Born in Elbowoods on the Fort Berthold Reservation of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, North Dakota, Spotted Bear received her bachelor's degree in education from Dickinson State University, Dickinson, North Dakota in 1970.
[4] Cultural revival was another of Spotted Bear's priorities; in 1983 she re-established a buffalo herd on the Fort Berthold Reservation starting with 56 animals from Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
She argued that “the school is the hub of the community…the place that the community revolves around.”[2] She also taught at the Fort Berthold Community College, now Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, in New Town, North Dakota, where she was the vice-president of the Native Studies department and instrumental in the establishment of degree programs in Native Studies.
[6] In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Spotted Bear to the National Advisory Committee on Indian Education.
[1][7] In 2016, Congress created the Alyce Spotted Bear and Walter Soboleff Commission on Native Children, through a bill co-sponsored by Heidi Heitkamp and Lisa Murkowski.