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The University of New Mexico

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Contact : Carolyn Gonzales 277-5920, cgonzal@unm.edu May 17, 2007

UNM-Gallup Graduate Teaches Hope

Cotillion SneddyCotillion Sneddy picked up her bachelor of science from University of New Mexico-Gallup last week. Sneddy, like many of her classmates, is Navajo. One of seven to earn degrees in early childhood/multicultural education there this semester, she is already making a difference in how Native Americans are educated.

Sneddy was a teen parent, giving birth to her daughter Yael, at 17, but still graduated valedictorian of her class. Realizing she needed to know more about early childhood to be a good parent, she volunteered at Head Start.

“What I learned helped me to be a better parent and teacher,” she said. Thirsting for knowledge, Sneddy went to UNM-Gallup where she could take classes on site and online.

“Native women don’t always see good parenting. Alcohol, physical abuse and poverty are commonplace,” she said.

She and Jael’s father went their separate ways and Sneddy is now married to Dugan Morgan and has two other children, Yael, now nine, is sister to Treasure, five, and brother Hunter, 7 months.

Sneddy and her husband work together to make a better life for their children.

“We want to raise our children to be proud of where they came from,” Sneddy said. They live on a ranch in Pinehaven, on the Navajo reservation about 15 miles south of Gallup, NM. She concedes that Morgan’s Navajo language skills are better than her own and that the children speak the language.

“They also know they come from the Water Flows Together People, The Red Running Into the Water People, The Sagebrush People and the Sleeping Rock People,” she said.

“We have horses, cattle and sheep. When we met each other we had nothing. We had each other. We have made sacrifices for our children and it was worth it,” she said.

Her degree gives her licensure to teach birth to grade 3, but she isn’t finished with her education. “I am already enrolled in summer courses to work on a master’s in elementary education. It will give me the broader span – K-8,” she said.

Sneddy said there is a strong need for native leaders. “People don’t understand the culture, the needs of both the community and the parents,” she said. For that reason she eventually plans to pursue an advanced degree in educational leadership.

In the classroom, Sneddy said, teachers need to think about the realities of their students. “They may not have eaten since they left school. They may go home to no one there. Often they may not have slept because their parents were fighting,” she said, noting that her own upbringing reflected these problems. But, she tells them, “There’s always hope.”

Sneddy currently works in the Family and Child Education Program out of the BIA’s Chichiltah School, located 25 miles southwest of Gallup. She is a parent educator who brings materials into the home to show parents how to work with their children.

“I come to them as one of our people. I can relate to the parents. I tell them, ‘I am here for you and your child.’ I show them they don’t have to buy stuff to work with their children. I also give them resource information for Medicaid and such,” Sneddy said.

Sneddy also shares her life story with the parents, “So they can see that the circle of drugs, violence and poverty can be broken,” she said. Sneddy only recently reunited with her father. “My mother has been there through thick and thin. She watches my kids so I can work and go to school,” she said.

Earning her degree is not only an accomplishment for herself she said, but also setting a standard for her children, and for her husband who is just five classes away from earning an associates degree.

Sneddy said that UNM’s Distance Education Program made it possible for her to get an education without leaving home. “I can use what I learn everyday.”

Click here for photo of Sneddy and family.


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