Sarah Vande Corput named College of Menominee Nation faculty of the year

At College of Menominee Nation’s commencement ceremony in Keshena, Sarah Vande Corput was named the college’s 2026 Faculty of the Year, a recognition that highlights the role she has played in helping first-year students stay connected to CMN and to one another. The honor landed at a moment when the college said it celebrated one of its largest graduating classes yet, giving the award added weight in a community where student persistence and belonging matter as much as diplomas.

Vande Corput has taught at CMN since 2015 and now holds the rank of associate professor. Her path to higher education began in business and corporate training, then shifted into teaching in 2007. She has said she stayed at CMN because of the college’s close-knit atmosphere, its culture-based mission and the support she found from colleagues and administrators. That background has shaped a teaching style centered on making students feel seen in the classroom and linked to the campus around them.

Her academic training mirrors that emphasis. Vande Corput earned an undergraduate degree in communication processes, later completed a master’s degree in education and then pursued advanced work tied to Indigenous scholarship and leadership. Her credentials include an Indigenous Research Methodology Graduate Certificate from Sitting Bull College and a doctorate in higher education and leadership studies from Edgewood University. Her dissertation, Circle of Courage: Native American Higher Education Student Success Experiences, examined student success in Native American higher education and fits the same student-centered approach she brings to CMN.

The recognition also reflects work that has reached beyond Keshena. Vande Corput received the 2026 Excellence in Teaching First-Year Seminars Award, which the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition lists as the 2025-26 honor. The center says the award is recognized at the Annual Conference on The First-Year Experience. Its recipient page says her dissertation explores Native American higher education success through the Circle of Courage framework and describes her work as focused on student success, curriculum development and online learning innovation.

Vande Corput also serves on the American Indian College Fund Faculty Advisory Council and co-leads its First Year Experience and Mentoring Community of Practice. The College Fund says the advisory council has five members from tribal colleges and universities and that its faculty development program has been operating since 2004. For CMN, which identifies itself as a tribal land-grant college chartered by the Menominee People with campuses in Keshena and Green Bay, the award points to a faculty member whose classroom work supports the college’s larger mission. The college’s recent $1.74 million U.S. Department of Education grant for Indigenous teacher education reinforces that same institutional priority.