Report to State Board of Higher Education December 2015
President’s Column
Tisa Mason, Ed.D., CAE
Distinctively VCSU!
Comments are excerpted from
those presented at a Dec. 2,
2015, all-campus meeting.
During the past year I have
come to learn more about the
unique qualities that make
Valley City State University “Distinctively VCSU.”
As I approach my first anniversary, I am even more
excited to have the privilege of working collectively
across campus to serve our students and our state in
alignment with our mission. Our accomplishments are
impressive and only matched by the love and care in
which we pursue excellence.
Here is a brief list of “headlines” from the semester—
headlines, which I believe make our university
“Distinctively VCSU!”
• We were recognized as the No. 1 Public Regional
College in the Midwest by U.S. News and named a
U.S. News “Best College” for the 18th consecutive
year.
• This fall we registered a record headcount of 1,422
very distinct VCSU students.
• We’ve been working hard to improve our retention
rate, and in the last four years we’ve raised it from
64 to almost 71 percent—and we’re not done yet!
• We’ve strengthened the residential life experience
through improved residential facilities and
programming; we’re bringing more students back to
live in the residence halls.
• The visit team for our teacher education program
review this fall—by NCATE/CAEP (National Council for
Accreditation of Teacher Education/Council for the
Accreditation of Educator Preparation)—were glowing
in their praise for the way we prepare our future
teachers!
• The Higher Learning Commission underlined
our quality with their approval of our fourth-year
Assurance Review.
• Our faculty and staff successfully embraced a peer
review Program Optimization Process (POP) to further
enhance quality through a culture of evidence-based,
data-driven decisions.
• The Great Plains STEM Education Center at VCSU
received nearly $300,000 from the Department of
Public Instruction.
• A new online catalog and curriculum management
system, Leepfrog, was implemented.
• Five technology mini-grants were awarded to
faculty to enhance teaching and learning. Those
grants funded GoPro cameras, Knowledge Matters
gamification simulation, GoReact software for public
speaking, Internet of Things, and Swivl Robot and
cloud service.
• This fall our student athletes, who develop character
and competence in the classroom and on the
field, received a host of honors: 3 NAIA National
Championship qualifiers in cross country, 9 NAIA
Scholar-Athletes, 1 NAIA National Player of the
Week, 14 NSAA (North Star Athletic Association) AllConference athletes, 8 NSAA Players of the Week.
• Our new students tied over 70 blankets and packed
170 food bags for the Barnes County Backpack
Program during their Welcome Week orientation,
introducing them to our campus value of service to
community.
• The State Board of Higher Education approved a
second master’s degree at VCSU—the Master of Arts
in Teaching (MAT).
• Our Valley City Health, Wellness and Physical
Education Center is under construction; it’s a
very visible symbol of our strong town-and-gown
relationship.
• Faculty and staff came together to ensure that our
30 students unable to be home on Thanksgiving had
a traditional dinner complete with their VCSU family!
• Facilities Services employee Drew Storbeck
embraced our commitment to strong financial
stewardship by saving VCSU more than $10,000 on
the purchase of floor coverings for Graichen Gym.
Our employees look out for our best interest—and
that is distinctively VCSU.
There are so many strong attributes that make us
distinctive. One core value has really stood out to me,
and that is our focus on innovation defined in these
terms: We are flexible, creative, and free to try new
things. We have a strong work ethic, positive attitude,
and open mind. We embrace change.
So what have I learned about VCSU this past year? That
“the cupboards are full” with great students, talented
faculty, and caring staff, and that we live our values.
That’s “Distinctively VCSU”—another great day to be a
Viking!
Staff Senate report
Kaleen Peterson
VCSU Staff Senate is in the
midst of administering our
second Employee Satisfaction
Survey. We were encouraged
to see VCSU’s fourth-year
Assurance Review from the
Higher Learning Commission
positively comment on the first
time we did this survey back in
March 2015.
It was well received because the results were
disseminated to campus employees, broadband group
meetings were held to discuss the issues, and staff and
faculty actually saw immediate changes based on the
survey. Staff Senate’s main goal is to prove that we are
using the anonymous comments from this survey to
advise our direction for the future. At last count for the
survey currently in progress, over 60 staff had weighed
in on the “pulse” of our campus climate. Clearly staff
are interested, engaged, and wanting to participate to
make VCSU an even better workplace.
