Tempe's Cook School for American Indians closing

Tall totem poles have ceremoniously come down on the campus of Cook School for Christian Leadership, and by this time next month, the American Indian training institution in Tempe since 1955 will be closed because of changing patterns in educating native peoples.

SLIDESHOW: See photos from a ceremony at the School

The 15.4-acre site at 708 S. Lindon Lane, off University Drive west of Priest Drive, is being sold to an undisclosed major developer for multifamily housing, and the proceeds will be used to reinvent the school, which strives to equip American Indians for leadership in their churches, said Larry Norris, president of Cook. Last year, he estimated the property was worth $40 million.

Norris could name neither the buyer nor the agreed-to price, but he said the sale is in escrow, and final sale is expected between September and November.

"The campus is closing officially at the end of May, and we are going to remain in the administration offices until 30 days before the buyer will take possession," he said.

The school was established with the Pima Indians in Sacaton in 1911 by the Rev. Charles H. Cook, who moved it to Tucson and then Phoenix, before it was finally opened in Tempe. The school, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), eventually provided training to members of about 100 American Indian tribes, and the school was able to promote that it had provided training to 75 percent of the Christian pastors serving on reservations.

But in recent decades, American Indians were coming in dwindling numbers to the Tempe campus or enrolling in extension and online programs.

Several efforts by Cook to seek accreditation by linking with colleges in Oklahoma and Iowa failed.

The new direction, Norris said, will be a move "to remain relevant and to remain vital to the needs of our native churches and to be more accountable in the use of our resources." The school has been "encumbered by a 15-acre campus" whose value could be used to sharply redirect how leadership training can be delivered. "It is a better response to the changing needs of our native market and to the fact that, overall, there has been a pattern of decline in the donations to a lot of the racial-ethnic institutions."

Rather than bringing American Indians to the Tempe campus for training, Cook is contracting with the Catholic-owned Franciscan Renewal Center in Paradise Valley to host its two-week winter and one-week summer programs. Norris said the quality of that campus' facilities and setting will generate stronger interest in Cook programs.

Plans to sell the campus were announced last fall after a six-month study.

"There was a need for change," said Bob Lewis, vice chairman of the 11-member board and racial-ethnic associate for Indian ministry to the Presbytery of Grand Canyon.

"Right now, Native American ministries in general need to just review their state and to think in new terms about the future of our ministry."

Lewis said the "old missionary" to Indians approach is no longer relevant, and there has been a shift to self-reliance and self-determination. For the past 20 years, he said, the relationship between tribes, the Presbyterian Church and Cook School has been in transition, and "nobody has really paid attention to Cook - it has been there struggling alone."

It was once a college where Native American churches "used to feed in candidates for church leadership, but that hasn't been happening," he said.

Tribes understand and accept Cook's planned changes, said Lewis, a member of the Gila River Pima-Maricopa tribe, with Pima and Maricopa tribal roots.

"Our board of trustees made a decision that all the money from the sale of the property is going to be invested, and only the interest from that will be used to drive the programs," said Norris, noting that operating costs for such elements as salaries or utilities will come from money raised through fundraising and development work.

Eventually, it's hoped that funds can be used to develop a scholarship program for American Indian students, including those seeking lay pastor training. Those plans are still being developed, said Norris, who is a United Methodist pastor.

A search is under way for office space in Tempe or Mesa, with staff of five or six, down from its current staff of 14, said Norris, who has been with Cook since 1984. It plans to retain its theological library, along with its "highly prized" Native American library collection, he said. They, along with archives and the Cook museum holdings, will make the move. With the closing, three congregations that use the school's chapel for worship have to relocate, and families that live in campus housing must move as well.

The trustees, who meet on May 10, are also carefully exploring what to call the school.

An original plan was to call it the Charles H. Cook Foundation, but people are discouraging that because "most people's perception of a foundation is that it is just an organization that gives away money," Norris said.

"We are actually remaining an educational institution," he said. He also has been advised to retain "Cook School" in the title, in some way, because that has been how the institution has been known. Among options are keeping the current name or perhaps naming it "Cook School for Native American Leadership."

The land is zoned for residential use, but Norris said it's uncertain what zoning changes must be made so apartments can go up on the site.

About 300 attended a campus closing commemoration March 8, where an Indian from British Columbia led ceremonies to take down the totem poles that had been originally carved for Cook.

Indian tradition dictates that because the totems were carved at Cook and for Cook, "they can't go anywhere else," he said.

"They have to be allowed to go back to nature. We have to find a place where they can literally go and rot." He said they can't be cut up or burned. "They have to be laid to rest." Because of the Valley's dry conditions, any normal rotting could take decades.

"We just don't know where we are going to put them," he said.