She also credits her parents and extended family with teaching her the value of hard work, responsibility and an appreciation of traditional Lakota ways. She remembers spending hours with her grandmother as she worked drying meat and corn. “I didn’t know at the time that I was being taught our traditions; it just happened so naturally,” she recalls.
She is convinced that these early life lessons prepared her for the hard work of pursuing her college degrees. As a young mother, she also worked while attending college and shared many of the same struggles that current Sitting Bull College students face: work, family and school.
President since 2006, Vermillion’s vision for the college continues to grow. Currently she is working with the Standing Rock Education Consortium that includes K-12 and Head Start schools. The consortium seeks to find ways to get children interested in STEM classes at an early age.
“By the time students are in high school or college, it is sometimes too late to get them passionate about science, she says. Since she began her career in elementary education, the consortium’s work is near and dear to her heart.
Vermillion, whose Indian name is Oyate Wanyanka Pi Win or Seen-By-Her-Nation, embodies the motto of Sitting Bull College. The motto is that of the great Hunkpapa leader Sitting Bull: “Let us put our minds together and see what we can build for our children.”
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