Receiving Distinguished Alumni Awards for professional achievement: former MSU professor Dorothy Dodds and Greg Staszko, managing senior partner with the Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group in California.

Receiving Outstanding Alumni Awards for early professional achievement: Patrick Atkinson, founder and executive director of the God’s Child Project in Guatemala,  and Susan Everson, a research scientist at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health.

Receiving the Outstanding Recent Graduate Award: Daryn Lecy, a 1999 MSU graduate who now works for Norwest Financial Services.

Three people will also receive Distinguished Service Awards from MSU’s Alumni Foundation: former MSU president Roland Dille; MSU Alumni Foundation supporter Betty Feder; and the late William Jones, a former MSU academic vice president and Tri-College provost.

For tickets to the banquet, contact the MSU Alumni Foundation Office at 236-3265.

A closer look at the award winners:

Dorothy Dodds graduated from Moorhead High in 1941 and attended Moorhead State Teachers College during the historic years of World War II, graduating with an elementary education degree in 1945. She taught in the Campus School from 1949 until 1971, when it closed. She then moved to MSU’s education department, where she taught until her retirement in 1986. Dodds, who lives in Moorhead, was a strong voice in political circles, where she expressed her profession’s concern that children had a fundamental right to a safe, healthy and stimulating home and school environment.  She also argued that there be legal standards for caregivers, and licensing requirements for child-care facilities. She is a founding and current board member of the Moorhead Healthy Initiative and a board member of the Clay County Historical Society.
 

Greg Staszko, Fargo Shanley graduate,  was an award-winning athlete at MSU, participating for four years in football, track, and basketball.  He graduated with an accounting degree in 1972 and shortly after founded MSU’s Winged Foot Track Club. He began his career working for Unisys from 1972 through 1978, the year he was named the company’s Outstanding Sales Award recipient.  At age 33, he was named a partner at KPMG, where he remained until 1986 when he moved to California. He is now a managing senior partner with Deloitte & Touche  Consulting Group in Foster City, Calif., and is responsible for over $200 million in annual sales and 600 professional staff for this Big 5 Firm.

Patrick Atkinson, a 1981 MSU criminal justice and social work graduate, is executive director of The God’s Child Project, Central America’s largest private foster-care program, which he founded in 1991. So far, his efforts have saved more than 8,000 Guatemalan children from the debilitating effects of poverty and malnutrition. He is now caring for over 700 children and assists 3,000 of their relatives. More than  half the children in his program become honor students and 20 percent go on to college. This year the government of Guatemala opened a new school in the town of Chiquimulia for its poorest children, with a  focus on the educational needs of the sons and daughters of the prostitutes who work in that area’s sex trade industry.  By government accord, the Guatemalan Ministry of Education named the school the "Patrick Atkinson Benevolent School of Integrated Systems."

Dr. Susan A. Everson, a 1985 magna cum laude psychology graduate of MSU, she earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in biological psychology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences. Since 1997 she has been employed as a research scientist in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor, Mich.  A recipient of several grants in a highly competitive field, she has already authored or co-authored over 25 professional publications, many in collaboration with some of the most prominent scientists in her field. She lives in Ann Arbor.

Daryn Lecy
Lecy, originally from Staples, Minn., was a student senator, a student orientation counselor and a homecoming king at MSU and won a $1,000 L.B. Hartz Achievement Award for his academic achievement in a business related field. He also belonged to Alpha Lambda Delta, Delta Mu Delta, and Phi Kappa Phi while working on the MSU’s Events Committee, the Student Conduct Committee and the Orientation Steering Committee. Lecy graduated summa cum laude last spring with a degree in business administration. He now works for Norwest Financial Services in Fargo.

Dr. Roland Dille served as MSU’s president for 26 years, one of the longest periods served by any state university president in the United States.  Under his guidance MSU grew in both stature and size, a time when he created the New Center for Multidisciplinary Studies and played a leadership role in the growth of the Tri-College University and MSU’s Regional Science Center. He served on the Commission on Minnesota’s Future and the Minnesota Humanities Commission, and is a member of the executive board of the Minnesota Historical Society. He and his wife, Beth, continue to live in Moorhead, only blocks from campus.

