Points of Pride



Faculty/Staff

  • "Month of Honey, Month of Missiles" a new chapbook of poems by Yahya Frederickson, Corrick Center for General Education, has been released by Tigertail Productions (Miami, FL).  The collection of 12 poems appears as one of three chapbooks featured in "Tigertail Annual" Vol. VII.  It is Frederickson's third chapbook.
  • Biosciences Professors Linda Fuselier, Michelle Malott and Brian Wisenden received $212,000 in National Science Foundation grants to bolster their Molecular Ecology and Evolution program. 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. 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. (Read more)
  • Two MSUM music professors—Tom Strait and Kenyon Williams—have been appointed to principal positions with the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra. Strait also performs with the Jazz Arts Group of Fargo-Moorhead, Post Traumatic Funk Syndrome, the Simon Rowe Trio, and freelance engagements. Williams directs and performs with two other professional groups, Poco Fuego Steel Drum Quintet and Soulsa de Fargo. Besides Strait and Williams, 10 MSUM faculty and staff members perform in the Symphony Orchestra.
  • 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)
  • North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven has chosen the recipients of the 2009 Governor’s Awards for the Arts and Bradley Bachmeier, an MSUM Art professor, is one of the recipients in the Arts in Education category. The Governor’s Awards for the Arts was established in 1977 as a way of recognizing individuals and organizations who have made outstanding contributions to the arts throughout the state. Recipients are chosen for their efforts to expand arts opportunities to new audiences, create an appreciation for North Dakota’s cultural heritage, and make the arts more central to education and an integral part of community life.
  • Jane Bergland, Nursing, took six senior nursing students to Nicaragua for the 8th year in a row. The 25-member team included the MSUM group (including one MSUM nursing alum), emergency room doctors, pediatricians, a dentist and an eye doctor. Health care provision focused on children with handicaps and their parents, a very underserved population. 
  • Ashish Gupta, an MSUM operations management professor, has developed a simulation model to deal with email overload, interruptions that are aimed at improving business productivity.
A specialist in email management, information overload and social networking, Gupta says it’s no secret that employees are spending an increasing amount of time handling email, time that may detract from their actual jobs. And the main culprits are information overload and interruptions. (Read more)
  • Bioscience Professor David Rodenbaugh was elected to the American Physiological Society’s teaching section steering committee. His role on the committee is planning symposia for the upcoming national meeting, coordinating and planning society events and serving as the society’s treasurer.
  • 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. [Read more]
  • The MSUM financial staff received the Excellence in Financial Management award by Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. The award is based on evaluation criteria, which included local performance measures, effective internal control systems, innovation in financial management capacity, and outstanding achievements in special service to students, staff, and faculty. MSUM’s Chief Finance Officer is Daniel Kirk.
  • “You Have Been Kind Enough to Assist Me: Herman Stern and the Jewish Refugee Crisis,” written by Terry Shotaugh, MSUM archivist and librarian, was named a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award in the General Nonfiction category. The Minnesota Book Awards, sponsored by the Minnesota Center for the Book and the Friends of the St. Paul Library, are given annually to recognize and honor outstanding Minnesota authors and their books. 
  • “I Bring You Dead Things,” a new chapbook of poems by Kevin Zepper, Corrick Center for General Education, has been released by Blue Light Press. The 38-page collection includes 20 poems and is Zepper’s third chapbook.
