Marigold Linton
Conquering
Fear and Preparing the Way for Others
Dr.
Marigold Linton is Cahuilla-Cupeno of the
Morongo Band of Mission Indians. She overcame enormous
obstacles to become one of the first American Indian to
earn a PhD in psychology. Her distinguished career has
included major roles in creating programs that have
enabled many American Indians to earn advanced degrees
in the sciences. As Director of American Indian Outreach
at the
University of Kansas (KU) since 1998, she has led a team
from KU and Haskell Indian Nations University
that has
obtained more than $13 million in support from the
National Institutes of Health for Haskell and KU
students. Linton is Past President of SACNAS (Society for
Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in
Science), an organization in which she is still
active.The SACNAS website features a wonderful 8
minute video of Dr.
Linton. (Scroll down to find it.)
Dreams of Succeeding
Linton grew up in poverty on the Morongo Indian Reservation
in Southern California. Long before her birth, her
great-great grandfather, Antonio Garra, war chief of the
Cupeno, led an insurrection against the invaders.
Linton recalls doing well in school: “My mother often said
to me, ‘You’re lucky. The school fits your mind.’ Very
early in life Linton had vivid dreams about leaving the
reservation but returning later. “The visions told me that
if I did leave, I would become someone,” she says.
Linton continues, "One of the deciding points in my life
was when my eighth grade teacher came onto the reservation
and told my mother. ‘You daughter is very smart and should
go to college'. The idea of going to college fit my
dreams.”
Linton worked hard and saved money for college. She chose
the University of California at Riverside. “It was 30 miles
and a world away from the reservation,” she says. Linton
had no role models on the reservation who had attended
college. In fact, years later she learned that she was the
first California reservation Indian to attend a university.
“All my life I had heard such messages as, ‘Indians don’t
go to college. They flunk out.’ Even my father, kind
gentleman that he was, said, ‘When you flunk, you can come
back. We will be here.’”
First
to Attend the University
Linton’s first
semester at the University of California at Riverside was
stressful. “I didn’t come out of a very good high school. I
was very frightened. I felt that I had only one chance to
succeed. I came from a family that rarely talked, and in
class I never had any ideas or anything to say. Sometimes
when I was asked a question, I would run out of the room in
tears. I was so determined to succeed, that I spent all of
my time studying.
“When I received my first report card, I was afraid to open
it. When I did open it, I saw there were all A’s. This was
something I desperately wanted, but my father had taught me
never to take anything that wasn’t mine. I was sure that
this report card wasn’t mine, so I took it to the
registrar. Giving it back with both hands, I said, ‘You’ve
given me the wrong grades. Please return this to the person
to whom the grades belong and give me my grades. The people
in the registrar’s office looked at me like I was out of my
mind. ‘Those are you grades,’ they said. “I was greatly
relieved but assumed it was just an accident. I again
worked day and night and got straight A's again the next
semester.
“I had come to school with the $1,000 I had saved. Even
then, this was barely enough to live on. Because I now had
absolutely no money, I got a full-time job that summer and
the summers that followed. I also worked half time during
the school year. By this time the university provided me a
small scholarship each year.
“I considered majoring in political science and even
becoming a lawyer, but I was told that political science
departments don’t treat women well. Even more important, my
difficulty talking in public didn’t fit with becoming a
lawyer. I eventually settled on experimental psychology. I
didn’t want to go into a narrow discipline. Psychology
seemed okay because with it I could do anything.” As usual,
Linton worked hard and as an undergraduate was an author on
two articles describing her research in psychology.
In 1958 Linton entered graduate school in experimental
psychology at the University of Iowa. She spent two years
at Iowa and then completed her PhD in experimental
psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles in
1964. Since then, her research, which she has continued
doing throughout the years, has focused on long-term
memory.