Betty Feder, a graduate of Northwestern University, began her association with MSU as one of the "Founding Fifty" of the  Alumni Foundation in 1969. She and her late husband, Paul, were steadfast financial supporters of MSU, chairing the Parents Association, one of the Alumni Foundation’s earliest and most successful fund-raising efforts. She was named a director of the Foundation in 1983, served as its treasurer in 1984-85 and was elected President of the Foundation in 1987-88. That year she organized the "Great Gershwin Concert," which featured the talent of Mel Torme, Leslie Uggims and Peter Nero that was attended by over 4,000 people. She chaired the major gifts committee of the Dille Fund for Excellence, and was a member of the 1993 Presidential Search Committee, which resulted in Roland Barden’s selection as MSU’s ninth president. She recently retired from the MSU Alumni Foundation, but her son, Jerry, has agreed to succeed her.

William M Jones came to MSU in 1972 as the university’s first full-time dean of arts, humanities and social sciences.  He was named vice president for academic affairs in 1977.  In 1982-84, when Roland Dille left to be acting chancellor of the Minnesota State University System, Jones was appointed acting president of MSU. Upon Dr. Dille’s return, he resumed his duties as vice president and continued in that capacity until his retirement in 1985, after which time he moved to the University of Redlands where he served as vice president and acting president.  Jones also served as interim provost of the Tri-College University on two occasions ? in 1990 and again in 1994. He received the Fargo-Moorhead Mayor’s Award for the Arts in 1990 for his  contributions to the local arts community.  His wife, Audrey, and his children live in Lexington, Ky.
 

The event is aimed at local businesses and students in an effort to update them on the latest trends and practices in the business world. It’s free and open to the public.

Concurrent sessions scheduled from 9:30 to 11 a.m.:

* Renee Osland, senior manager, health care, for Eide Bailly Company, talks on "Transitioning from College to the Work Place."
* Tom Stanar from Hewitt Associates, on "The Business Case for Outsourcing Human Resource Functions" at 9:30 a.m.  and Keith Wicks, director of service engineering for General Motors, on "Bringing the Saturn Difference to Japan" at 10:30 a.m.
* Kimberly Maluski, fiscal analyst for the joint legislative audit and review commission of the Virginia State Legislature, on "After MSU: Experiences in Public Policy Analysis."
* Paul Amundson from The Forum on "Online Publishers as Internet Service Providers" at 9:30 a.m. and Rick Kasper from Global Electric Motor Cars in Fargo on "From the Los Angeles Daily News to Global Electric Motor Cars: A CFO Looks at Media and Manufacturing" at 10:30 a.m.
* A panel discussion on "Law as a Helping Profession: the Importance of Community Service" featuring attorney Randy Stefanson, paralegal Cathy Quinn and Karla Abdo from Legal Services of Northwest Minnesota.
* North Dakota State University industrial engineering professor on "Enterprise Resource Planning Systems" at 9:30 a.m. and Ahmad Kian, senior engineering manager at Rosemount Corporation, on "Outsourcing in Procurement Management" at 10:30 a.m.

From noon to 12:30, David Hipschman, editor of The Forum, will talk on "The Future of The Forum in the Red River Valley."

Then a special one-hour session on "Dressing for Success" starts at 1:15 p.m. with Rick Stern from Straus Clothing in a men’s session and Carrie Cossette from Daytons in a women’s session.

Concurrent sessions scheduled from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m.:

* Rick Kasper from Global Electric Motor Car Company, will repeat his session on "From the Los Angeles Daily News to Global Electric Motor Cars."
* Paul Amundson from The Forum repeats his session on "Online Publishing."
* Tom Stanar from Hewitt Associates repeats his session on "Outsourcing Human Resource Functions."
* And Keith Wicks from General Motors repeats his session on "Bringing the Saturn Difference to Japan."

They’re all free and open to the public, and all tentatively scheduled afternoons in room 109 of the Center for Business.

Featured lecturers this year:
* Rhonda Ficek, director of instructional technology, speaks on "Teaching Effectively with Technology" at 3 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 23.
* Music professor Luke Howard talks on "Genre Bending: Some Observations on Classical Music and Pop Culture" at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 21.
* Technology professor Mike Ruth will play and discuss the production of  a seven-minute animated computer music score called "Long Fall," composed by him and former MSU music professor Mary Roberts, at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 9.
* Joe DiCola, director of MSU’s Student Teaching Abroad program, talks on "Schooling in the International Arena" at 3 p.m. Thursday,  Feb. 10.
* Biology professor Brian Wisenden talks on "Chemically-Mediated Predator-Prey Interactions in Minnows" at 3 p.m. Thursday, March 9.

