Points of Pride



Research & Grants

  • Art & Design Professor Anna Arnar has been awarded a $7,500 Millard Meiss grant from the College Art Association to defray costs related to publication of her new book. One of three grants awarded, Arnar is completing The Book as Instrument: Stephane Mallarme, the Artist's Book, and the Transformation of Print Culture. The book is being published by The University of Chicago Press.

  • MSUM’s New Rivers Press has received a $15,000 operational grant from the McKnight Foundation to support the ongoing efforts of the University’s publishing house. New Rivers Press is one of two teaching presses in the country and its books are distributed nationally. Publishers Weekly recently featured New Rivers Press in an article called "Little Press on the Prairie." The article can be read in its entirety at www.newriverspress.com.

  • English Professor Thom Tammaro has been awarded a $5,000 McKnight Fellowship by the Lake Region Arts Council. The award's purpose is to recognize, reward, and encourage outstanding artists in the region who have demonstrated prominent artistic achievement.
  • Psychology Professor Elizabeth Nawrot received a $150,000 grant from the National Institutes for Health for her research on infant depth perception. Her theory: Infants between 10 and 17 weeks old develop a form of depth perception called motion parallax which, if not wired properly in the brain, could lead to complex visual problems later on, specifically esotropia (crossed eyes) or amblyopia (lazy eyes). If true, developing an assessment tool to catch the problems early enough would lead to early treatment to prevent these disorders from becoming permanent.
  • Biochemistry and biotechnology program faculty Joseph Provost and Mark Wallert received $60,900 in grants from the National Science Foundation and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to bring high school teachers and students to MSUM to research how lung cells move. For the next two years, faculty and students at Detroit Lakes High School and MSUM will work on a project that investigates how proteins found at the surface of the cell regulate cell movement. The teachers and high school students will work with the genes for a membrane protein called the sodium hydrogen exchanger and determine how other proteins stick to the this protein at front edge of a moving lung cell. (Read more)
  • MSUM received a $10,000 grant from Dakota Medical Foundation to support its Nursing program. MSUM’s School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership consists of three departments that offer complementary coursework leading to the Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing (BSN), Community Health (BS), or Health Services Administration (BS). (Read more)
  • MSUM received a $10,000 grant from Dakota Medical Foundation to support specialized training from the Impact Institute. This grant supported three faculty/staff members to attend a training series hosted by the Impact Give-Back Institute in association with Dakota Medical Foundation. MSUM attendees included President Emeritus Dr. Roland Barden, Bioscience Professor Mark Wallert, and Director of Major & Corporate Gifts Laurie Wigtil.
  • MSUM students in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program will be sequencing DNA and determining DNA fingerprints of plants and animals thanks to three separate grants totaling over $212,000 received by MSUM Biosciences Professors Linda Fuselier, Michelle Malott and Brian Wisenden. The grants provide support to undergraduate research students and state-of-the-art DNA analyzing technology that will be used in ecology, genetics, molecular biology and advanced research courses. The two National Science Foundation grants received will fund studies of science education and undergraduate research in molecular ecology of plants and fish. As part of these new grants, MSUM students will determine DNA sequences and DNA fingerprints, and submit their data to be incorporated into a larger study, centered at Duke University, to discern the evolutionary history of the Earth’s very first land plants. A third state level grant supports the seamless transfer of students from MSCTC to MSUM, and the participation of transfer students in the new Molecular Ecology and Evolution research program.
  • MSUM has received two National Science Foundation grants totaling $287,000 for unique programs aimed at teaching ecology and evolutionary biology. The first grant’s aim is to test the theory that writing is effective in helping students better understand scientific concepts and problems. Project co-coordinators are Meena Balgopal and Alison Wallace, Biosciences. The second grant involves retooling the undergraduate curriculum in the ecology and evolutionary biology emphasis by integrating molecular biology with cross-disciplinary faculty research. Bioscience Professors Linda Fuselier, Brian Wisenden and Michelle Malott will coordinate this grant.
  • MSUM received a $1.35 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to provide professional development for improving the abilities of teachers to work with English language learners in school districts in the region (including Moorhead Public Schools, West Fargo Public Schools and the districts of the South East Education Cooperative of North Dakota.) In addition, MSUM’s Continuing Studies and Customized Education and Training will host a regional conference to bring together university faculty, K-12 teachers, and pre-service teachers.
  • MSUM has received a $7,500 grant from the Dakota Medical Foundation to support scholarships for registered nurses to pursue their bachelor of science in nursing (BSN). The scholarships will help experienced nurses to obtain a BSN, which prepares nurses to respond to increasingly complex health care needs and to function more independently in multiple healthcare settings. MSU Moorhead’s RN-to-BSN program meets the needs of working nurses while allowing them to stay in the area.
  • MSUM has been awarded a $5,000 grant by the Qwest Foundation to add a professional development aspect for classroom science teachers to an existing College for Kids class called MotoTechs. College for Kids, a hands-on summer enrichment program for children ages 8 – 14, has been a program of Continuing Studies and Customized Education & Training for eight years. Through the grant, Kate Rockstad, a fourth grade teacher from Moorhead Schools, learned how to teach simple electrical circuits and motors using hands-on activities with students in the MotoTechs classroom. As an experienced teacher, she was an ideal candidate because she teaches this content in her regular classroom. The MotoTechs course for both the teacher and children was taught by Steve Lindaas, MSUM Physics and Astronomy. Lindaas has taught College for Kids classes for several years and is active with science educators in the region and in the state Minnesota Science Teachers Association.