Rebecca Andrews | Mar 15, 1992 | 8 min read
When Christine Benally was a high school student in Shiprock, N.Mex., on the easternmost edge of the Navajo Reservation, her educational goals went no further than getting a vocational degree--as her father, a mechanic, did before her and as many of her friends would do, as well. "I figured something like that would do me," recalls Benally. "Get a technical degree, get out fast, start earning money." Yet some 15 years later, Benally has a doctoral degree in environmental toxicology under her b