Our Instructors

Courtney Yellow Fat is the Director of the Standing Rock Iyápi Program. He has been a Lakota language teacher for over twenty years, previously at Fort Yates Public School. He is also a renowned singer and carries a broad knowledge of Lakota songs. This year will be his seventeenth at the Dakota/Lakota Summer Institute - meaning he hasn't missed a single summer!

Elliot Bannister has been learning D/Lakota for around a decade. They live at Standing Rock and work for the Tribe's Iyápi Program. They have taught a number of language classes at Sitting Bull College, and also graduated from there with a Master's in Education.

Kim Campbell has taught language pedagogy courses at United Tribes Technical College and Sitting Bull College. She earned her PhD at New York University.

During her career at the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard, she built up experience of creating lessons in a variety of world languages including Ojibwe, Hebrew, and Celtic. She is co-author of Lakȟótiya Wóglaka Po!, a Lakota textbook series.

Nacole Walker is an active language teacher and advocate. Most recently, she has co-taught a series of evening classes with Lalá Tom Red Bird at United Tribes Technical College. Previously she directed the Standing Rock Language and Culture Institute as well as teaching many year-round courses in language, linguistics, and teaching methods at Sitting Bull College.

She studied Linguistics at Dartmouth College and has been learning her language for about a decade. She has also studied German and Māori.