Plateau Native American Education Trust Honored as Laureate

SPOKANE, Wash. – The Plateau Native American Education Trust, through the generosity of Allan Smith, has become the Washington State University Intercollegiate College of Nursing’s first laureate donor. A laureate donor is a person or organization that has provided more than $1 million cumulative lifetime giving to the university.

Dr. and Mrs. Smith established the Plateau Native American Education Trust to provide scholarships and recruitment funds for the WSU Intercollegiate College of Nursing, WSU College of Liberal Arts and Lewis-Clark State College. The funds may also be used to address health care issues for Native American tribes in Eastern Washington.

The College of Nursing recognized the Laureate status at a Jan. 3 all campus retreat. Steve Masterson, vice president and senior trust administrator at the Coeur d’Alene Wells Fargo, accepted a recognition plaque on behalf of the Trust.

“This contribution is significant on a number of levels,” said Dorothy Detlor, dean and professor at the WSU Intercollegiate College of Nursing. “The funds will continue to assist with our Native American Recruitment and Retention Program, which is focused on increasing the number of baccalaureate-prepared Native American nurses. And, this is the college’s first $1 million legacy donor.”

The worldwide nursing shortage affecting large and small communities is as acute for Native American communities and cultures. Native nursing graduates and practicing native nurses who return to work with their tribes or other Native American communities bring valuable nursing expertise and perspective to the health care needs of this population. Cultural sensitivity—a key piece for providing quality care—is often missing.

As a cultural anthropologist and linguist with expertise in the Native American tribes of the Northwest, Smith was passionate about health care as it relates to Native Americans. Smith graduated magna cum laude from Yale College with a bachelor’s degree in sociology. He continued his graduate work at Yale during the late 1930s, performing a comprehensive study of the tribal territory of the Kalispel Indian tribe of northeastern Washington, as well as an ethnographic survey of the tribe’s traditional culture. Smith was the first scholar to record the Kalispel language. Throughout his career, he continued his research of the Columbia-Plateau ancestry.

Smith received the Purple Heart while serving in Naval Intelligence during World War II. He began teaching at Washington State College in 1947 and advanced to chair of the newly formed Department of Anthropology in 1965 and Academic Vice President in 1969. Following his retirement from WSU in 1978, Smith wrote a book and numerous scholarly articles.

His wife, Ann Gertrude “Trude” Smith, a nurse, was very involved in his work at WSU, writing and co-authoring articles with her husband. Smith, who passed away in 1999 at the age of 86, was preceded in death by Trude in 1977. The WSU Intercollegiate College of Nursing Native American scholarships are named in Trude Smith’s honor.

Established in 1968, the WSU Intercollegiate College of Nursing is fully-accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education. The college is the nation’s oldest and most comprehensive nursing education consortium and is the largest college of nursing in the Northwest.

Celebrating 38 years of world-class nursing education, the college offers baccalaureate, graduate and professional development course work to nursing students enrolled through its four consortium partners: Eastern Washington University, Gonzaga University, WSU and Whitworth College. Each year the College of Nursing educates more than 800 graduate and upper-division undergraduate students and prepares more entry-level nurses than any other Washington state educational institution.

For more information about the College of Nursing, visit www.nursing.wsu.edu.