Growing up, Tyler Sumpter never considered becoming a teacher. She lived on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation but attended public schools just outside of her community in Sparks, Nev., where just 2 percent of the student population is Native and Alaska Native. Her teachers did not look like her.
Finally making that connection with teachers in the college setting helped Sumpter realize that she wanted to be a teacher—the kind she wished she’d had as a K-12 student. With that goal in mind, she applied and was accepted to the University of Oregon’s Sapsik’ʷałá Teacher Education master’s program.