Qualla: From Radio Towers to Tribal College: D-Q University

From Radio Towers to Tribal College: D-Q University: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The armored coaxial cables are still buried in the soil. Thick as a wrist, they once connected high-frequency antennas to transmitters at a U.S. Army radio station west of Davis, California, relaying military communications across the Pacific. By the early 1970s, the station had been decommissioned, its antenna farm gone quiet. What replaced it was something the Army certainly never anticipated: a two-year college named for two Indigenous leaders from opposite ends of the Western Hemisphere, Deganawidah the Great Peacemaker of the Haudenosaunee and Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl of Mesoamerica. D-Q University opened in 1971, one of the first six tribal colleges in the United States and the only one ever established in California.

From Radio Towers to Tribal College: D-Q University: Occupation as Origin Story

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a period of direct action in Native American politics. The occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969 had electrified Indigenous communities nationwide, and the tactic of claiming surplus federal land spread. The Army's radio transmitter site near D...

From Radio Towers to Tribal College: D-Q University: A College Without a Reservation

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

What made D-Q unique among tribal colleges was its independence. The other five institutions founded between 1968 and 1972 were each affiliated with a single federally recognized tribe and located on reservations. D-Q had no tribal sponsor and no reservation. Its organizers were ...

From Radio Towers to Tribal College: D-Q University: The Struggle for Permanence

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

D-Q obtained accreditation in 1977, six years after opening, but stability always proved elusive. The college competed for students and funding with mainstream universities that were simultaneously launching their own Native American studies programs. Faculty recruitment was diff...

From Radio Towers to Tribal College: D-Q University: Ghosts and Powwows

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Even after losing accreditation, the campus did not go silent. Annual powwows continued through 2013, drawing tribal representatives from across California and beyond. Veterans Day powwows persisted through at least 2017. Students and instructors who remained on the grounds used ...