Mr. Belt is the WCU Cherokee Language Program Coordinator; he is working to create a state-of-the-art Cherokee language program at the university level. Mr. Belt teaches the first four semesters of Cherokee language and he co-teaches courses on Cherokee grammar and Cherokee language literature. Mr. Belt, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is a fluent Cherokee speaker and works closely with speakers from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to produce culturally-based Cherokee language learning material. Before joining the Cherokee Language Program, Mr.

Ms. Belt is director of the Western Carolina University–Cherokee Center. Born in Cherokee, NC, and an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), Belt has been director of the Cherokee Center since June, 2001. She received her bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she worked for 10 years as a University counselor, and earned her master’s degree in counseling and consulting psychology from Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. Upon returning to Cherokee, she received certification in school counseling from WCU.

Dr. Eastman is an associate professor of anthropology at Western Carolina University and director of the Cherokee Studies Program. She received her Ph.D. from the UNC-Chapel Hill. Her research interests include Native American societies of the Southeastern United States, particularly community organization, gender relations, pottery analysis, and culture contact studies.

Dr. Denson is an associate professor of history at WCU. He teaches courses on Native American and United States history, and participates in the WCU Cherokee Studies program. He is the author of Demanding the Cherokee Nation: Indian Autonomy and American Culture, as well as articles in various journals. His most recent publication is an essay in the American Indian Culture and Research Journal (2012) titled "Native Americans in Cold War Public Diplomacy: Indian Politics, American History, and the US Information Agency".

Dr. Riggs is a research archaeologist with the Research Laboratories of Archaeology (RLA) at UNC-Chapel Hill. He specializes in Cherokee studies and, for more than twenty years, has worked in southwestern North Carolina to shed light on the lives of Cherokee families during the removal era of the 1830s. In his position with the RLA he is helping to establish the National Historic Trail of Tears Long-Distance Trail in the extreme southwestern corner of North Carolina.

This is the first time that “Beyond the Trail of Tears: A view from the Cherokee Homeland” has been offered as a NEH Institute for School Teachers and I am particularly pleased to be the director, as the mountains of western North Carolina are also my homeland. I mention this because “place” will be an important concept in this institute.