This Campus Activities Board event is free to students; $2 for the general public.

Schmitt is the co-author of two best sellers, "UFO Crash at Roswell" and "The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell." He received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture for the motion picture "Roswell," based on his first book. And his latest documentary, "Roswell: The Chronological Pictorial," is due to be published this year.

Schmitt believes that a UFO and its extra terrestrial occupants did crash in Roswell, N.M., in 1947 and that they were recovered by the United Sates military.

These were the headlines on the front page of the July 8, 1947, Roswell Daily Record and newspapers around the world picked up the story: "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region."

Col. William Blanchard, commanding officer of the 509th Bomb Group in Roswell, announced to the world they had "captured a flying saucer."

Within hours, Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey, commander of the Eighth Air Force in Forth Worth, Texas, squashed the earlier report, explaining that the flying saucer was nothing more than the scattered remains of a weather balloon.

But something did drop on the property of a rancher near Corona, N.M., on July 2, 1947 that attracted the attention of Roswell Army Air Base, then the only atomic-bomb unit in the worked

Ramey’s explanation was the last the world heard of the Roswell flying saucer until 1978 when Maj. Jesse Marcel, a former intelligence officer of the 509th, revealed that he was the man who had picked up the debris. Marcel said, "…I was certain…that it was not a weather balloon, not an aircraft, nor a missile…being in intelligence, I was familiar with all the materials used in aircraft and in air travel. It was something else of which we didn’t know what it was."

In the years following Marcel’s announcement, other witnesses have come forward—generals, ranchers, pilots and journalists—including Army Capt. O.W. "Pappy" Henderson, who said that he had not only seen the wreckage, but the bodies of the flight crew as well.

Witnesses described wreckage that included thin, foil-like metal pieces that could not be cut or bent, tubing that could transmit light and beams of the ship’s framework that bore strange symbols.

Called "The Ultimate Secret" by ufologists, it’s speculated that the Air Force recovered the wreckage, along with four humanoid-like bodies found near the crash, and secretly flew them to Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio.

Schmitt spent three years crisscrossing the country interviewing over 400 witnesses and persons with first-hand knowledge of the event to produce his books, articles, research and movies.

Schmitt lives on a ranch outside of Milwaukee where he is building an observatory.

The signs will appear on Hwy. 94 from Fergus Falls to Bismarck and on Hwy. 29 in North Dakota from border to border beginning Oct. 1.

This in-kind donation has a fair market value of $10,000.

Russ Newman, Harold’s son, approached MSU Pres. Roland Barden with the gift during this year’s Dragon Open Golf Tournament.

Proposed name change for MSU:

"Minnesota State University Moorhead"

Over the past several months, President Roland Barden has weighed the pros and cons of a name change.  Today (9/9/99) Barden announced the results of his study of a proposed new name for MSU.

If approved by the MnSCU Board of Trustees (maybe as early as November), the change-over is expected to cost the university about $30,000--most in signage across campus.

President Barden’s evaluation involved a wide range of constituencies.  The process included campus forums to discuss the proposal and requests for feedback from faculty, student and alumni organizations.  The president also asked interested individuals to share their opinions by letter and e-mail.

BACKGROUND:  On December 16, 1998, the Board of Trustees of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) adopted a policy to allow its institutions to review their names and, if desired, to propose new names.   On April 21, 1999, the board amended its policy to limit the options for a name change. Minnesota State University, Moorhead. Nope. Western Minnesota State University. Nope again. If MSU did change its name, the only option will be "Minnesota State University Moorhead." No hyphens, no "ats," no adjectives.

Here’s MnSCU’s policy regarding institutions requesting a name change, adopted on April 21:
* If a state university requests a change to its official name, then that institution is directed to adopt the nomenclature Minnesota State University (name of location or designation), e.g. Minnesota State University Bemidji.
* If a state college (community college, consolidated college, co-located college or technical college) requests a change to its official name, then that institution is directed to adopt the nomenclature Minnesota State College (name of location or designation), e.g. Minnesota State College Hibbing.
* This policy does not direct any institution to change its name. The institution’s present name may be maintained.

