NAES College: Campus Locations

NAES College --Native American Educational Services

Chicago Campus

Chicago Campus

NAES College Central Offices
2838 West Peterson
Chicago, Illinois 60659
773 761 5000

NAES College's Chicago Campus serves a multi-tribal Indian community with a history of organizational development dating back to the early 1900s. The current Native American population is estimated at more than 20,000. Like Indian communities everywhere, the Chicago Indian community has a center but no external boundary. Indian people live scattered throughout the city and suburbs with a concentration remaining on Chicago's North side. The center of the community is defined by various organizations, of which NAES/Chicago is one.

Students from 3 NAES campuses take class at the
Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago

NAES/Chicago students reflect Chicago's diverse Tribal population. They enroll between the ages of 24 and 72; the average age is 35. Over 90% of the entering students are parents and/or heads of households. They are also usually the first in their family to attend college, which means that high expectations are placed upon the individual by his or her family and community upon completion of the degree. Approximately twenty percent of NAES/Chicago alumni have completed graduate degrees in fields ranging from law to social work to public health to business.

In addition to family obligations, the students have a strong commitment to the overall development of the Chicago Indian community. This continues to be demonstrated through their work in one or more local Indian organizations.

Future goals are quite diverse, but they are always community-related. Almost half of the NAES/Chicago graduates have returned to their reservations to provide leadership or work at the national Indian level; the others are significantly involved in the Chicago Indian community.

NAES/Chicago has served as an incubator for Indian organizations in the city, including the American Indian Economic Development Association (AIEDA), the Indian Treaty Rights Committee (ITRC), and Urban Natives of Chicago (UNC). UNC is a local youth group affiliate of UNITY, and is currently supported by the Chicago Campus. The campus directs a Native Women's Leadership Development Project.

NAES/Chicago has joined in the State of Illinois Articulation Initiative, a cooperative effort by the state's higher education institutions to help ensure that student work in one school is compatible with the needs of other schools to which they may transfer. The Campus has also negotiated individual articulation agreements with College of DuPage and Truman College, to accept their community college graduates at junior year ranking. Truman houses the Institute for Native American Development and serves a significant number of Chicago's Native students, while College of DuPage offers a Native American Studies Program and serves a significant population of Native students from the western suburbs. In addition, the Campus is working cooperatively with the Field Museum of Natural History, the D'Arcy McNickle Center of the Newberry Library, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and other local research facilities to provide instruction.