Dille Fund for Excellence 2002-03

MSU Moorhead
Office of the President
203 Owens Hall
1104 Seventh Ave. S.
Moorhead, MN 56563
(218) 477-2243

Dille Fund for Excellence
2002-2003 Grant Recipients

The Dille Fund for Excellence committee announces the 2002-2003 Dille Excellence grant awards supporting innovative, student-centered projects.

The Dille Fund for Excellence is a permanent endowment honoring MSUM President Emeritus Roland Dille and his wife Beth, and is managed by the MSUM Alumni Foundation. This is the seventh set of awards funded by the endowment that raised nearly $3.2 million in gifts and pledges in 1994.

Eleven projects received $9,550 in Dille Excellence funding:

Tracy Clark, assistant professor, social work
“Mino Gozi (Making a Good Move)”
Dille Fund: $567.00, Academic Affairs/Dean $800.00
Total Award: $1,367.00

Clark’s project is a collaboration with the Mahnomen Public School District encompassed by the White Earth Reservation, and the MSUM social work department. Assisted by eight social work students in SW 440, Generalist Practice—Groups, Clark will design and implement four psycheducational groups for adolescents, providing education and support designed to assist the participants in identifying personal values and healthy daily choices to improve their relationships with parents, siblings, teachers, and peer.

Christopher Corley, assistant professor, history
“Childhood, Orphanages, and Urban-Rural Community Exchange in Eighteenth-Century France”
Dille Fund: $900.00, Academic Affairs: $240.00
Total Award: $1,140.00

Corley’s research took him to France last summer, where he gathered a century (1706-1812) of orphanage records from Dijon. He now will engage students enrolled in HIST 190, The History of Childhood and Youth, in a collaborative research and teaching project based primarily on the 300 pages of microfilmed French records. The students will work with Corley to cull and interpret information from the register, create a statement of research discoveries and ultimately present their research at the Annual Northern Great Plains History Conference.

Rhonda Ficek, director, instructional technology
“Exploring the Use of Personal Digital Assistants in Instruction”
Dille Fund: $500.00, Academic Affairs: $500.00
Total Award: $1,000.00

Ficek’s project involves exploring the use of two specific software programs for evaluation in instructional settings using Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) devices such as Palm Pilots or Handspring Visors. Instructional Technology will purchase a small number of PDAs for use in instructional settings. The Dille funding will be used to purchase two software programs: mVal, for evaluating students, and mVal Professional, for evaluating professional staff. This project will research the use of the software products for effective assessment and instructional use throughout the university community.

Michelle L. Malott, assistant professor, biology
“Measuring DNA Damage and Apoptosis in Cells Exposed to Ultra-Violent Radiation”
Dille Fund: $500.00, Academic Affairs/Dean: $488.80
Total Award: $988.80

Malott’s project involves six biology students in research contributing to the understanding of cellular proteins involved in the apoptotic process (a form of cellular suicide) as it relates cancerous cells. Mallot and her students will correlate cellular changes documented in FKHRL1 protein with specific cellular responses such as apoptosis, in cells that have been exposed to UV radiation. The students will ultimately present their research in the student academic conference and submit an essay to the Journal of Undergraduate Research.

Kristine K. Montis, assistant professor, mathematics
“Math Solutions by Email, Webpage, and WebCT”
Dille Fund: $50.00, Academic Affairs/Dean: $430.00
Total Award: $480.00

Montis’ project involves using appropriate electronic communication to communicate with her math students. With the Wacom Intuoso 2 Electronic Tablet, she’ll be able to efficiently post math solutions on her web page, respond to specific student questions by email, save notes from class electronically, and make the guided notes available electronically for students. Ultimately, the tool will make WebCT a more viable vehicle for use in math classes. Without the Tablet, communicating mathematical notations electronically is prohibitively time-consuming – instructors have been writing mathematical notations out by hand, scanning, converting them to PDF documents.

Regene Radniecki, instructor, mass communications
“Community Journalism: Expanding the Classroom”
Dille Fund: $1,200.00
Total Award: $1,200.00

Radniecki’s project provides photojournalism students an opportunity to work as staff photographers at a small daily or weekly newspaper during spring break. Through an intensive, for-credit workshop, students involved in Radniecki’s community journalism program will be able to publish more photographs, thus creating professional portfolios to prepare them for future internships. In the past decade, competition for photojournalism internships has become so rigorous that more and more newspapers are requiring applicants to have a previous internship to be considered. Radniecki’s goal is to better position MSUM students for their professional careers as photojournalists.

