The project, introduced by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration in 1937, involved 100 farms that were created on idle lands purchased by the federal government. The resettled farmers bought the land, which included buildings constructed with federal money, on a 40-year payment plan at three percent interest.

"Most of the farms were located near Argusville, Arthur and Amenia in Cass County, " says MSU history professor Steve Hoffbeck. "And near Clifford and Caledonia in Traill County."

Because memories of these years are fading away, he said, he’d appreciate information, photographs and memories from any of the 100 families that grew up on these farms.

"Most of the people today who have memories of the farms were children at the time," Hoffbeck said. "But those memories of the Depression years have been deeply engrained in their minds. It was a tough time."

Hoffbeck and his class on "The Age of FDR" will write the history this year and plan to show a documentary exhibit of their results at the Cass County Historical Society and at MSU.

To contact Hoffbeck, write him at the MSU history department, 1104 7th Ave. S., Moorhead, MN. 56563; or call him at (218) 236-2812 or (218) 236-4041.

Scheduled May 15 through June 4, it will include stops at the capital city of Nairobi and the ocean port Mombasa, the Great Rift Valley, the Maasai Mara National Reserve, the fertile eastern slopes of Mt. Kenya and a 14th century Swahili island town of Lamu. A weekend home-stay with a Kenyan host family is also part of the itinerary.

Cost is approximately $3,700, which includes airfare and accommodations along with game park and museum fees.

The tour will be led by Bruce Roberts, an MSU anthropology professor who’s been traveling to Kenya since 1988 where he’s conducted extensive research on small farming communities.

The registration deadline is Feb. 15. For details, contact Roberts at 236-2043 or MSU’s Office of International Programs at 236-2956. Or to view photos from previous trips, check out Roberts’ web site: http://classweb.moorhead.msus.edu/roberts/kenya.htm.

Bly is a poet, story teller, translator and worldwide lecturer. Arguably the most influential American author living today, his book, "Iron John" spent 62 weeks on the New York Times hard-cover best-seller list and was North America's best-selling non-fiction book in 1991. Two key themes in "Iron John" are the need to recover  forms of initiation for contemporary males and the need of younger men for mentors.

Bly is winner of a National Book Award for poetry, and has published a growing collection of poems and translations that express what one critic calls "a deep marriage between the inner and outer worlds in one man's life."

A Madison, Minn., native now living in Minneapolis, Bly is also the author of  "The Sibling Society" and the "Maiden King." His most recent book is "Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems."

But  MnSCU ranks it 22nd out of 24 items on its priority list of bonding projects.

And it isn’t part of Governor Ventura’s $462 million capital bonding bill, the smallest state-government borrowing package since 1992 (only half of the $1  billion for capital expenditures approved by the 1998 Legislature).

All together, Minnesota stage agencies, higher education systems and local governments requested $1.5 billion for capital improvements this year.

MSU’s  $4.1 million request is needed to demolish the 26 buildings that remain on the five-block expansion property and to develop the area for parking.

The hope is that the Senate and the House will override the governor and push through a bonding bill in the $600 million range, which would include the expansion project. But Ventura could respond by not issuing the bonds.

Last year Governor Ventura body slammed MSU’s bonding request when he vetoed $54 million from the Legislature’s $141 million bonding bill.

The five-block expansion area has become both a political and public relations liability for the university, MSU Pres. Roland Barden said.  Yet it has never become a top priority with the MnSCU facilities bureaucracy.

If bonding isn’t approved, the university will continue chipping away at the project with available parking revenue funds.

$61.6 million needed for
facilities maintenance
MSU also has a backlog of deferred facilities maintenance projects that, according to MnSCU consultants, adds up to $61.6 million. The projects fall under Higher Education Asset Preservation and Renewal (HEAPR) funding. They adress safety issues like fire doors, alarms and sprinkler systems, along with roof replacements, emergency lighting, exterior ramps and auditorium safety.

MnSCU has asked the Legislature for $100 million in HEAPR funding this year, of which MSU would get about $9 million if passed. But the governor suggests a total of only $30 million in repair funding for MnSCU (and another $34.3 million for improvements at Twin Cities’ community and technical colleges).

MSU’s facility repair request is so high because most of the buildings on campus are due for overhauls. Most were constructed either in the 1930s (those have been updated once already) and in the Sixties and Seventies when enrollment skyrocketed. Now they’re all in need of overhauls.

Consultants, however, say that MSU has an immediate need for $45 million in facilities maintenance within the next two years.

The university will also need more than $680,000 to get its bleachers in compliance with modern code.

New Science Teaching Lab Building
Over the next four years, MSU will ask for $24 million in bonding money to construct a three-story, 71,000-square-foot Science Teaching Lab building addition to Hagen Hall for teaching biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy and geology. It includes $12.4 million for renovation and renewal of Hagen Hall.

Other projects for the future: A privately funded new building in the five-block expansion area to house Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Nursing and Early Childhood education with teaching clinics and lab school. That project will also involve future money for renovating the spaces vacated by those departments.

