American Indian Graduate Program

Group of native American Graduate Students

Enhancing the graduate education experience for Native American & Indigenous students at Berkeley.

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The American Indian Graduate Program (AIGP) aims to ensure that Indigenous and Native American graduate students realize their full academic potential at UC Berkeley. We empower American Indian, Alaskan Native and international Indigenous graduate students to bring their whole selves to their graduate experience — to see themselves included within the UC academy as diverse professionals engaging with native aspects of their narrative and demonstrating the value of studying indigenous applications for the betterment of their own culture and community.

AIGP’s intersectional approach to programming facilitates culturally-informed community engagement and place-based knowledge to support graduate student research rooted in the unique conditions of Indigenous-based histories, environments, cultures, economies, literature and aspects of professional career development.

Two female students smiling

A Path to Success

By reinforcing intersectional student development, removing perceived barriers, and encouraging and celebrating diverse ways of knowing and inclusion of Indigenous methodologies within graduate level research, AIGP lays the path for Native American students’ success.

We provide mentorship, campus resource coordination, and access to Native American career leadership events and programming to help current and prospective students navigate and find community. Working in concert with the Office for Graduate Diversity, AIGP invites American Indian and Indigenous students to fully participate in the rich diversity of the UC Berkeley graduate experience.

Considering UC Berkeley for your graduate studies? Let us help you start that journey. For current graduate students, see what we have to offer.

Unique in the nation, AIGP was established over 50 years ago to respond to a need for more American Indians and Alaska Natives into graduate study. Since then, the program has supported hundreds of Native American graduate students to achieve academic success at UC Berkeley. These graduates are now practitioners in the professoriate and professional fields and serve as leaders in urban, rural, and reservation communities.

Our goals include directly enhancing the graduate education experience for Native American students across campus; significantly growing the number of American Indian graduate students who apply, enroll and graduate from UC Berkeley; and supporting contemporary applications for the Indigenous graduate student experience at UC Berkeley.

Toward these goals, AIGP is striving to build opportunities across campus, including identifying essential financial resources for students and encouraging developing new curricula towards research that integrates diverse ways of knowing and inclusion of Indigenous methodologies and concepts of tribal stewardship. In this way, and in others, we are creating a vibrant Native American and Indigenous community at Berkeley, and a wider range of opportunities aligned with the professional and career goals of our Native students.

Berkeley Graduate Division AIGP Land Acknowledgement Title Cover

Land Acknowledgement

We recognize that UC Berkeley sits on the territory of xučyun (Huichin), the original landscape of the Chochenyo speaking Ohlone people, the successors of the sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County. Read our full land acknowledgement on the Centers for Educational Justice & Community Engagement website.

Land Acknowledgement Video

Connect with AIGP

Office hours with Patrick Naranjo

Schedule a 30-minute meeting with AIGP Executive Director, Patrick Naranjo.

Make an Appointment

Where to find us

AIGP Office
327 Sproul Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-5900

Get in touch

Email: [email protected]
Phone: (510) 642-3228

Meet with an AIGP Diversity Fellow

If you are considering graduate study with UC Berkeley, make a one-on-one appointment with one of our AIGP Diversity and Community Fellows, Jesús Nazario.

Make an appointment with Jesus.