San
Diego State University
When Linton
finished her PhD, she had been married for six years. “My
husband wanted to move to San Diego. In those days things
were much less formal than they are now. He went to the
political science department, said he wanted a job, and
they hired him. When I approached the psychology department
about a position for myself, they said they could offer me
a full-time position if I worked half time in the
university counseling center and taught half time in
psychology. I told them that I didn’t know anything about
counseling because I was an experimental psychologist, but
at that time counseling seemed the appropriate role for
women, so they had no issue with my lack of experience. I
turned out to be a pretty fair counselor, and the difficult
cases often ended in my office.
“The teaching was problematic. I had to give a 50-minute
lecture even though I had almost never said more than 10
words at a time in public. The first semester was truly
miserably because I had to write down every word of my
lecture and then read it to my students. I threw up before
every class. I was scared to death, but I did it anyway,
and as is the way with life, things got better. At the end
of a year I chose to teach full-time because I was
convinced that teaching was where opportunities lay. My
clinical career ended."
National
Indian Education Association
During her 10
years (1964-1974) at San Diego State University, Linton
excelled in her work. She went from being an instructor to
being a full professor. Outside of her local tasks, she
worked with others in founding the National Indian Education
Association.
Established in 1969, NIEA is a non-profit advocacy
organization that helps ensure that American Indian,
Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian educators, tribal
leaders, school administrators, teachers, parents, and
students have a strong, national voice in the education
of Native people. Today NIEA has more than 10,000
members – a huge increase since Linton and four or five
colleagues started the organization.
SACNAS
Linton is
one of the founding members of SACNAS (Society for
Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in
Science), which is composed of science professors,
industry scientists, administrators, K-12 educators, and
students. SACNAS promotes opportunities in science
education for Chicano/Latino, Native American, and other
underrepresented minority students, encouraging students
to reach the highest levels possible in their science
careers. From 2004 until 2007 Linton served as President
of the SACNAS Board of Directors. She was only the
second woman and the second Native American to serve in
this important role.
University
of Utah
Linton’s next
position was in the department of psychology at the
University of Utah where she was the first woman ever hired
as a full professor. Linton taught and described her
research in regular publications. She began serving on
National Institutes of Health minority training grant
review committees. Like many Indian women of middle age she
cared for her mother.
Shortly after arriving at Utah, Linton was asked to talk
with the Board of Directors of the prestigious Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, that were
meeting on the campus. “I told them that Utah claimed to
want me because I was an Indian woman, but they had looked
at my vitae, and I looked like a white male. That’s the
only kind of Indian woman that would have been acceptable
to them at that time.” Three years later in 1977, Linton
was invited to become a member of the board of directors of
the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
During her eight years on the board, the foundation did a
major study of high schools. Shortly after she left the
board, the foundation completed a seminal study of tribal
colleges.
Arizona State University
In 1983 Linton
married Robert Barnhill, a mathematician who was a faculty
member at the University of Utah. A few years later
Barnhill's career goals led him to Arizona State University
(ASU). Linton, who describes herself as a flexible,
trailing spouse, accepted a position at ASU directing a
variety of programs that focused on improving educational
opportunities for Americans Indians. This included
developing science and mathematics opportunities for
students, providing on-reservation classes for Native
teacher aides who wished to become teachers, creating
bridge programs for reservation students, and providing
developmental activities for 29 schools on 19 Arizona
reservations. In her last two years at ASU Linton worked to
develop a partnership between Arizona State University and
the Indian Health Service in Phoenix. Linton’s work was
supported in part by funding from NASA (National
Aeronautics and Space Administration) and a National
Science Foundation grant.
University of Kansas and Haskell University
Linton
with Dr. Russ Middaugh
and
student, Talia Martin
In 1998
Barnhill accepted an administrative position at the
University of Kansas (KU), located in Lawrence, Kansas,
where Barnhill grew up and his elderly mother still lived.
Linton accepted the Provost's invitation to be Director of
American Indian Outreach at KU.
Very quickly Linton realized that a partnership between KU
and nearby Haskell Indian Nations University could enhance
Native American education in the biomedical sciences and
enrich the academic life of both institutions. With the
help of her colleagues, she raised more than $18 million in
grants in support of the Haskell-KU partnership.
