January News Release

* Teachers in the Movies
* Spring Enrollment Up
* Dille Award
* Colson Moon Rock Study
* Neumaier Hall is Coming Down
* Falconry: One demanding sport
* F-M jobs increase by 70,000 since 1962

TEACHERS IN THE MOVIES
FOCUS OF EDUCATION
EDITOR’S TALK FEB. 10
Moorhead, MN…..James Rhem, executive editor of the National Teaching and Learning Forum, will discuss "The Teacher in the Movies" from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10 in Moorhead State University’s King Hall auditorium.
 Despite the notion that the movies over-simplify and distort the reality of teaching, Rhem argues that Hollywood has actually tapped into the archetypical roots of teaching. From "Goodby, Mr. Chips" to "Mr. Holland’s Opus," Rhem sees teachers being portrayed through modern history as revered and authoritative figures, although  beleaguered by the challenges of changing times.
 The National Teaching and Learning Forum, created by Rhem, is a widely praised publication on college teaching, now in it’s eighth year.
 Rhem is a guest of MSU’s College of Education and Human Services Visiting Scholar Educator Series. It’s free and open to the public.
 An informal roundtable conversation with Rhem, open to the public, is scheduled from noon to 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 11 in Comstock Memorial Union 101. For questions, contact Steve Grineski at 236-2096

MSU’S SPRING ENROLLMENT UP 4.2%
Moorhead, MN…Moorhead State University’s spring semester enrollment figures are up 4.2 percent over last spring’s, according to a head count taken on the 10th day of classes.
 Students enrolled spring semester so far  total 6,185, which includes more than 60 new transfer and freshmen students.
 MSU’s final fall semester enrollment reached 6,666 students, the highest head count since 1994.
 "This is continued good news for us," said MSU Registrar John Tandberg. "We’re enrolling more new students, and we’re doing a better job of retaining the students that are already here.."

He’ll deliver the annual talk at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 26 in the Roland Dille Center for the Arts thrust stage theatre. His topic: "Autonomy, High Culture and Higher Education." A panel of  faculty members--philosophy professor Mark Chekola and English professor Hazel Retzlaff--will respond to Gracyk’s lecture. Questions and answers will follow.

A specialist in 18th Century thought and the philosophy of art, Gracyk has been teaching at MSU for 13 years. He came here from California State University-San Bernardino and holds a doctorate in philosophy from UC-Davis. His book "Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock," which argues that rock music is an art form in its own right, was published by Duke University Press in 1996.

Six other projects received support from the Dille Excellence Fund:

* MSU’s first  Student Academic Conference, scheduled April 14 in the student union, received $1,000.
* Funding to send 12 students to the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival received $1,400.
* Summer apprenticeship for MSU photography students to collaborate on a photo documentary of the 100th Icelandic Independence Day Celebration in Mountain, N,D., received $1,700.
* A project to develop workshops for student teachers on how to handle health issues in the classroom, titled "Growing Challenge for Teachers: Providing Medical Procedure for Students," received $1,000.
* Biology Prof. Donna Stockrahm and student Heather Taylor received $1,200 for a research project titled "Bison Habitat Use and Behavior During the  Breeding Season in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the North Dakota Badlands."
 * Biology Prof. Brian Wisenden received $1,190 to launch a research program involving a series of undergraduate students to study the role of genetics in behavior, specifically to test for a genetic basis for anti-predator behavior in fathead minnows.

FOURTH NASA GRANT HELPS MSU PROF STUDY
CHEMISTRY OF MOLTEN ROCK ON MOON
Moorhead, MN.....Russ Colson, a Moorhead State University geology professor, has received another $30,000 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration--his fourth in four years--to study the chemical behavior of molten rock under conditions found on the Moon and Mars.
 His study is expected to provide insight into the geological changes that have taken place on other planets. Besides pure science, it may also produce some practical applications on how glassy materials--molten rock--can better be used on Earth. For example, hazardous waste might be isolated within glass for long-term storage.
 MSU chemistry professor Asoka Marisinghe collaborated on this grant with Colson.
 Also, Colson and MSU elementary education professor David Cline just received an additional $7,800 grant from NASA’s education and public outreach program to help area teachers involve their students in NASA research and develop classroom science activities around it.
 With a previous NASA grant, Colson equipped his laboratory at MSU with a high-temperature furnace that can heat rock up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. He also installed an electrochemical system that can analyze the fundamental nature of high temperature materials.
 The laboratory is now one of only a handful world-wide using electrochemical methods to study the chemical behavior of molten rock under very high temperatures.
 "To my knowledge," Colson said, "this is the only lab in the world using this relatively inexpensive technique to study materials of geological and planetary interest, which in part explains NASA interest here."
 Colson, a former postdoctoral fellow at the Johnson Space Center, refined a practical way to manufacture oxygen on the Moon under another NASA grant while he was a research scientist at Washington University in St. Louis. The applications he developed are now in the hands of Carbotek, a Houston engineering firm that will work with NASA engineers in putting together a prototype that may eventually become the first oxygen manufacturing plant on the moon.