  • Planetarium Coordinator Dave Weinrich has been elected president-elect of the International Planetarium Society (IPS), a global association of 765 planetarium professionals representing schools, museums, and public facilities of all sizes from 35 countries around the world. [Read more]
  • Mass Communications Professor Martin Grindeland has been named the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Minnesota Professor of the Year. He is the eighth MSUM professor to win this distinction in 21 years. [ Read more ]
  • Film Studies Professor Tom Brandau won the top prize for “Best Film” in the Minnesota Historical Society’s 2008 Minnesota’s Greatest Generation Moving Pictures Film Competition. He also received a $5,000 award for his documentary “Mr. Brown.” The five winning entries were selected from 52 films submitted by amateur and professional filmmakers from across Minnesota. Each of the 10-minute documentary films focuses on the life and legacy of Minnesota’s Greatest Generation––the men and women who grew up during The Great Depression, came of age during the Second World War and participated in the boom that followed the war. [ Read more ]  
  • Chemistry Professor Joe Provost and Biology Professor Mark Wallert have received $565,000 from two federal grants for research investigating how cells coordinate movement. They’re closing in on a possible treatment for some types of non-small cell lung cancers, aggressive forms of the disease that don’t respond to chemotherapy. [ Read more ]
  • Professor Tom Brandau took home the Best Short Film for “Heavenly Sight” at the Forx Film Festival in Grand Forks, N.D. His film is about a young boy dealing with the concept of death who finds meaning in a small detail. MSUM Film students and faculty produced eight of the 29 films screened at the festival.
  • Anna Arnar, an Art & Design professor, was awarded the Max Nänny Prize for her 2006 article “A Modern Popular Poem.” The international prize is awarded for the best article appearing within the previous three years on the subject of word-image relations. [ Read more ]
  • Jody Mattern, Mass Communications, was chosen as the 2008 Great Ideas for Teachers grand prize winner at the AEJMC convention in Chicago, for her idea on “Forging Critical Links Between Academics and Professionals: How to Acquire Input from Working Professionals on Student Advertising Portfolios.” [ Read more ]
  • English Professor Lin Enger’s breakout novel, “Undiscovered Country,” was recently published by Little, Brown and Company, one of the major publishing houses. Little, Brown typically takes on only one or two new authors a year. [ Read more ]
  • Music Professor Kirk Moss was named 2008-09 president-elect by the 11,500-member American String Teachers Association (ASTA). His term as president-elect runs from through May 2010 at which time he becomes president of ASTA in a full leadership capacity.
  • Nursing Professors Barbara Matthees and Tracy Wright have earned the designation Certified Nurse Educator (CNE) after successfully completing a rigorous certification examination developed and administered by the National League for Nursing. Of the nearly 1,000 U.S. nurse educators who hold the designation, only six teach in Minnesota and one in North Dakota.
  • Film Studies Professor Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson was named 2008 YWCA Woman of the Year in the education category. Last year she was among 15 winners of a $50,000 Bush Artists Fellowship.
  • The Tri-College NEW Leadership Development Institute, co-coordinated by Sociology and Criminal Justice Professor Deb White, was recognized by the YWCA as the Business/Organization that Empowers Women. The institute is an annual five-day residential program designed to provide leadership training, inspiration and support for women.
  • 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 million being awarded through the U.S. Education department to school districts in 40 states. Working with 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 regional history teachers.
  • Planetarium Coordinator Dave Weinrich traveled to Ghana this summer to deliver a refurbished Mediaglobe digital projector to the Ghana Science Center in Africa. He also trained the staff and volunteers on how to use the projector. It’s part of the International Planetarium Society’s effort of helping astronomy educators in developing countries.
  • English Professor Sandy Pearce has published a book review entitled “The Height of His Prowess: Bernard Maclaverty’s Matters of Life and Death,” in the spring issue of the Irish Literary Supplement.
  • Dan Phillips, Music, recently returned from performing and presenting workshops at Innsbruck Conservatory, Imst School of Music and Voells School of Music in Austria.
  • Professor and archivist Terry Shoptaugh is the author of “You Have Been Kind Enough to Assist Me,” a new book that tells the little known story of the late North Dakota clothier Herman Stern, who rescued more than 140 German Jews from the impending Holocaust in Europe. [ Read more ]
  • Sociology and Criminal Justice Professor Deb White received one of 21 Women’s Foundation of Minnesota grants for the Tri-College NEW Leadership Development Institute to support its annual five-day residency conference.
  • Comptroller/business manager Mark Rice received an Outstanding Service award for his contributions toward furthering professionalism in financial management. The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities 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.
  • Chemistry Professor Joseph Provost was elected Councilor of the Chemistry Division of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR). CUR and its nearly 900 affiliated colleges, universities, and individuals, shares a focus on providing undergraduate research opportunities for faculty and students at predominantly undergraduate institutions.