Points of Pride



Awards & Distinctions

  • “Dragons After Dark” has been selected to receive a 2008-2009 Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Academic and Student Affairs award for Innovative Student Affairs Program. Peer Academic and Student Affairs campus administrators selected awards based on such criteria as adaptability, collaboration, and enhanced student development. Dragons After Dark is a monthly late night programming activity designed to provide positive entertainment options on weekends. The full-time staff represent the Office of Student Activities, Comstock Memorial Union, Orientation, Hendrix Health Center, Athletics, and Housing and Residential Life.
  • MSUM’s Athletic Training Education Program (ATEP) received 10-year accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE), one of 346 accredited 4-year undergraduate programs in the country. Ten-year accreditation is awarded to ATEPs that receive zero non-compliant marks during the accreditation site visit. MSUM’s program received initial CAATE accreditation in 2003 and completed the re-accreditation self-study and site visit in the fall of 2008. MSUM Athletic Training faculty, administration, staff, students, HPE faculty, and area certified athletic trainers contributed to the successful accreditation site visit. 
  • MSUM boasts eight Minnesota CASE Professors of the year—more than any other school in the state. Only 14 U.S. universities have more! In 2008, Martin Grindeland, mass communications, became the eighth MSUM professor to win the Carnegie Foundation teaching award in the past 20 years. Previous MSUM recipients: Ellen Brisch, a current MSUM bioscience professor, won it in 2007; Mark Wallert, a current MSUM bioscience professor, won it in 2005; Jim Bartruff, a former MSUM theatre director and now director of theatre at Emporia (Kan.) State University, won in 2001; Andrew Conteh, a current MSUM political science professor, won in 1999; David Mason, a former MSUM English professor now teaching at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, won in 1994; Evelyn Lynch, a former MSUM elementary and early childhood education professor won in 1992; and the late Delmar Hansen, who retired as MSUM’s theatre director, received it in 1987.
  • MSUM’s Comstock Reading Aloud Initiative program is one of only three programs in the country currently listed on the “Read It Loud” web site, a reading promotion and young readers initiative of The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. “Read It Loud” is a three-year public-private partnership that has been formed with the Read it LOUD! Foundation to stimulate 5 million parents nationwide to read every day to their children. 
  • MSUM is participating in the Foundations of Excellence® in the First College Year, a project of the Policy Center on the First Year of College. The project is a comprehensive, guided self-study and improvement process for the first year that will allow MSUM to identify institutional strengths and needs for improvement related to the first year of undergraduate education. The self-study process confirmed an overall commitment by MSUM to students and their success and resulted in final recommendations that fall into nine major themes: Advising, Assessment/Evaluation, Campus Culture, Communication (Internal) and Marketing (External), Curriculum, Diversity, Recruitment/Retention and Development of Faculty/Staff, Student Orientation, and University Support. Read the full report. (link to http://www.mnstate.edu/acadaff/foe/Final%20Report.pdf)
  • Awards recognizing excellence in financial and facilities management leadership and teamwork at the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities were presented recently at the system’s Chief Financial and Facilities Officers meeting. Among the winners: Mark Rice, MSUM’s comptroller/business manager, for outstanding financial management; and the university itself, for excellence in facilities management. The awards program, which began in 1997, publicly recognizes the outstanding contributions of the system’s college and university employees who work in finance and facilities management.
  • A $1 million grant to improve the teaching of history has been awarded to Lakes Country Service Cooperative in Fergus Falls in collaboration with MSUM and local and regional historical societies. It’s one of 121 grants totaling $114.7 being awarded through the U.S. The grant will affect more than 30,000 students and more than 400 teachers. Working with the project are project historian Sean Taylor and faculty coordinator Margaret Sankey, both MSUM history professors, and project director Audrey Shafer-Erickson of the Moorhead School District. The MSUM history department will provide teaching and instructional content for the regional history teachers, while the Minnesota Historical Society will coordinate resources and promote the teachers’ use of History Day, a competition which showcases middle and high school history projects. The three-year project, called “American Crossroads, Teaching History on the Great Plains,” will kick off early this September at MSUM when regional teachers will gather for a preliminary look at upcoming events. Through the grant, MSUM will also purchase a database of early American newspapers from 1690 to 1876, which will be available online to regional teachers and students.
  • The 2008 Fargo Film Festival, co-chaired by Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson, Film Studies, and Matt Olien, adjunct Film Studies, showcased more than 70 films representing work from across the United States as well as several countries in Europe. This year’s festival featured several projects produced by MSUM Film Studies students and faculty including three award winners: “Work,” a short documentary portrait of two men (one a farmer and the other a mechanic), which was created by Levi Moch and Justin Ullyott (Best Student Documentary); “Falling Up: The Darkside of Indoor Track Meets,” created by Alex Welgraven (Best Music Video) and “Thurston,” created by Tyler Schwanke and Mark Wickline (Honorable Mention, Student Narrative). Another film, “The Lost Road,” created by Film Studies senior Travis Mattick and funded by a filmmaking grant from the Minnesota Film & TV Board, had its world premiere at the festival.
  • The 2007 edition of Horizonlines.org took first place in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s student magazine competition. Horizonlines is an online magazine produced by MSUM students under the direction of Reggie Radniecki, Mass Communications. The concept behind Horizonlines is to produce a general interest magazine with story content that could be found in any city in the country. Students from a variety of disciplines come together each spring to produce the annual magazine. Since its inaugural issue in 2002, the magazine has won 26 national and regional awards, For the 2007 issue, 18 students spent four months doing stories and photographs that took them from Minnesota to Oregon, exploring affordable housing and homelessness, and what it means to deal with these unremitting struggles. The 2007 edition included 27 stories and 20 slideshows.