Students evacuated because of structural problems…
NEUMAIER HALL IS COMING DOWN

On a cold winter afternoon a week into the second semester, MSU Pres. Roland Barden announced that Neumaier Hall’s 305 residents must evacuate the building within three weeks.

Engineers had just discovered serious structural problems with Moorhead landmark, one of the tallest high-rises in town.

Most of the 305 students will be reassigned to other dorm rooms, which are currently only at 70 to 80 percent of full occupancy. But many may be housed off-campus, at university expense.

It was a shock to many students, who’ve grown attached to  15-story residence hall, built in 1970 for $2.3 million and named after MSU’s seventh president, John Neumaier.

"I guess we’ve heard rumors about Neumaier titling for a long time, " said Jennifer Guenin, a sophomore on seventh floor Neumaier. "But we really didn’t take them seriously. Now I guess we’ll just have to go with the flow."

Engineers have been monitoring Neumaier’s twisting and sinking since soon after its construction. Twenty-five large, concrete columns that extend 100 feet into the sandy clay beneath the building weren’t settling uniformly.

That uneven settling stressed the northwest corner of the building, pulling windows out of alignment and cracking walls, which prompted regular evaluations of the Neumaier Hall’s safety through much of its life. The building has moved 3 to 5 inches in the past 28 years.

Engineers initially thought the problem was caused by a shifting boulder one of the concrete columns was resting on. But when engineers hired by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system examined Neumaier in January, they reinterpreted the data from the 1990s and deduced that the shifting was related to a significant drop in the ground water level.

According to those engineers, another sharp drop in ground water level could cause serious damage to the concrete columns, further stressing the building and making it unsafe.

The engineer’s report indicated the building is stable enough for occupancy until the next dry cycle.

"But we’d rather be overcautious than not cautious enough." Barden said of his decision to evacuate the building immediately. University employees and student workers will help residents move their belonging to other quarters.

The building will be dismantled over the next two years, which will cost abut $3 million. Barden hopes the MnSCU system will pick up most of the tab.

"If it was up to me," Barden said, "I’ would like to replace Neumaier Hall with single occupancy and apartment style dorms, which is what our students have expressed the most interest in."