Helen Sheumaker, assistant professor, humanities and multicultural studies
“Electrifying the American City”
Dille Fund: $1,200.00
Total Award: $1,200.00

Sheumaker’s award will bring Dr. David Nye to campus to deliver a lecture presentation on the story of electrical development in the United States. Nye is a professor at the Center for American Studies, Odense University, Denmark, but will be a visiting professor at Notre Dame University in Spring 2003, providing MSUM the opportunity to bring the internationally known scholar to town. Dr. Nye’s presentation weaves the history of industrial development, history of art, and cultural American history in a strong, coherent narrative that promises an engaging, international approach to the study of American Culture. He is the author of “Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940.”

Ananda Shastri, assistant professor, physics and astronomy
“Understanding the Behavior of Molecular Magnets: A Nuclear Magnet Resonance Study Assisted by MSUM Students”
Dille Fund: $1,250.00, Academic Affairs: $750.00
Total Award: $2,000

Shastri will take two students to Iowa State University to study a molecular magnet system in Ames Laboratory. Shastri and his students will work in a nuclear magnetic resonance laboratory studying a series of molecular magnets. Under Shastri’s supervision, students will learn on state of the art equipment to perform nuclear magnetic resonance experiments, and other techniques widely used in chemistry, physics and material science. Students will also learn about building an NMR spectrometer to be used in research here at MSUM.

Mark Wallert, professor, biology and Joseph Provost, associate professor, biology
“A Collaborative MSUM-Perham High School Cancer Research Program”
Dille Fund: $1,183.00, Academic Affairs/Dean: $2,000.00
Total Award: $3,183.00

Wallert and Provost are working toward establishing a long-term collaborative research program between MSUM faculty and students, and outstanding high school students enrolled in Beth Schwarz’s science classes at Perham High school. This project will establish up to three research teams pairing MSUM undergraduates and students from Perham High School. A small cell culture facility will be established at Perham High School and the research teams will be educated to work on projects in the Perham facility as well as at MSUM’s laboratory. All research will be related to the cancer research being conducted in MSUM’s laboratory. The teams will culture cells, perform experiments on cell migration, and the formation of stress fibers and the results will be presented in science fairs and undergraduate research conferences. Ultimately, this project will serve as an enhanced outreach and recruiting effort at Perham High School, which has historically produced some of the best science students in the state.

Deborah White, assistant professor, sociology and criminal justice
“Tri-College National Education for Women’s Leadership Development Institute”
Dille Fund: $1,000.00
Total Award: $1,000.00

In fall 2001, White led a committee with representatives from MSUM, NDSU, White Earth Tribal and Community College, and Concordia College, and the group was selected by the Center for American Women and Politics to become a partner in the National Education for Women’s (NEW) Leadership Development Network. The planning committee is developing a five-day, Tri-College NEW Leadership Development Institute to be held at MSUM in May 2004. The institute will teach students about women’s participation in politics and policy-making, connect students with women public leaders, help students explore the demands of leadership, and cultivate students’ leadership skills. The Dille Award will go toward providing a keynote speaker at the institute.

Warren Wiese, vice president for student affairs, with
Linda Palmer, MSUM student senate, and
Phyllis May-Machunda, assistant professor, humanities and multicultural studies
“MSUM Antiracism Conversation with Dr. Tess Arenas”
Dille Fund: $1,200.00 to support student forum
Total Award: $1,200.00

MSUM’s TOCAR Anti-Racism Team plans to bring Dr. Andrea-Teresa (Tess) Arenas to campus to provide three days of consultation with various sectors of the MSUM community, to assist with identifying strategies for antiracism in higher education. Dille funding will be used to support a student forum event hosted by MSUM and featuring Dr. Arenas, for students of MSUM, NDSU, NWTC, and Concordia College.

The Dille Fund for Excellence provides funding for the annual grant competition and for the Dille Distinguished Faculty Lecturer program.

The Dille Fund for Excellence annually seeks proposals from the campus community for innovative projects that raise the quality of education at Minnesota State University Moorhead. More information is available at http://www.mnstate.edu/president.

Dille Fund for Excellence 2002-2003 Grant Recipients

Dille Fund for Excellence
2002-2003 Grant Recipients