models I had, my mother and her mother, had a simple and true wisdom that is good for a lifetime,” Sandoval said.

Sandoval's maternal grandmother was descended from the Purepecha tribe of Central Mexico. She married into the Chumash tribe.

Sandoval's mother moved to the Chumash reservation, four daughters in tow, after a divorce, when her eldest girl, Niki, was 9 years old. She worked at a series of low-wage jobs but found time to take her girls to libraries.

“My mom taught me to read before kindergarten,” Sandoval recalled. “Both she and my father had a love of learning that was infectious. I escaped in my books. My mom and dad had Time-Life books. I read magazines, cereal boxes, anything I could get my hands on.”

At Santa Ynez High, Sandoval's grades tumbled, but through her initiative she achieved a different distinction. She became a cheerleader, the first ever from the tribe, her mother believes, and broke through the social stratifications that marked the Valley. “Self-segregation in the Valley was not pronounced, but it was more than I was used to,” Sandoval said.

It was Hancock College that cranked open her world.

“At Hancock I learned how to be a good student. I remember a film class with Casey Case and an art history class with Ed Harvey. It filled me up. It added so much to the quality of my life. I learned I had different paths open to me.”

Financial aid drew Sandoval to Pepperdine University, which is just over the hill from the Getty Museum.

“I qualified for work/study. The first job I saw was at the Getty.”

Sandoval wanted to apply but she was discouraged by her counselor. “They rarely take our students,” he said, unaware of Sandoval's history of initiative.

“That's all I needed,” Sandoval recalled. “I set up an interview and in 10 minutes she offered me a job.”

Next, Sandoval parlayed her museum experience and Pepperdine degree in public relations into a starter job at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. There, she advanced from public affairs assistant to Assistant Director of Community Services at the Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian. In that position she met indigenous groups from throughout the Western Hemisphere.

One project in particular draws a smile to her face. She assisted the Kuna people of Panama, most of whom speak only their native tongue, to raise funds for a cultural center. “I felt really good. Only a few of the men speak Spanish.” The center is now in operation.

“On Sept. 11, I was in Alexandria, Va., less than five miles from the Pentagon. When I got to the office I found out that the Pentagon had been hit.”

At that, the tug of family grew stronger. “I asked myself, ‘Why am I 5,000 miles away from my family?' Life was too short to not see my niece and nephew grow up.”

With her master's degree in museum science earned while in D.C., she applied for the doctorate program in education at UCSB and returned to the Central Coast.

She began research on her dissertation in January 2005. She wanted to examine Indian education.

Forty-two percent of whites age 18-24 pursued higher education in 2003 while only 18 percent of Native Americans did so. Of 1.7 million college degrees awarded that year only 0.8 percent went to Native Americans.

In her research, she discovered that tribal schools had higher expectations for Native American students than did mostly white public schools. And she found that most studies of native education interviewed teachers, not native parents, the very people who she knew carried on cultural traditions. The studies treated parents as if they had nothing to offer.

She decided to conduct her study in a different way.

“In the educational research literature I reviewed on family involvement, I noticed a virtual absence of American Indian perspectives. I wanted to add to the knowledge base by eliciting the voices of our first teachers - our parents. Native parents and guardians possess rich cultural assets that can enrich the educational lives of all students. My own mother taught me to read at the age of 4. My father took me to museums. I credit both of them with my passion for reading, learning, and my insatiable curiosity about the world around me,” she wrote.

Her study turned the previous paradigm on its head. She interviewed not teachers but a dozen native parents and grandparents and developed strategies for school/parent partnerships with both sides contributing equally.

Her faculty committee was impressed.

“Through the personal narratives of her informants, Niki reveals the heritage of racism that has adversely influenced educational experiences across multiple generations,” said UCSB professor Mary Brenner.

“At the same time, she shows the determination of families to encourage their children's educational attainments through constructive engagement with the schools. Other research that has focused on the perspective of school personnel has failed to adequately describe this determination and commitment.”

Sandoval wants her work to affect relationships between educators and parents.

“I'm hoping educators and administrators will look at parents as resources instead of obstacles,” she said. She now teaches at UCSB, works part-time for the Nonprofit Support Center, and does occasional consulting, though not yet for any school districts.

The fact that she was the first from the tribe to earn a doctorate came as a shock. “The education department at the tribe keeps track,” Sandoval said. “There is an attorney and a doctor of optometry but they saw I was the first with a Ph.D.”

She is not likely to be the last. Nearly 100 tribe members are now in college classes. The booming casino provides scholarships.

“What makes me happiest is that there are positive messages of people from the reservation contributing in many ways. We have intelligent and able and promising young people. I'm glad there's more attention being paid to that.”

Another smile lights her face.

“If I can do it, anyone can do it.”

Correspondent John McReynolds can be reached at 736-6352 or johnny544@verizon.net.

September 4, 2007