President Barden made his decision based on the following criteria:
1. Across the nation, Minnesota is highly regarded as an "education" state.  Nationally, even internationally, Minnesota is well known as a state of progressive, industrious people with a successful economy and government, and a desirable quality of life.

The name "Minnesota State University Moorhead" on educational credentials provides immediate recognition that our students and alumni earned their credits and degrees in Minnesota.

2. In the new age, our campus interacts with the nation and the world as never before.  The ‘reach’ of individuals on our campus is global, forevermore.  Every day, students, faculty and staff communicate on the internet with their counterparts at campuses, places of employment, and homes around the world.  We need a name that readily conveys our location.

3. Moorhead is the largest city in the western half of Minnesota and well known in northern and western  Minnesota, in North Dakota, and in much of South Dakota.  It is not so well known outside of our immediate region.  In the Twin Cities, potential students sometimes ask if Moorhead State University is in Minnesota.  Here, too, the name "Minnesota State University Moorhead" better presents the nature of our institution and our location.

4. Our campus has had four names over its 112 year history.  Each change of name has brought both optimism about the name and symbols of the future, and nostalgia for the name and symbols of the recent past.  But, in each case, the passing years have shown that the right decision had been made.  I believe the change in name I have recommended to the Board of Trustees is also a decision that history will show is the right choice for our beloved University as we navigate into the new millennium.

Moorhead State over the years:
* Moorhead Normal School opened its doors in August of 1888 with 29 students. Its mission then was to train elementary teachers to staff the schools in the growing Red River Valley.
* By 1921, a growing demand  for high school teachers led the state legislature to authorize the awarding of a bachelor’s degree, equipping teachers to conduct classes from kindergarten through high school. That year the institution’s name became Moorhead State Teachers College.
* During the 1950s, the school diversified and broadened its breadth of purpose, expanding its liberal arts program. In 1957, the Legislature approved changing the name to Moorhead State College.
* With the growth from 29 students in 1888 to 4,600 in 1975, and the choice of programs and majors raised from one to more than 90, on Aug. 1, 1975, the Legislature permitted the name change to Moorhead State University.
 
 

MPLS ST PAUL MAGAZINE
FEATURES MSU AMONG MOST
POPULAR MIDWEST CAMPUSES

Mpls St. Paul magazine’s September 1999 issue contains an Upper Midwest College Guide that includes sketches of the 30 most popular colleges in the Upper Midwest. Among them: good old MSU. Here’s what the magazine said about us:

Moorhead State University
 From gerontology to jazz, Moorhead State, on the Red River of the North (a 220-mile drive from the Twin Cities), offers a wide range of programs that includes one of the best-known graphics-design curricula in the country. This is a school that makes the most of its surroundings, maintaining a close relationship with the Fargo-Moorhead community (combined population 150,000) through arts, educational outreach, and service initiatives. And the area’s "Tri-College University" compact—said to be the only one of its kind in the nation—allows Moorhead State students to take classes at Concordia College in Moorhead and North Dakota State University in Fargo at no extra cost beyond home-school tuition. And forget those jokes about college-cafeteria food: Moorhead State's Union Station food court placed seventh out of more than 250 campus-dining services in a recent nationwide evaluation. In any case, the local fare was enough to keep alum Kevin Sorbo of "Hercules" fame in fine form.

"It’s the first time we’ve had 7,000 students enrolled here since the fall of 1994," said John Tandberg, MSU’s registrar.

The numbers are buoyed by a 4.2 percent increase in new entering freshmen, which total 1,178 this fall (that’s on top of a 13.3 increase in new entering freshmen last fall).  New entering transfer students are up 13.6 percent to 678.

Meanwhile, total credit hours taken by students is up 5.1 percent.

It’s also a retelling of the Frankenstein story, science gone awry tampering with mother nature’s delicate balance.

Steven Hoffbeck, a Moorhead State University history professor, received a grant last year from the Minnesota Historical Society to study the introduction of carp into the state for an upcoming issue of the society’s quarterly magazine, "Minnesota History."

His conclusion: The carp experiment became one of the greatest mistakes that fish culturists ever made.

"Carp-stocking in Minnesota began with optimism in the value of carp as food," said Hoffbeck, a social historian who also happens to be a fisherman. "But it ended in regret after the destructive nature of muck-stirring carp became evident."

