He has taught at MICA since 1986, in undergraduate and graduate academic and studio programs, including, Rinehart School of Sculpture, MFA; the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting, MFA; the Post-Baccalaureate Fine Art Certificate Program; and the Department of Humanistic Studies, where he teaches Native American Studies.

As an enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation in Fort Totten, North Dakota, he collaborates with tribal elders on such Dakota language projects as The Dakota Prisoner of War Letters, translated by Clifford Canku and Michael Simon, introduction and afterword by John Peacock (St. Paul: Minnesota History Society, 2013), winner of a 2014 American Association for State and Local History Award.

His own writing in the endangered Dakota language has been read and exhibited at the Minnesota History Center and published in American Indian Quarterly and Studies in American Indian Literature.

His essays, fiction, and poetry in English have appeared in over forty journals, periodicals, and anthologies.