When Tru West (Diné) was named “Student of the Year” for 2025, her first feeling was surprise. The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) Museum Studies undergraduate from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, had already been awarded the National Indigenous Recognition for Academic Accomplishment in 2022.  Additionally, she was part of the team that took First Place for Webpage Design at the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) Awards and participated in both the 5K Run and Knowledge Bowl. 

Tru West (Diné)

“I was shocked at first and then I was like ‘Okay, yeah,’ and I started to feel a sense of pride in what I had accomplished,” she says of her new title.

IAIA President Dr. Robert Martin (Cherokee Nation) announced the award by saying, “I am delighted that Tru West has been selected as the 2025 American Indian College Fund Student of the Year, the Selection Committee considered several criteria, including academic grade point average, community service, and the ways which the student plans to use their education to impact Indigenous communities.” 

Museum Studies comes naturally to West, who explains, “I come from a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) background, which makes Museum Studies interesting.”  

She adds, “I realized that there’s an intersection between museum studies and STEM and art and history and all these other facets. I actually took a forensics course back in high school, and having the background of forensic science where I was analyzing animal fur, human hair, skin cells, and different types of materials under a microscope and then piecing together where that came from and where everything intersects did help me in Museum Studies because you do the same thing on a different scale with a different emphasis.”  

West believes her experience in Museum Studies at IAIA, with its focus on Indigeneity, was “really different than that of a traditional museum field. I’ve been told that other Museum Studies in other schools around the world are based on theoretical stuff, not hands-on, which is different because here we are already practicing actual things you do in the museum field instead of just talking about it. And Indigeneity played a big part in everything in Museum Studies here.” 

“In my first class year, I had “Intro to Curation,” and the first thing we were taught is that it is not an individual act, it’s a community building act. So, you don’t just have one curator, you can have co-creators, you can have team members that are all helping you at the same time. So, it’s not that you’re taking it on your own. You have to rely on other people to help you build what you want to see in the world.”  

West also values the fact that Indigeneity is embedded in everyday life at IAIA.  

“Back home in Oklahoma growing up near a metropolitan area, there is a stereotyped image of Native people, or it’s mischaracterized a lot. So, coming out here and seeing all these Indigenous people wearing their Regalia whenever they want and just having fun with it was really cool because I’ve never seen that. People don’t wear ribbon skirts where I’m from. People don’t wear moccasins outside. They just try to fit in with the mainstream norm. Coming out here was like, ‘Oh, I can show that, I can have pride in that. I can support people who are making things like that, and I can wear it myself.”