While carp can grow to over 50 pounds in North America, they’re actually minnows, admittedly one of the largest species of the  family. The Minnesota record is a 55-pound, five-ouncer caught in 1952 in Annandale’s Clearwater Lake.

Originating in Asia and cultivated there as a food in rice paddies and ponds as early as 800 B.C., Hoffbeck said, carp were later imported to Europe where they became a culinary delight, especially in Germany, Poland and Austria-Hungary.

But in one decade, carp morphed from the "fresh-water fish of the future," according to the New York Times then, to what Minnesota wildlife officials later called "deadly enemies."

"The first carp arrived in the United States in 1831," Hoffbeck said, "brought to New York by immigrants to raise in ponds and placed in the Hudson River."

It was the age of science then, a time when rationalism swept the century. A 19-year-old English author named Mary Shelley, in her 1816 novel "Frankenstein," gave an early warning about the potential dangers of scientific arrogance.

"The naturalists of the 19th century were unaware that the fragile balance of nature in various ecosystems could easily be upset by their interference," Hoffbeck said. "They began advocating a better system of fish culture than nature could contrive."

It started when Congress established the U.S. Commission on Fish and Fisheries in 1871, an agency that immediately advocated a stocking program to replace fish populations depleted by unrestricted fishing. The decision came on the heels of a discovery by two Ohio doctors who completed the first artificial fertilization of fish eggs in the United States,

The Minnesota Fish Commission, established three years later, followed a national policy to improve lakes by introducing even better fish than were naturally produced in Minnesota waters, Hoffbeck said.  "Back then the commissioners regarded northern pike as a calamity of nature and wanted the carnivorous species outlawed."

The first fish stocking effort came in 1874 when the state tried to stock 80,000 shad in the Mississippi River. The next year it attempted to stock salmon in Minnesota lakes—which included Otter Tail and Detroit Lakes. Both efforts failed.

In 1880, the Minnesota Fish Commission began stocking carp in state rivers and lakes.

Carp, Hoffbeck said, were considered the fish of the future because of their adaptability, their largely vegetable diet (better than the carnivorous northern pike) and their ability to grow quickly. Raising carp as food and sport made perfect scientific sense.

"The United States Fish Commission conducted a systematic effort to stock carp from coast to coast," Hoffbeck said. "It was aided by the railroad companies, who had a financial interest in bringing immigrants to Minnesota, in promoting tourism and in transporting fish."

By 1880, Hoffbeck said, the U.S. Fish Commission constructed the U.S. Carp Ponds in Washington, D.C., where so many young fry hatched that carp became a political gold mine. Congressmen from all states distributed carp to constituents as a form of political patronage.

The carp crusade gained more momentum in 1984 when the Minnesota fish agency received 9,000 prized German carp from Washington, D.C., and stocked them in 90 lakes and rivers. The next year, 3,105 German carp were stocked in the state. Even a doctor in Fergus Falls tried stocking carp in Lake Alice.

Meanwhile, The Waldorf and Astoria hotels in New York City listed "Carp in Rhine Wine Sauce" on their menus. It cost 50 cents.

By 1890, Minnesota’s carp population needed no more state help, Hoffbeck said. Instead, the fish commission switched to stocking lakes with walleye fry, putting 15 million of them in Minnesota waters in 1892.

But trouble was brewing. A fish that 17th-century English angler-philosopher Izaak Walton called "the queen of the rivers, a stately, a good and a very subtle fish"  was becoming known as a "trash" or "rough" fish in Minnesota.

"A 20-pound female can produce as many as 2 million eggs annually," Hoffbeck said. "And one of the most remarkable characteristics of carp is their rapid growth rate, gaining one to 3 pounds a year. They can live up to 20 to 25 years and are tolerant of both fair and foul waters."

Carp became common in lakes and rivers south of a line drawn from Moorhead to Duluth, Hoffbeck said. But because of the colder, clearer waters, they never became too troublesome north of that line.

Today, carp swim throughout the Otter Tail and Pelican Rapids lake systems, according to Mark Henry, a Department of Natural Resources fisheries specialist headquartered in Fergus Falls. But they don’t proliferate here like they do in southern Minnesota lakes and rivers, he said.

