Our People

Faculty

Sara (Seli) Hopkins is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Western Carolina University, where she also serves as Director of the Cherokee Language Program. She teaches courses in Cherokee language and linguistic anthropology, drawing on her interdisciplinary background in language, culture, and music. She is a non-indigenous ally. 

Dr. Hopkins earned her Ph.D. in Music (Ethnomusicology) from Columbia University in 2016, with additional graduate training in linguistic anthropology at New York University. Her research and teaching focus on Indigenous language revitalization, music, and cultural preservation.

She is the editor of The Cherokee Singing Book (1846): A Scholarly Edition, forthcoming from the University of North Carolina Press as part of the Sounding Spirit series. She also leads the Eastern Cherokee Histories in Translation (ECHT) project, which has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Heisse Historical Preservation Fund, and the Cherokee Preservation Foundation.

Dr. Hopkins also co-founded and co-directs the Cherokee Language Repertory Choir, a community-based initiative that brings together language and song. Before joining WCU in 2016, she spent five years teaching music and arts at New Kituwah Academy, the Cherokee language immersion school of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Rainy Summer Brake (Agasga), Associate Instructor of Cherokee Language, has worked in Cherokee language revitalization initiatives for over fifteen years. After completing a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature at East Carolina University, Rainy moved to Cullowhee to attend Western Carolina University, where she studied TESOL, with an emphasis on applied linguistics. After studying the Cherokee language and receiving a Graduate Certificate in Cherokee Studies, she became the first certified K-5 teacher at New Kituwah Academy, the Cherokee language immersion school located on the Qualla Boundary. For ten years, she taught elementary school students in Cherokee language immersion along with first-language speaker Louise Brown (Yogisi). For the past three years, Rainy has worked at Western Carolina University as the Cherokee Instructor. She continues to partner with Louise in the classroom and they continue to create curriculum materials to teach WCU students about Cherokee language and culture. Contact info: ebrake@wcu.edu, McKee 105A

Cherokee Speakers  

ᏕᏂᎵ Tom Belt (Cherokee Nation) 

ᎢᏃᎵ Wiggins Blackfox (EBCI) (tsigesv)

ᏲᎩᏏ Louise Brown (EBCI) 

ᎺᎵ Mary Brown (EBCI) 

Leroy Littlejohn (EBCI)

ᎤᎪᎶ Toby McCoy (EBCI)