Leech Lake Tribal College names three finalists for its next president

CASS LAKE — Leech Lake Tribal College named three finalists Friday, March 13, in its search for the school’s next president.

Lane Azure, Margaret "Maggie" Ross and Beatrice Bridglall will tour the campus and interview with the Board of Trustees March 30-April 1.

The visits will include an open public forum at 1:30 p.m. each day in the Cedar Hall Drum Room.

Azure will visit March 30. He is currently the dean of students at Warwick Public Schools in North Dakota. Azure has served in leadership roles in K-12 and higher education throughout his career, with a focus on student success, institutional effectiveness, strategic planning and strengthening partnerships, according to his biography posted by the college.

He is a descendant of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians and was raised in a family grounded in Anishinaabe values. Those values are reflected in his leadership philosophy.

Ross is the interim president at Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. She will visit March 31st.

She was previously dean of students at the university and has worked across K-12 and tribal college systems. Her work has focused on strengthening student persistence, expanding culturally grounded support systems and developing policies that align institutional practice with community values and Indigenous knowledge systems.

Ross is also the founder of a youth leadership nonprofit and a tribal education consulting business. She is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and a descendant of the Santee Dakota.

Beatrice Bridglall will visit April 1. She is the associate dean of academic affairs at Ilisagvik College in Alaska and the director of strategic initiatives and partnerships for the nonprofit Student Freedom Initiative, where she focuses on increasing student persistence and retention at minority-serving colleges and universities.

Bridglall has extensive experience in higher education and research. She has guided faculty through reorienting curriculum to better serve modern students. Her most recent of her six book looks at the role of community colleges in a post-pandemic world.

The finalists' full biographies can be found on the Leech Lake Tribal College Facebook page.

The college began the process of finding its next leader with community forums late last year.

The plan is to announce the next president in mid-April, with a start date of July 1.