The problem: carp are bottom feeders, rooting for plants, insects and crustaceans in the silty, mucky lake bottoms where they stir up sediment. Worst hit were the fertile southern Minnesota lakes, already suffering from agricultural and residential runoff. By rooting about, the carp made the already murky water even more opaque, blocking sunlight from aquatic plants that stabilize the lake bottom and provide oxygen and habitat for game fish, waterfowl and water insects.

 "Within a decade," Hoffbeck said, "carp became a despised fish species."

Anglers demanded the extermination of all carp from the state. Duck hunters claimed carp were eating vegetation that waterfowl needed. Minnesota wildlife officials designated carp as its "deadly enemies," declaring that the state was "Fighting with all her might to rid the inland waters of German carp and suckers."

The Fish Commission first fought carp with nets, Hoffbeck said. Starting in 1909 it issued winter seining licenses to remove carp from key lakes and rivers, mostly in southern waters connected to the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers.  Netters were allowed to sell the fish, and most were shipped live to New York in specially built railway tank cars.

But netting didn’t work. From the 1950s through 1979, the DNR employed seining crews to capture carp before stocking game fish. But it failed because enough carp escaped to quickly repopulate the lakes.

Controlling carp, Hoffbeck said, had became as difficult as controlling weeds.

"Basically, we’ve learned to live with them," says Charles Anderson, a DNR fisheries research supervisor.

Today, the Minnesota DNR occasionally (maybe once a year) poisons-off some shallow southern lakes infested with carp and bullheads by using a chemical called rotenone, a fish-asphyxiating chemical derived from the bark of a South American tree. Biologists then restock the lake with game fish.

DNR biologists contend that rehabilitation is sometimes necessary to reverse decades of ecological degradation. Though carp and bullheads only worsen already damaged lakes, removing them is essential to restoring the ecological balance.

The DNR also uses barriers, in some cases, to prevent carp from moving between certain lakes and waterways.

Oddly enough, Hoffbeck said, the story of carp came full circle during the past two decades when new immigrants from Asia provided a ready market for a fish that most North American’s wouldn’t touch. Two billion Chinese can’t be all wrong.

Now, Hoffbeck said, carp are becoming popular among some fishermen, who’ve developed dozens of web sites dedicated to the sport of carp fishing. The fish are strong fighters and can be a challenge to land. Corn kernels or dough balls are the best bait, fished on the bottom.

The carp fishermen’s motto: "Carpe carpio," which translates as "seize the carp".

(Hoffbeck’s project has been supported in part by a grant from the Minnesota Historical Society with funds provided by the State of Minnesota.)

"I’m optimistic ," says Dr. David Crockett, MSU’s vice president for administrative affairs.

Crockett took over administration of the budget in 1994 after the university stumbled into a financial crisis that required an immediate cut of $3.75 million and the equivalent of 73 full-time positions.

"We’ve had additional budget cuts since then," he said. "But we’re slowly replacing positions we had to leave vacant during our budget crisis. Now we’re in a good position to tackle the future without being highly preoccupied with funding."

The university will have an overall $41.7 million operating budget, Crockett said, with enough wiggle room to cover immediate contingencies. The total MSU budget—including revenues from the residence halls, student union, bookstore and other non-allocated income--amounts to $63.3 million.

But to meet financial obligations, these assumptions must be met:

* MSU’s tuition must increase by 3 percent (the Minnesota State Colleges and University’s Board of Trustees approved that increase early in August).
* Enrollment must increase by 3 percent this year (early projections look even better than that.)
* MSU must receive all fenced appropriations from MnSCU—designated for specific purposes ranging from technology, equipment and library expenditures to repairs and replacements.
* All labor contracts settle at or below the tentative Inter Faculty Organization settlement, which has yet to be ratified. A tentative settlement reached this week provides for salary increases averaging 3.7 percent this year and 4.7 percent next year. The IFO represents more than 3,000 faculty at Minnesota’s seven state universities.
* And that health care cost increases must be limited to $1.1 million over the next two years. MSU, which pays about $2.5 million in health care costs now, expects increases of 23 percent ($550,000) in Jan. 1, 2000 and another 23 percent increase ($660,000) in Jan. 1, 2001, bringing the total health care package to $3.6 million in two years.

"Our operating budget actually shows a projected $461,000 deficit for fiscal year 2000, which began on July 1 of this year," Crockett said. "But we anticipated that last year and built up a reserve in excess of $500,000, which we’ll carry forward this year. So we’re covered."

