Laurel A. Vermillion () is an American (

Hunkpapa The Hunkpapa (Lakota: ) are a Native American group, one of the seven council fires of the Lakota tribe. The name ' is a Lakota word, meaning "Head of the Circle" (at one time, the tribe's name was represented in European-American records as ...

) educator and academic administrator who served as the president of

Sitting Bull College Sitting Bull College (SBC) is a public tribal land-grant college in Fort Yates, North Dakota. It was founded in 1973 by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in south-central North Dakota. The SBC campuses are loca ...

from 2006 to 2024. She previously served as its vice president of operations and vice president of academic affairs. She was a principal of

Marty Indian School Marty Indian School is a K-12 tribal boarding school in Marty, South Dakota. It is affiliated with the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE). It is on the Yankton Indian Reservation. The Yankton Sioux Tribe owns the facilities and directly manages the ...

and an elementary teacher in the Fort Yates School District for fourteen years.

Early life

Vermillion was born and raised in the small town of Kennel, North Dakota, on the

Standing Rock Indian Reservation The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North & South Dakota controls the Standing Rock Reservation (), which straddles the border between North and South Dakota in the United States, and is inhabited by ethnic "Hunkpapa and Sihasapa bands of Lako ...

. A

, her

Lakota language Lakota ( ), also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan languages, Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. Lakota is mutually intelligible with the two dialects of the Dakota language, especially Dakot ...

name, is Oyate Wanyanka Pi Win . Her parents, Henry and Elsie Martin, were ranchers. She was raised 1.5 miles away from the

Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Moun ...

and used to collect water and nearby wild grapes with her grandparents using a

horse-drawn wagon A wagon (or waggon) is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draft animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...

. She attended Doctor School, a one-room schoolhouse with one teacher, Hope Chamberlain. The school was a two-mile walk from her home. She graduated from high school in 1973.

Career

Upon high school graduation, Vermillion began working for the Standing Rock Housing Corporation where she transcribed a

dictaphone Dictaphone was an American company founded by Alexander Graham Bell that produced dictation machines. It is now a division of Nuance Communications, based in Burlington, Massachusetts. Although the name "Dictaphone" is a trademark, it has ...

. She later became a teacher's aide at a local Head Start program. That same year, Jack Barden, one of the founders of Standing Rock Community College, encouraged Vermillion to attend the college. She became one of its first students and Barden continued to serve as her mentor through her higher education. When she began college, it still did not have any buildings, so Vermillion and her classmates attended classes in a community center. She was a mother and worked while attending college. She completed a B.S. in elementary education through the articulation agreement between Standing Rock and the University of North Dakota (UND) in 1980. Vermillion worked as an elementary teacher in the Fort Yates School District for fourteen years. In 1992, she completed a M.S. in education administration from UND through Project IDEAL (Indians Developing as Education Administration Leaders). She moved to

Marty, South Dakota Marty is a census-designated place (CDP) in southern Charles Mix County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 677 at the 2020 census. The community has the name of Bishop Martin Marty, the Bishop of Sioux Falls, SD. The community i ...

and worked as the principal of the

(MIS). The move was personal because her parents had attended MIS. In 1995, Vermillion returned to Sitting Bull College as its vice president of academic affairs. Starting in 1999, she served as the vice president of operations for seven years while completing a Ph.D. in teaching and learning in higher education from UND in 2005. Her dissertation was titled ''Factors Contributing to Student Retention and Attrition at Sitting Bull College Between 2001-2004''. Richard G. Landry was her doctoral advisor. In 2005, following Ron His Horse Is Thunder's election to tribal chairman, Vermillion succeeded him as the interim president of Sitting Bull College. She officially became president in spring 2006. She supports the Standing Rock Education Consortium which encourages

science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of ...

(STEM) education in local

K–12 K–12, from kindergarten to 12th grade, is an English language expression that indicates the range of years of publicly supported primary and secondary education found in the United States and Canada, which is similar to publicly supported sch ...

and Head Start programs. Starting on August 1, 2023, Vermillion is mentoring incoming president,

Tomi Kay Phillips Tomi Kay Phillips () is an American (Hunkpapa-Miniconjou) educator and academic administrator who has served as the president of Sitting Bull College since 2024. Life Phillips is Hunkpapa and Minnecoujou Lakota. Her Lakota name is Cante Wakan ...

. She retires on January 1, 2024.

Personal life

Vermillion married in October 1973 and had three children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vermillion, Laurel Living people Standing Rock Sioux people Hunkpapa people Sitting Bull College faculty Schoolteachers from North Dakota 21st-century Native American women 21st-century American women educators 20th-century Native American women 20th-century American women educators Heads of universities and colleges in the United States Women heads of universities and colleges Women school principals and headteachers Native American educators University of North Dakota alumni Year of birth missing (living people)