[See Haskell-KU for a
description of the current programs, many of which are
built on the initial grants.]
Advice
"Work hard to
become broadly trained," Linton advises people who are
interested in psychology, in particular, and behavior, in
general. "I've spent a lifetime reminding other scientists
that psychology is THE hard science," she declares.
“Be confident
enough to try the hard route rather than the easy route.
These days try informatics, genomics, and proteomics rather
than a more traditional discipline. In a decade the names
will change but the advice will not. Be as well trained and
as broadly trained as you can be.
"Increasingly psychology has become a 'hyphenated science'
with disciplines, such as neuropsychology, psychobiology,
and others. As science becomes more and more
interdisciplinary, scientists from all disciplines are
recognizing the importance of having a well-trained,
flexible psychologist on the team.
“Do enough research so that you and your employer are
satisfied, but also balance your life and activities. I do
photography and have become a digital camera freak. I
collect art, especially works by American Indian artists.
I've always been involved in sports, particularly tennis.
Walking has become a passion. My memories of all the cities
in which I've lived include not only people but also the
great levees, hills and valleys where my husband and I have
walked.
"Family is very important to me. My contacts with my tribe
are precious. I have four stepchildren. I have a splendid
husband who I married at middle age. We all play together
and enjoy each other's company."
"Fifty years ago, I chose psychology because of its
breadth. The world is filled with many fascinating
opportunities. Psychologists can be involved in a
remarkable number of them. The challenge of understanding
behavior is becoming more exciting with every decade. Find
a niche. Do something important that is interesting to
you.”
This
article was originally published in the Summer, 2005 issue
of
Winds of Change. It was part
of a collection of articles on careers in the biomedical
sciences.
Update
2010
The Office for Diversity in Science
Training at the
University of Kansas honored Dr. Linton’s continued
leadership role by establishing the Marigold Linton
Scholarship in Biomedical Science. The scholarship
provides financial support for junior or senior level
undergraduates majoring in biomedically-relevant
disciplines. Preference is give to American Indian
students.
Dr. Linton say, “I continue as Senior Advisor to SACNAS and
ex-officio member of the board. Sharing my love for SACNAS,
early in 2009, my husband became their first Vice
President. His title is VP for Science Policy and Strategic
Initiatives.” Dr. Linton also reports that the first SACNAS
Summer Leadership Institute was hugely successful. Another
one will be held this year.
Update
July, 2007
After the article above was published, Dr. Linton and her
husband, Dr. Robert Barnill, moved to Texas where Linton
was Director of Math and Science Initiatives for the
University of Texas Systems. "Working with the great
Hispanic-serving institutions in the state provided
experiences that enriched our lives," she reports.
Today Linton and her husband are based in Phoenix, Arizona.
However, thanks to the miracles of telecommuting, Linton
continues to serve as Director of American Indian Outreach
for the University of Kansas and as co-investigator on
several grants at KU. Linton is a member of the National
Science Foundation's congressionally mandated Committee on
Equality of Opportunity in Science and Engineering (CEOSE).
She also continues to review grants for the National
Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation and
other organizations.
When she steps down from her position as Past President of
SACNAS, Linton will continue to be active in SACNAS,
helping to obtain grants for the organization's core
funding. She will also serve as Director of the Research
Institute for SACNAS (RISa).
Linton continued to care for her mother until February 2007
when Wistaria Linton died at the age of 95. Linton has good
reason to be proud of her mother. "My mother was a
photographer," Linton says. "From the 1930s to the 1950s,
my mother captured numerous images of the Morongo
Reservation. She was the archivist for her generation. She
maintained an amazing set of art objects to which she added
her own photographs and other work. To create an
appropriate memorial for my mother, I'm working to organize
these materials into a coherent form."
Linton and her husband walk, on average, 50+ miles per
week. Their goal is to walk 70 miles per week in what they
regard as the most beautiful terrain in the world.