Also included in  MSU’s budget this year is a $900,000 reduction in MnSCU allocations, a fallout from enrollment declines suffered by the system last year. Because enrollment at MnSCU’s 36 institutions dropped 4.3 percent last year, mostly due to confusion over conversion from quarters to semesters, the system lost $17.5 million in allocations from the Legislature.

"So even though MSU’s enrollment went up nearly 4 percent last year, we had to share in the loss throughout the system," Crockett said. "I think we can recapture  some of that this year if the enrollment here and at  other MnSCU schools increases this year. At least that’s what we’re anticipating."

MSU Pres. Roland Barden, however, is taking a conservative approach. He plans to cut $100,000 from this year’s $340,000 strategic initiatives budget and $100,000 from the $560,000 non-recurring supplies and equipment budget.

Depending on all the variables, Crockett said, some of that may be restored during the year if all our assumptions prove accurate.

Meanwhile, next year MSU will begin a six-year effort to set aside 3 percent of its operating budget in a reserve account, a mandate set by MnSCU.

"Overall," Crockett said, "I’m more comfortable going into this year than I’ve been in the past five years. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel."

During the procession, faculty in academic garb and students with departmental banners will march through the mall accompanied by the MSU wind ensemble.

Friestad, 26, teaches 10th grade social studies in his hometown of Valley City, N.D. He took first place in this year’s Great American Think-Off, an annual philosophical debate sponsored by the New York Mills Cultural Center. It was broadcast around the world on C-SPAN.

Following the debate on the topic, "Which is more dangerous: science or religion?" Friestad was flown to New York for a live interview on NBC’s Today Show.

Besides the addresses by Friestad and Barden, freshmen scholarship recipients will  be recognized during the program.

The campus is then invited to an ice cream social at 3:45 p.m on the mall.

Among the "how to" sessions scheduled: getting started; interviewing family members; writing and publishing your family history research; using the computer and the Internet in your research; creating a memory book for someone entering a nursing home; using LDS Family History Center resources; doing Norwegian and German research; and using census and folklore in your research.

Peggy Smetana, who teaches genealogy for the Minot Public School District and performs heir research for estate settlements, is presenting four sessions: The Myth of the Black Irish, Wearing of the Plaid (Celtic), Ireland at a Glance, and Czech Your Roots.
Father William Sherman, an associate professor of sociology and author of several books on migration and immigration, will present two sessions on Midwest. He’ll also talk on "The Power and the Pattern"  during the noon luncheon and present family history research awards in three categories.

An exhibit hall with booths for more that 20 organizations and vendors is open throughout the day.

Workshop cost is $25 and includes the noon luncheon for anyone who pre-registers. (Registrants at the door are not guaranteed lunch.) More information about the workshop is available on the Internet at www.moorhead.msus.edu/heritage/xxiv.htm or  by contacting the MSU Continuing  Studies office at (218) 236-2182.

The Family History Workshop is sponsored by the Heritage Education Commission of Moorhead State University.

"Don’t get me wrong, I learned a lot as a home economist," she said. "I taught it for two years. It just wasn’t for me."

As a result, she shed her past and started pounding nails and pouring concrete with her husband, building a construction company in Casper, Wyo.

Today, Dr. Norma Andersen is a construction management professor at Moorhead State University, one of a handful of American women who teach construction at the university level. And she’s a vocal supporter of the construction profession and women in construction.

"The opportunities for women in this industry are tremendous," said Andersen, a Certified Professional Constructor with 12 years of commercial and industrial construction experience. "Today, women hold only about 2.5 percent of jobs in skilled trades such as carpentry, plumbing and welding. It was 2 percent in 1986. Not much of a gain. The percentages are even smaller for women in construction management jobs."

But the industry predicts a shortage of some 250,000 craft and management workers, according to the National Center for Construction Education. And a recent National Association of Home Builders survey concluded that the shortage of skilled workers ranks as the most serious problem facing contractors.

It’s a gap that could be filled by women, Andersen said, if they’re willing to trade their power suits for blue jeans and break into what may be the last bastion of male-dominated work.

The problem,  Anderson said: "Construction has the stereotype as a dirty, redneck career field where jobs are predominantly held by men. To be honest, that’s just not very appealing to many women."

