John W. Tippeconnic III Selected for Census Bureau’s American Indian and Alaska Native Advisory Committee

John W. Tippeconnic III, professor of education at Pennsylvania State University, has been selected by Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez to serve on the U.S. Census Bureau’s Advisory Committee on the American Indian and Alaska Native population.

As a member of the nine-person committee, the State College, Pa., resident will advise the Census Bureau on the new American Community Survey and ways to achieve a more accurate count of the American Indian and Alaska Native population in the 2010 Census.

Tippeconnic has a doctorate in educational administration and is director of the American Indian Leadership Program at Penn State. He has served at the Bureau of Indian Affairs as the director of the Office of Indian Educations Programs and also as director of the Office of Indian Education with the U.S. Department of Education. Tippeconnic serves on various boards including the Gates Millennium Scholars Research Advisory Committee, Comanche Nation College and until recently the American Association of Higher Education. He was honored as the Indian Educator of the Year in 1997 by the National Indian Education Association. Tippeconnic is a member of the Comanche Tribe.

Five race and ethnic advisory committees — African-American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Hispanic, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander —advise the Census Bureau on issues affecting minority populations. The committees are assembled from the public at large and representatives of national, state, local and tribal entities, as well as nonprofit and private sector organizations. Members of the committees are academicians, community leaders, policy makers and others interested in an accurate count for their communities.