In 1998, MSU received $12.25 million from the state’s HEAPR fund to replace roofs and refurbish several campus landmarks, including Nemzek Fieldhouse, The Center for the Arts and Livingston Lord Library. Most of that work has been completed, except for a new outdoor track, $775,000 improvements to the Nemzek Hall swimming pool and a new security card reader. Bids are expected on those projects soon and should be completed this year.

The object of the event is to build a model span bridge by gluing together roughly 500 round, wooden toothpicks.

The bridges should be strong enough and built to support nine-inch metal weights while clearing a 22-inch span. During the contest, weights are stacked on top of each model and the one that supports the heaviest load before collapsing wins the contest.

Any student—elementary through college—who would like to enter the contest, or receive detailed rules, should write or call Ron Williams at the MSU technology department, (218) 236-2104. Information is also available at their website: http://mntech.mnstate.edu/bridge

The contest, held in conjunction with National Engineering Week, is a unique introduction to some basic concepts in engineering design, weight distribution and problem solving.

The two-year program is aimed at providing emerging leaders with an opportunity to delve into an in-depth examination of key issues facing MnSCU, a higher education system made up of 36 state universities, community and technical colleges. It serves about 230,000 students a year with an enrollment of about 147,000.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has provided a $325,000 start-up grant to fund the program.

In addition to a research project and a series of workshops, the Leadership Institute will provide an opportunity for Kellogg Fellows to collaborate with a team of mentors from both inside and outside of the MnSCU system to gain practical experience in a selected field of study.

Of the 106 applicants in the state who applied for the program, Schuette was one of 20 selected.

Originally from Corpus Christi, Texas, Schuette earned both his master’s and doctorate in counseling from Texas A&M University at Commerce. He’s a specialist in paraprofessional training and relationship issues, along with stress management, biofeedback and academic success trategies.

Schuette came to MSU in 1989 as director of MSU’s Counseling Center. In 1997 he was also named director of the university’s Career Services office.

The half-hour newscast focuses on local and regional colleges, including some stories from campuses around the world. It’s written, reported, photographed and produced by MSU students.

Dalhouse is a junior mass communications major from Moorhead and a 1997 graduate of Moorhead High School. She’s the daughter of Derick and Doris Dalhouse. She will also serve as producer for the show.

Turtle is a sophomore mass media/journalism major at Concordia College and a 1998 of Stewartville (Minn.) High School. He’s the son of Lyle and Jean Turtle of Stewartville.

About 40 students are involved in the production of Campus News, now in its 17th season on Prairie Public Television. They are supervised by Martin Grindeland, an MSU mass communications professor and executive producer of the program.

Campus News will be broadcast on PPTV every Saturday through April 29.

You can also see Campus News at its Web site: www.campusnews.com.

So Moorhead State University has developed a web site for its teacher education graduates, in the initial stages of their careers, who have questions about classroom teaching.

Called the Teacher Helpline (www.moorhead.msus.edu/fieldexp/edhelp.htm), the site is monitored by Teri Walseth, coordinator of field experiences for MSU’s education department.

Twelve faculty from the education department have volunteered to answer questions that get posted on the site.

"I certainly could have used something like this when I started my teaching career in Texas," said Walseth, an MSU graduate who now works with student teachers. "The transition from student teacher to teacher can be challenging with many new teachers feeling overwhelmed and even isolated. This web site is a link to the people who’ve trained you."

Walseth said the Teacher Helpline is expected to field questions ranging from maintaining classroom discipline and relating to parents to curriculum and academic issues. She said she’ll check her e-mail box daily and relay questions to faculty quickly to make the site efficient and practical.

He’ll also talk on the writer’s craft at 4 p.m. that day in the MSU library porch.

Mason is the author of two award-winning books of poems, "The Buried Houses" and "The Country I Remember."  He recently published a collection of essays, "The Poetry of Life," and is the co-editor of "Rebel Angels: 25 poets of the New Formalism" and "Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry."

Mason won the 1994 Carnegie Foundation Minnesota Professor of the Year Award during his tenure at MSU from 1989 to 1998. He also won a Fulbright Award in 1996 to participate in an educational exchange between the U.S. and Greece.

That’s the conclusion of a class of Moorhead State University  microbiology students after tackling some common kitchen hygiene problems in a group of practical experiments designed to apply their skills at collecting and counting bacteria.

"Research shows  there are more bacteria lurking in the kitchen than there are in the bathroom," says Kathryn  Wise, an MSU biology professor who guided the students in her classroom project. "Especially in sponges, dishrags, cutting boards, kitchen sink drains and countertops. They provide perfect environments for breeding bacteria—warmth, moisture and nutrients."

That’s why she pointed her students in the direction of kitchens and bathrooms to test their skills at detecting and counting bacteria.

The overwhelming majority of the more than 4,000 species of bacteria scientists have named are harmless to humans, Wise said. In fact, about 10 percent of human body weight is made up of bacteria, and billions of these tiny "bugs" inhabit human skin—100,000 of them each square centimeter.