MSU alum administers state permit program…..
FALCONRY: AN ANCIENT
BUT EXACTING SPORT
Moorhead, MN…It’s the height of the falconry season in Minnesota, but who can tell?
 "Lots of people seem interested," says Steve Kittelson, a Moorhead State University alumnus who administers the falconry permit program for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. "But few follow through. Falconry takes an incredible commitment."
Just ask Dale Sayler, a master falconer from Moorhead who’s been hunting with hawks for more than 30 years. "It must be an obsession, because on paper it’s hard to justify the costs and time with any kind of tangible payback. But the hunt itself is unbelievable. That’s when you form a partnership with the pure wild."
 Sayler is one of about 150 Minnesota falconers who are part of an effort to keep this antiquated sport alive (most live in the Twin Cities; fewer than 20 or so live in the 21-county northwestern part of the state administered by the Bemidji DNR office).
 "We get about 50 calls a year requesting information about falconry," Kitttelson said. "But once these people understand the commitment, few pursue it. We issue maybe a half dozen new permits a year."
 Falconry--training and using birds of prey for hunting--probably originated on the steppes of Asia, Kittelson said. But the first recorded evidence appears in 4,000 year old paintings found in Persia.
An astounding 1,000 falconers were part of  Genghis Khan’s army that swooped down on western civilization in the 13th century, hunting food and providing sport for the Mongol soldiers.
After Crusaders brought falconry  back from the Middle East and Asia, Kittelson said, it became one of Europe’s most popular sports. Shakespeare was a falconer. So was King Henry VIII and Mary Queen of Scots. Today, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may be the most noted American falconer.
But falconry literally vanished with the advent of firearms. "In fact, falcons and other raptors became targets--shot, trapped and poisoned to preserve wild game for gun hunters," Kittelson said. "Worse yet, the use of pesticides and destruction of natural habitat further eroded the raptor population."
The shift from royalty to rarity was swift, until the United States enacted strict raptor preservation programs in the 1970s.
"Now there’s state and federal legislation protecting raptors and regulating falconry," he said.
Adds Sayler: "Getting a falconry permit today is at least as hard as getting a pilots license."
Kittelson is chiefly a Nongame Wildlife Specialist in the St. Paul DNR office. Although he’s still head of Minnesota’s Trumpeter Swan Restoration Project, he is trying to work himself out of that job.
"Trumpeter swans were extinct in Minnesota until we started a reintroduction program in the 1980s," the MSU alumnus said. "Now we have about 500 free-fliers in Minnesota and over 50 nesting pairs. We still release maybe 20 a year, but the swan population is growing on its own and I’m involved in more in monitoring wild birds than releases of captive reared birds.
 While coordinating the falconry permit program is only a small part of his job, it’s one of the more interesting.
"Falconers are die-hard outdoorsmen, fiercely dedicated to their sport," he said. "And the raptors are amazing birds—their eyes are absolutely piercing. Like the caption on the poster at the University of Minnesota Raptor Center says: ‘Birds of prey know they’re cool.’"
To become a falconer today, however, is no small task. Here are just some of the requirements:
* First, read a few books from the government’s recommended reading list.
* Then take the state-administered written exam on the biology, training and veterinary care of raptors. Few pass it the first time around.
* Find a licensed falconer who’s willing to sponsor your efforts to train you and your bird during a mandatory two-year apprenticeship
* Build an approved pen (mews) for your raptor at a cost of about $600 to $1,000, which will be inspected by state or federal agents.
* Get a permit ($35 federal fee) to capture your own red-tailed hawk or kestrel ( the smallest of falcons) in the wild. The bird must be immature, at least five months old and less then 10, old enough so that it has already learned to hunt in the wild.
* Meanwhile, spend a minimum of one hour a day training your falcon 365 days a year.
* During the hunting season, from September to March, hunt with your bird at least three times a week, and at least three hours per outing. (From April to September is down time as the bird molts a new set of feathers.)
* On top of that, it will cost about $1 a day in frozen mice, quail or pigeons to feed your raptor. (Although an average hawk lives from 20 to 25 years, most falconers change birds every year or two. Some keep them for years. Because they are less adapted to wild living, captive bred birds are kept longer.)
So, what should a novice falconer expect after all that effort?
"Well," Kittelson said, "raptors are forever wild, so anytime you throw your prized hawk in the air, it might not come back. It could get shot by vandals, or it may get electrocuted on an overhead electrical wire."
Remember, he said,  the average hawk takes 30 to 50 flights before it catches anything.
And what will the raptor catch? Maybe a pheasant, grouse, squirrel, duck or rabbit if you’re lucky, Kittelson said. "Unfortunately, birds of prey hunt what they want, not what you want. So you might end up with a rat, a sparrow or a piece of road kill. Certain species hunt some prey more than others."
The total kill of 20 of Minnesota’s most active falconers over an entire hunting season was 100 rabbits, a dozen squirrels and six pheasants.
The real thrill of hunting with a raptor, Sayler  said, is watching the magnificent flight of a great bird of prey and forming a bond with it. "Just don’t expect to fill up your freezer with game."
Novice falconers are restricted to possessing only two types of birds: red-tailed hawks (you see them frequently perched atop telephone poles or fence posts) or kestrels (sometimes called a sparrow hawk). "They’re the most common and easy to train," Kittelson said. "Requiring the novice to catch a wild bird is part of the overall effort to immerse the hunter in all aspects of the raptor’s behavior and training requirements."
After completing the two-year apprenticeship, the next step is the general falconer designation, which allows a hunter to buy captive bred birds such as peregrine falcons or Harris hawks. After a minimum of five years, hunters can become master falconers, who are allowed to own three birds.
"But by that time," Kittelson said, "you’ve probably got enough to handle with just one bird."
Birds of prey are more temperamental than most hunting dogs, Kittelson said. And much more demanding.
"You follow their schedule," Sayler  said. "That means if you come home late after a hard days work, or you’re sick, you still have to spend time with your bird. No questions asked. You have to form a bond with the bird, who at best will just tolerate your presence."
Falconers, however, often hunt with both a pointing dog and a raptor. "The dog points, the bird flushes," Kittelson said. "Raptors, however, don’t bring back their quarry to the falconer. They wrap their wings over their captured prey, called mantling,  to hide or protect it. The falconer’s job is to coax the bird back to his fist either with a learned signal or a piece of meat."
Different species demand different hunting styles, he said. Some birds perch on the falconer’s gloved fist and wait for a dog or the falconer to flush prey while walking. Other birds are released by the falconer to fly, circle, swoop or perch in search of prey.
"Some people don’t like the idea of capturing a bird just to use it for hunting," Kittelson said. "Another way of looking at it is to understand that over 70 percent of raptors hatched in the wild don’t survive their first year. Falconers actually contribute to preserving the raptor population. When a falconer decides to quit the sport for whatever reason, they release their birds into the wild, fully trained to hunt for themselves, unless they’re captive bred or imprinted birds."
Sayler, who recently started a new full-time job as a group home director, doesn’t have the time now to keep a bird. "But it’s in my blood and I hope to get back into it someday. Right now, during the hunting season, a raptor would take up all my free time."
Kittelson said people in northwestern Minnesota who are interested in getting a falconry permit should contact Katie Haws at the Bemidji DNR office, 218-755-2976.

