BEMIDJI — She’s been on the job less than a week, but the new assistant director at Bemidji State University’s American Indian Resource Center is steeped in American Indian education.

Ann Humphrey will mainly work to retain American Indian students at the university. That means doubling down on programming designed to help students, particularly American Indian ones, feel comfortable at BSU: community get-togethers, Wednesday night childcare to take students’ children off their hands for a bit, and learning the ropes of other BSU departments so Humphrey can help students navigate them.

“Being able to have more Native graduates means having more Native experts,” Humphrey told the Pioneer. “It’s not just a win for that Native student, it’s a win for their tribe, their family, and it’s a win for BSU, it’s a win for the AIRC.”

BSU staff hope to turn the school into a destination for American Indian students, and the school’s new strategic plan aims to attract more students of color over the next five years. Humphrey will also run the resource center’s day-to-day operations while Executive Director Bill Blackwell, Jr., is out of town.

Humphrey graduated from Cass Lake-Bena High School in 2010. She’s a 2015 graduate of the University of Minnesota Duluth, where she studied vocal music; K-12 education; American Indian culture, history, and experiences; and coaching.

She’s also a Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe member. Humphrey’s mom is Ho-chunk, and her father is Larry P. Aitken, who helped found Leech Lake Tribal College in the early 1990s and mentored Blackwell at UMD.

Humphrey said she grew up at the tribal college.

“I don’t know how many kids grow up going to their dad’s classes and knowing what racial inequity is and racial disparities,” said Humphrey, who was an admissions outreach coordinator at the tribal college for nearly three years before she took her new job at BSU. “It’s been a really long journey and a really fun one, being able to work in academics for so long and being able to have it ingrained in me that it is a community thing, it is a whole town kind of thing.”