But a few species found in household kitchens can be virulent--such as Salmonella, Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus and a pathogenic variety of E. coli.

In the United States, she said, the diseases they cause kill as many as 9,000 people a year, mostly the very young, the very old and people with weakened immune systems.

"I don’t think we should be paranoid about kitchen bacteria, just practical," Wise said. "We’re all in a hurry today, and maybe we don’t cook our food as long as we once did. We don’t shop as often, so we keep food longer. We also get our food from all over the world."

Just remember, she said,  that bacteria thrive in warm, moist environments where they can find nutrients—microscopic chunks of food. They also hide in and adhere to cuts and abrasions in wood and plastic,  and even in the relatively smooth surfaces of ceramic and stainless steel.

Heat, soap, bleach and ammonia compounds—common kitchen cleaners—destroy the membranes of the bacteria and stop them from growing, she said. Rubbing or wiping the surfaces of plates and cutting boards prevent bacteria from clinging to these surfaces.

That’s important because, in the right environment, some of these "bugs" might double every half hour and will continue to grow until their food supply runs out or they become polluted by their own wastes.

Using practical experiments, Wise’s students tested some common notions about the life and death of bacteria in the home. Here are their results:

* Anti-bacterial hand soap is effective in the long run. The students found that antibacterial soap reduced the regrowth of microbes by 80 percent  over a two- hour period compared to regular liquid soap. That’s because antibacterial soap contains triclosan, a chemical antibacterial agent that damages the cell walls of microbes. Both soaps seemed to be equally effective at initial washings. But after two hours, the antibacterial soap was far superior.
* Brand name and generic antibacterial kitchen cleaners were equally effective.  Students treated a countertop with a common bacterium found in vegetables and meats. Both cleaners were effective in killing virtually all the bacteria on the countertops. But the brand name product was no more effective than the generic.
* Microwaving reduces the amount of microbes on the surface of sponges. Three types of moist sponges—general purpose, odor-resistant and antibacterial—were treated with bacteria and microwaved on high for 30 seconds. Counting bacterial colonies the next day, the students found at least a 97 percent decrease in microbes in each trial. The odor-resistant sponges, however, showed the largest average reduction in microbes.
* Overall, microwaving is more effective on dishrags than sponges. Even after being microwaved for one minute on high, the contaminated liquid wrung from inside of tested sponges contained significant numbers of bacteria colonies. The students concluded that the inside of the sponges must be partially insulated from the thermal effect of the microwave, leading to higher survival rates of bacteria from the sponge. Bacteria on dishrags, however, were effectively killed by microwaving, probably because dishrags aren’t as thick as the sponges.
* Plastic cutting boards harbor less bacteria than wood. Contaminating both types of cutting boards with raw beef for five minutes, the students cleaned them with both soapy dishwater and bleach water. The plastic cutting boards harbored fewer bacteria colonies, reinforcing one side of a national debate on the subject. The good news is that bleach and a good scrubbing works best on both in eliminating stubborn bacteria hiding in surface crevasses of these boards. Hot soapy water is an alternative.
* Is rare meat safe to eat? No. A dangerous strain of E. coli called 0157:H7, or the Hamburger Disease,  can be virtually eliminated from ground beef and steak with just 5 to 10 minutes of cooking. Fortunately, E. coli microbes found in the meat can’t survive temperatures of 160 degrees or above. Although ground beef harbors more bacteria because of the grinding and handling process, it is also less dense than steak and takes less time for the meat to be heated thoroughly. The ground beef cooked for 10 minutes by students carried no bacteria; steak cooked for 15 minutes also had no bacteria.
* Dishwasher heat drying makes no difference. That’s because the temperature of the water in the dishwasher reaches nearly 186 degrees, hot enough to eliminate most of the bacteria the students tested, even without detergent.
* To bleach or not to bleach laundry. Both chlorine and non-chlorine bleach were effective in killing bacteria in laundry, while baking soda and detergent alone were not. The students found that people today tend to use less bleach in laundry than they did 10 years ago because of the potential polluting effects of chlorine compounds. They may prefer to use environmentally  friendly "green" bleach alternatives such as baking soda, hydrogen peroxide or lemon juice to whiten and brighten fabrics. The students found, however, that adding "green" bleach alternatives provide nothing more in the way of sanitation that detergent alone, which only halved the bacterial load of laundry. That may not be important to healthy adults, they concluded,  but people with compromised immune systems and the very young and very old may benefit from washing their clothes in chlorine or non-chlorine bleach.
* Mouthwash does reduce bacterial growth in your mouth. The shape of the teeth, tongue and lips create a multitude of potential nesting places for bacteria, which can lead to microbial infections such as gingivitis, infections of the root pulp and periodontal disease. The students took swabs from the mouths of subjects before, following, and one hour after using three different brands of mouthwash. Listerine had the best results, reducing bacteria by 67 percent following the initial  mouthwash and  66 percent one hour later. Water alone reduced bacteria by 58 percent initially and 38 percent an hour later.