The best investments we make in rural Oklahoma are the ones that give our people the chance to learn, work and build up their home community. Seizing those opportunities is a priority for the Hoskin-Warner Administration and at the heart of how we govern the Cherokee Nation.

One example is our efforts to strengthen partnerships with colleges and universities across the Cherokee Nation Reservation. Two new collaborations with Rogers State University in Claremore show what is possible when our tribal government and higher education work with a shared purpose: building an easier pathway from the classroom to a career.

Cherokee Nation and RSU recently signed an agreement that expands clinical training opportunities for nursing, behavioral health and allied health students throughout the Cherokee Nation Health Services system. Students will gain hands-on experience at W.W. Hastings Hospital and at our health centers across the region, including Claremore, Nowata, Salina, Sallisaw, Stilwell, Tahlequah and Vinita.

The agreement also establishes a joint workforce group focused on nursing, behavioral and mental health, scholarships, and future education opportunities. It builds on our earlier $4 million commitment toward RSU’s Center for Science and Technology, along with a 10-year pledge to cover tuition and mandatory fees for up to 10 Cherokee citizens each year in RSU’s nursing program.

These investments matter because Oklahoma’s rural communities need more health professionals. And I believe the best way to address that critical need and build that workforce is to upskill the people already living and working in our communities. Health professionals should be able to get their education here, complete their clinical training here, find careers here, and then heal the communities they call home.

At the same time, Cherokee Nation and RSU are opening another pathway in a very different, but growing, industry in our state: film and media production.

Beginning this fall, students who complete eligible courses through the Cherokee Film Institute can earn three college credit hours per course at RSU, with as many as 15 hours applied toward a Bachelor of Arts in communications with a film arts option.

Cherokee Film Institute offers hands-on instruction in commercial areas like production office work, location management, camera operation and postproduction sound. It is the only tribally operated education-and-workforce-development center actively preparing Cherokees and other Natives for these kinds of jobs.

Healthcare and filmmaking are very different industries, but as investment opportunities, they both represent fulfilling careers for Cherokees right here at home. For our citizens and our neighbors alike, we want to enable them to stay, raise a family and contribute close to home.

When Cherokee Nation and valuable partners, like RSU, connect education to real workforce needs, we are doing more than helping individual students. We are strengthening rural communities, growing our local economy and creating opportunities that will change lives for generations to come.

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