community. Figures 3 and 4 provide a preliminary look at the impact of the different ways in
which individual colleges attempt to deal with this resource allocation problem.
Figure 3 shows that there is a strong negative linear relationship between the
"exclusivity" of network relationships between the Tribal College and the Native American
community and the level of satisfaction of Native American respondents with their college. The
more "exclusive" are the network relationships, the less satisfied are persons with the college.
Less exclusivity would seem, therefore, to promote bonding social capital in the Native
American community.
Figure 4, however, shows that degree of exclusivity in network relationships has a
different type of association with the other goal of the Tribal College, which is to gain resources
so that students and the Native American community as-a-whole can more effectively connect
with the larger American society. This calls for bridging ties and is indicated in Figure 4 by the
degree to which a college's sources of revenue are diverse, meaning the extent to which the
college can link with different resource bases in the larger community. Here the relationship is
curvilinear. The college that was least exclusive also has the least diverse revenue base,
suggesting that all of the energy put into building bonding social capital in the Native American
community may limit its ability to facilitate the development of bridging ties to the larger
mainstream community. A certain level of exclusivity in network ties appears to be helpful in
producing a coordinated effort, as indicated by the more diverse revenue sources associated with
the schools that have the middle-level of exclusivity in their networks. After a certain level,
however, more exclusivity begins to have a negative impact on the ability of the college to
develop bridging ties.
23