Mr. Rainer, Do you have a PH.D?

Howard Rainer
Native American Educational Outreach Programs
Brigham Young University

© 2005 by Brigham Young University,
Division of Continuing Education
All rights reserved.

Some years ago, while conducting a training session for school principals and superintendents in the Midwest, a participant in the audience asked, "Mr. Rainer, do you have a Ph.D. to teach your information?" I responded swiftly with "Yes I do, in life! Any other questions?"

I have thought about that response then and have come to the conclusion that truly I have earned a Ph.D. in life like many other Native Americans.

I have worked on healing my own inner wounds from the emotional scars of covert and overt racism and prejudice in this country. While scholars and professors were researching, writing papers, and analyzing the impact of this national disgrace, I was experiencing it!

In my documented travels, of over a million miles in the air on one airline alone, I have earned a Ph.D. in leaving the comfort zone of Native American reservation life and journeying to foreign countries and diverse places in America learning how to interact, react, and adapt to cultural diversity. I have stood with fear in front of the militant, the angry, the hostile whose goals and intent were to destroy because of their own pain and anger. I have trembled in their presence!

I have been one Native American who has dared to walk the uncertain road of two conflicting worlds. The allegiance to Native American tradition and the requirements of the non-Indian world.

I have attempted to find solace and meaning from both. There was not an educator, professor, or teacher who understood this raging internal conflict. I was on fragile emotional footing for many years, but experience granted me the opportunity to teach myself that it is possible to select and reject from both worlds the attributes, beliefs, and traditions I wanted to tie to my heart.

I have learned from master teachers. Their teachings have pierced my heart. They taught and I listened to their admonitions that spiritual values and a spiritual foundation were essential to the well-being of all. My grandmother, who never stepped inside a formal classroom, taught by example that personal prayer connected one to the Creator God. I am indebted to her teaching for life. My grandfather's teachings were also profound. The classroom of instruction was learning to have reverence for Mother Earth. He understood with great comprehension man's relationship with nature and the universe. He taught by practical application the lessons that can be learned from hardship, challenge, and facing the elements. These principles were incorporated into my manhood.

I have overcome my skeptics and doubters who once labeled me the student "most likely not to succeed." I have taught myself that I do have artistic ability, that I can publish, that I can write, and that I can be articulate at the podium, as well as on a radio and television program.

My personal hypothesis of life is that given the chance, mankind does have the potential to do good and there still is hope for humanity. I have encountered situations and circumstances in this country and across the sea that kindness, generosity, and brotherhood can prevail if given the chance and opportunity.

I have sat among the wealthy and the poor, and found unselfishness in both. I have witnessed the power of monetary success and its impact on improving lives and living conditions. I have sat and heard the boastful and the timid both speak. My heart has been uplifted and edified with simple words of truth and sincerity.

I have visited college campuses as a guest speaker sharing from my heart those ideas, beliefs, personal philosophies, and conclusions with the young that these insights might ignite their minds to take note and envision their potential and possibilities. I have personally witnessed that these moments were not in vain!

I have sat among the powerful whose self-importance I could read. I have knelt among little children and tears have flowed from being in their presence. These encounters bless my life and enhance my being.

I have accumulated a treasure chest of visual memories with the camera. There now is a visual confirmation in this collection of thousands of images of the abundance of beauty on this earth yet to be discovered by the human eye. I am determined that in my quest to be a contemporary advocate for Native American pride and progress, that I also preserve the goodness and spirit of my people on film. My wish is for my work to someday confirm visualy that the Native American did prevail in America and his destiny is divine!

I have earned a reputation as a counselor, motivator, preacher, leader, professional photographer, educator, speaker, and advocate for Native American pride and progress!

My intent has been to be a friend to those who have none, an inspiration to those who have lost hope. Testimony that God lives! I have often failed and passed life's temptations and snares. I have learned the blessings of forgiveness.

My goal to my final breath is to obtain the highest reward of morality, that of greeting the Creator God and having him declare with open arms, "Well done, Howard, well done."