Even the management side of the construction trade can’t shake that blue-collar image. "Women who seek professional careers in non-traditional areas may opt for degrees in engineering or architecture," she said. "But the concept of construction management is still tainted by the stereotypes."

Nevertheless, according to an industry survey, the number of women in the construction workforce is up nearly 10 percent in the last three years, a likely  product of a boom in the nation’s construction industry.

That boom is promising for MSU’s construction management program, which was recently accredited by the American Council for Construction Education and is now among only 80 similarly accredited four-year college programs in the nation. More than 70 students major in construction management at MSU, including 10 women. More impressive, the program boasts nearly a 100 percent placement rate with starting salaries averaging $35,000 a year.

And with women making up 65 percent of the MSU student population, Andersen is looking forward to the challenge of recruiting some to the construction management program.

The construction industry, Andersen said, employs more than five million workers. And while the jobs may be hard and dirty at times, it offers good paying jobs that average more than $15 an hour nationwide, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Management jobs start even higher. "Some construction managers oversee projects that rival the responsibilities held by CEOs of major American corporations," Andersen said.

Still, she said, the construction trades are perceived as a low-tech job in a high-tech world, a career path that often looses out to the prestige of a college education or a white-collar profession. Even young men today are shying away from getting their hands dirty in favor jobs service and computer industries jobs.

It never bothered her. Andersen learned from her husband, who now teaches construction management at North Dakota State University. They both pursued doctoral degrees after leaving the construction industry in the 1980s and have been teaching ever since.

"Skilled workers and managers are absolutely essential to maintain the infrastructure and economy of the nation,"  Andersen said. "If we don’t do something significant to increase the number of young people going into the trades and construction management, the nation won’t be able to keep pace with building demands into the next millennium."

Simple demographics show a decline in just the sheer number of 18-22 year olds—the prime entry-level age for construction craft workers and college students.

 "Not everyone wants to sit behind a desk or computer for eight to 10 hours a day," Andersen said. "You get a certain satisfaction when you can actually see a job you’ve completed."

Aggravating the shortage of workers is the disdain American society puts on manual labor.

 "Just because you wear a tee-shirt and jeans to work doesn’t mean you’re stupid, "Andersen said. The building  artisans in Europe were once highly revered. Today’s construction workers are also highly trained and skilled craftsmen. "But they just don’t get the respect they deserve," she said.

One of the biggest hurdles for women in construction is just trying to co-exist with the dominant male culture. "There’s the language, the  staring eyes, the jokes, the comments," Andersen said. "It’s a fact. Sometimes life isn’t fair and sometimes women have to acquire a hard shell, not letting every little thing bother them."

Just ask Stacey Loizeaux, the only female construction worker on the management crew of Controlled Demolition, Inc., which imploded MSU’s Neumaier Hall this fall: "There's no such thing as a male-dominated industry.  Your own perception of your abilities and talents is the most important thing you can establish. Be confident in your competence and you coworkers will respect you, regardless of your gender."

Which brings up another mounting issue in construction today: training.

"It doesn’t help that high schools have been cutting their vocational education programs or that unions, once one of the largest trainers of skilled workers, have lost some of their power," Andersen said. "But if  you make the choice of going into construction, you’d like the be able to acquire the skills and education to move up in your career."

Andersen said there are several basic approaches to entering a construction career field. "Start out in one of the trades either as an apprentice or as an on-the-job trainee, start at a technical college, or go right into a four-year college program," she said. "But what’s important is gaining work experience during your two or four year college experience. Students should also be able to articulate their work experience and education into a four-year degree."

That’s part of the concept behind the new 2+2 programs that link  technical colleges with four-year campuses. Students study their first two years at a technical school, and the last two years at a four-year college.

"We have also need to start giving college credit for documented work experience," Andersen said. "It only makes sense. Education needs to recognize that the classroom is not the only learning environment."

The construction industry has a lot of work to do if it wants to attract more workers, Andersen said. "It’s got to learn to tie construction experience to education. It has to recruit women and minorities. It amazes me that the industry hasn’t tapped into the welfare-to-work program."

Meanwhile, Sept. 5-11 is being recognized as the second annual Women in Construction Week, designed to increase the importance and  visibility of women in the construction industry. It’s sponsored by the National Association of Women in Construction.