It has created a Cherokee Studies program, including language immersion study, in collaboration with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the only federally recognized tribe in the state. It is based in Cherokee, North Carolina, at Qualla Boundary. WCU faculty have also worked with EBCI representatives on surveys of historic town and earthwork mound sites, to create a database of known resources; archeological and anthropological studies conducted with outreach to the Cherokee people to gain their perspective from tribal oral histories, and other programs. More than 50 platform mound sites have been identified in the eleven westernmost counties of North Carolina.