Service sector explodes…
MSU STUDY SHOWS F-M
JOBS HAVE INCREASED
BY 70,000 SINCE 1962
Moorhead, MN….Except for clearance sales, January is the cruelest month for businesses.
 But history suggests it always gets better.
And one strong economic indicator--the number of available jobs--proves it: the Fargo-Moorhead area has experienced steady employment growth  for nearly four decades.
 "There are 70,000 more jobs in Fargo-Moorhead today than there were in 1962," said Oscar Flores, a Moorhead State University economics professor.
 The availability of jobs in Fargo-Moorhead has come under a national microscope of late, he said, mainly because Fargo-Moorhead’s unemployment rate (about 1 percent) ranks the lowest of any metro area in the United States.
 Flores and Vern Dobis, another MSU economics professor, put that record to an historic test. They’ve  compiled a statistical picture of employment trends in Fargo-Moorhead (Cass and Clay Counties) using data from the North Dakota Job Services web page. The statistics go back 38 years.
 And it’s a pretty picture. The number of jobs in the area has increased by 231% since 1962, from 30,000 to 100,000.
 A major reason: the service sector of the local economy exploded, now accounting for 31% of all Fargo-Moorhead jobs, up from 19% back in 1962.
 "That’s one in every three local jobs," Flores said. "Back in 1962 there were only 5,450 service jobs here, now there are more than 30,400. That’s a whopping 457% increase."
The service sector includes businesses ranging from hospitals and private schools to accounting firms, hotel/motels, health clubs, churches and consultants.
Retail trade sector, which accounts for 20% of Fargo-Moorhead’s total jobs and ranks second behind the service sector, grew from 6,250 positions in 1962 to 19,050 today.
"That seems dramatic," Flores said. "But actually retail trade jobs grew by only 205%, lower than the 231% increase in total employment."
Retail trade includes restaurants, bars, department stores, grocery stores and other retailers.
"While eating and drinking establishments make up the largest component of the retail trade," Flores said, "the fastest growth in this sector comes from automobile dealerships and service stations. Over the past 10 years alone, jobs in this category have jumped more than 70%."
 Government jobs, meanwhile, grew at a slower rate than overall employment. "Government workers now hold 16% of the jobs in Fargo-Moorhead," Flores said. "That’s down from 19% in 1962."
 Federal government employment in the Fargo-Moorhead area increased only 39% in the past 38 years, from 1,550 to 2,150 positions. But state and local government jobs during that same period increased by 150%, from 4,150 to 10,350 positions today. Much of that increase, Flores said, reflects the growth in the number of teachers and schools.
 Seasonal changes in employment follow a steady pattern, Flores said, with two peaks and two valleys. The lowest point hits in January, right after the obvious peak employment period during the Christmas shopping season in December. Employment then inches up from February through June, declines again in July, and begins to increase in September. The July through September decreases are mostly the result of schools closing in the summer.
 The production of durable goods—such as metal products and industrial machinery--increased faster than any other sector of the economy, up by 640%. But it still accounts for less than 5% of total employment in Fargo-Moorhead.
 This is the first in a series of research projects by Flores and Dobis in an attempt to develop a set of leading economic indicators for the Fargo-Moorhead economy.