For most freshmen, adjusting to life at a large research institution such as the UW is inevitably a challenge. From keeping up in college-level courses to living away from home for the first time, the transition from high-school senior to undergraduate is rarely easy. For Native students, however, it’s even more challenging.

For Tyson Johnston, a member of the Quinault tribe on the coast of Washington, the hardest part about coming to the big city was not being able to hear the sound of the ocean at night.

“Everyone told me how tough it would be, but I didn’t really believe them at first,” Johnston said. “By the time I was a couple weeks into my first quarter, I knew they were right. I just couldn’t fall asleep without being lulled by the crashing waves. It might sound petty, but it was just so hard for me.”

Now a senior, Johnston is the president of First Nations, a campus organization created with the primary intent of welcoming and supporting all Native students throughout their time at the UW.

Johnston said First Nations tries hard to recruit incoming freshmen early in the school year and serves as a support system as they attempt to navigate their way through college life. It is particularly difficult for students who didn’t grow up in an urban environment, he said.

“So many students spend their entire lives on reservations in rural areas and just don’t know how to cope once they reach the city because it’s such a culture shock,” Johnston said. “So we try to create a home away from home, like a UW family, to make it so they feel they have a support system in place.”

Johnston said one major challenge that the leadership of First Nations faces is trying to increase college-retention rates among Native students. Currently, only 54 percent of Native students return to the UW after their first year, something the club is working hard to change. Johnston attributes this statistic to a number of factors that make it a struggle to stay in school and graduate, including poverty, feelings of disconnection from the campus and a lack of trust in higher-education institutions that, Johnston said, is relatively common among members of the Native community.

“One of our longer-term goals is definitely to reduce the dropout rate and keep everyone in school till graduation,” Johnston said. “It’s important for our communities in the long term to have an education, so we can be effective advocates for Native issues when we return to our tribes.”

The distrust of educational institutions is exactly what First Nations hopes to combat among high-school students, reaching out to encourage them to aim for higher education.

“I think there is an overall attitude of fatigue toward school, especially with all the requirements just for graduating high school, like the WASL,” said First Nations secretary Tashina Willard, a member of the Tlingit and Cowichan tribes. “We’re trying to change that and get them thinking about college. High-school outreach is a huge part of what we do at First Nations overall.”

One aspect of this outreach is an effort to bring high-school students from reservations around the state to the UW’s campus for an organized visit and conference in the spring time. While here, they will tour campus, stay in the residence halls and sit in on classes, getting a taste of college life.

Once Native students are admitted, however, it is just the beginning, Willard said. From day one, the leadership of First Nations works hard to find and recruit as many Native students as they can. “It’s so important from the beginning to make them feel welcome and supported,” Willard said. “There are all of these statistics about Native students — of poor retention, poverty, etc. — that are working against them from the get-go. So we work really hard to combat that, with everything from tutoring sessions to collaborating with the campus community on scholarships.”

First Nations meets weekly on Wednesdays at the Ethnic Cultural Center. Members share dinner and conversation, while planning activities.

“It doesn’t seem like much, but just having a home-cooked meal for students is really important to us,” Willard said. “It’s just another way for us to help them feel at home.”

First Nations exists not only to help Native students, but to educate the surrounding UW community about contemporary Native issues, said senior Emma Noyes, a member of the Colville and Tulalip tribes and the ASUW American Indian Student Commission (AISC) director.

Noyes said one of the major campus education initiatives is Columbus Day Awareness, through which First Nations spreads awareness of the history of cruelty behind Columbus’ “discovery” of the North American continent. The group also raises awareness through Taking Back the Dinner, an alternative to Thanksgiving in which the group invites faculty and students to join together for a meal that includes many traditional dishes and an opportunity to recognize the realities of the relationship between the pilgrims and Native population. Throughout the year, First Nations and AISC also sponsor film and documentary screenings, particularly those made by Native directors or producers.

Despite having a serious agenda, First Nations also aims to have fun, Noyes said. The biggest example of this is their annual spring powwow, a three-day celebration featuring tribal communities from across the Pacific Northwest, which was held last weekend at Hec Edmundson Pavilion. Among the activities was a tribal dance and drum competition. The powwow also hosted a myriad of vendors selling clothing and jewelry, as well as frybread, a popular traditional food.

“In my opinion, powwow is all about the coming together of community that celebrates the diversity of Native cultures,” Noyes said. “It’s a joyful celebration of our identity.”

Noyes said she is thankful for the ability to serve in a leadership role at the UW because she can be an advocate for the needs of Native students, particularly younger ones who are usually the most vulnerable.

“First Nations is all about advocating and voicing the needs, concerns and interests of all Native peoples,” Noyes said. “We’re a people that historically have been silenced and left out of academia, so it’s extremely important that we as Native students have a UW family of sorts, a place to come together and be ourselves. We need that sense of connectivity and place in order to thrive.”

Reach reporter Katie Paff at features@dailyuw.com.