“Making the move to North Carolina is like going home, even though I was born in Oklahoma, because North Carolina is home to all Cherokees,” said Conley, who has 80 books to his credit during a career spanning 40 years. “The first time my wife and I visited North Carolina some years ago, a Cherokee lady said to us, ‘Welcome home.’ When it came time for us to leave, neither of us wanted to go.”

Now Conley is here to stay, appointed July 1 to the endowed professorship named in honor of Sequoyah, an 18th-century Cherokee man who devised the Cherokee syllabary – the first Native American system of writing in North America. Conley will expand upon the work of former Sequoyah Professor Thomas Hatley, an acclaimed scholar of Colonial-era Cherokee history named to the post in 2002, said Wendy Ford, dean of WCU’s College of Arts and Sciences.

“Tom Hatley has played a vital role in developing important partnerships between Western Carolina and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians,” said Ford. Hatley was instrumental in creating a memorandum of understanding between tribal and university leaders, an agreement that has led to projects to restore once plentiful rivercane (a staple of Cherokee basketmakers) and to expand programs to prevent the loss of the Cherokee language. “We look to Robert Conley to provide leadership for continued development of educational programs, cultural enrichment and research for the benefit of all who are interested in the preservation of Cherokee heritage and the future of the people of the Qualla Boundary,” she said.

An enrolled member of the federally recognized United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, Conley has held teaching and administrative positions at Northern Illinois University, Southwest Missouri State University, Eastern Montana College, Bacone College, Morningside College, University of New Mexico and Lenoir-Rhyne College. He has won numerous writing awards, including the Wordcraft Circle “Wordcrafter of the Year” in 1997 and “Writer of the Year” in 1999 for fiction for his “War Women.” His “The Cherokee Nation: A History” was selected by the American Library Association as an “outstanding academic title” for 2005.

Conley said he is eager to get to work. “I know this will be an exciting and rewarding venture. I am looking forward very much to working with and getting better acquainted with students, faculty and administrators at WCU, and with members of the Eastern Band of Cherokees. I want to seek dialogue with tribal officials and tribal members to find out what they want from WCU and then to see if that is something that we, at the university, can pursue,” he said.

Rainy Summer Brake, of Cherokee and Tuscarora descent and a WCU graduate student in English, said she is looking forward to the Native American perspective Conley will bring to the university. “His insights will contribute to a fascinating academic dialogue, and he will challenge others at Western to examine their own viewpoints,” Brake said. “What I am most excited about, however, is that I believe his presence and the ideas that he wants to implement will become a beacon to attract more Native American students to Western.”

The $1 million Sequoyah Professorship was fully funded in 1998. Funds to match a state grant for the position came from several sources, including the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, National Endowment for the Humanities, the Friends of Sequoyah Organization, Cherokee businessman James A. “Jimmy” Cooper and Harrah’s Entertainment. Funding for additional endowed professorships, which enable the university to continue to attract accomplished scholars in a variety of disciplines, is a top priority of The Campaign for Western, the $40 million fundraising campaign announced in February 2007.