The Viking Pride Committee, originally a Staff Senate
subcommittee, is transitioning to an ad hoc campus
committee made up of faculty and staff. We are
excited to see the new ideas and activities that come
from this unique group which has the united goal of
strengthening campus pride. We anticipate increased
buy-in from campus constituents since this committee
is no longer made up of just staff members.
Our new Difference Makers campaign has gotten off the
ground and staff seem to be embracing the concept of
the quick thank-you. Staff Senate provided each office
with small, blank notes that say, “You are a Difference
Maker!” Anyone can jot a simple note of thanks or
encouragement for a coworker and deliver it by campus
mail or in person, signed or anonymously. We hope this
is a lasting and continuous piece of our campus culture
which inspires a positive working environment.
With Christmas break fast approaching, VCSU staff
have decorated their offices and many are preparing for
suppers with colleagues and floor pot lucks to celebrate
the season. We are staying busy supporting our
students during their preparation for finals and sending
them home for a few weeks to spend time with their
families. We look forward to seeing them back at VCSU
happy and healthy in the New Year.
Faculty Senate REPORT
Anthony Dutton
We are wrapping up VCSU’s
125th anniversary term, and
at any opportunity that I can
reflect on historical change
or continuity, I like to indulge
myself.
Frankly, the season lends
itself to that air of nostalgia,
too, with the rush to the end of the fall semester
tempered by the two big holiday seasons that flank it.
Our national holiday of giving thanks made me think
about the colleagues and their predecessors who built
this school, literally and metaphorically, with gratitude
for their dedication to VCSU and their commitment to
the students. The end of term and the religious holidays
remind me of students, friends and family who are no
longer here, as well as those who will gather again,
soon.
Rarely does a December pass without one or two former
students stopping in to walk the halls, reminisce, and
pop in to say hello to a few professors. They must do
it to satisfy their own sense of nostalgia, little knowing
how gratifying it is to the faculty who still remember
them.
There is a renewed element of nostalgia that VCSU will
experience this December. For the first time, Valley City
State will hold a fall commencement for graduates,
and while the practice is new, the site will be one with
meaning. This December the ceremony will be back
near the heart of campus in the 92 year-old Graichen
Gymnasium.
Several years ago, the campus moved spring
commencements to the basketball fieldhouse, or the
Bubble, to accommodate the growing numbers of
students. Now, with even higher enrollment, spring
commencement bursting at the seams, and a desire
to give fall graduates a culminating experience at their
alma mater, President Mason has initiated the fall
ceremony and brought it to the iconic brick building so
central to VCSU.
Next year we will hold fall commencement in the more
intimate embrace of the newly renovated, 107 year-old
Vangstad Auditorium, another way that our traditions
continue to play a role in our future.
Student Senate report
Madelyn Zane
It is the end of another great
semester at VCSU, and
students are working hard
finishing homework and
projects, and studying for finals
week.
VCSU group takes plunge for Special
Olympics
Fourteen members of the Valley City State University
community, including students, faculty and staff, took the
Special Olympics Polar Plunge on Sunday, Nov. 15, at the
Jamestown (N.D.) Reservoir. The VCSU contingent raised
more than $3,000 for Special Olympics North Dakota.
VCSU participants who jumped into the waters of the
reservoir included Jordan Bushaw, Chris Carpenter,
Tarah Cleveland, Emily Fenster, Kathleen Gallais, Jaycee
George, Shelby Johnson, Marissa Kirby, Gilbert Kuipers,
Brittany Roney, Michaela Scherr, Dean Schroeder, Oscar
Suniga and Jenna Wisk.
The VCSU effort was organized by the university’s
Student Senate, with Tarah Cleveland, senate treasurer,
leading the project.
To help my team of senators
celebrate the end of semester,
we gathered together and spent some time outside
meetings bonding over many food items.
Over this semester, I have learned so much about
people and working with people.
I have noticed that working with such a wide range of
students has made the Studnet Senate meeting fun,
entertaining, and wild.
The students have taught me so much about how
to lead a group of people. They have taught me that
leadership really does have to do with the engagement
of the other members. With having so many engaged
students, it made for smooth sailing in the meetings.
This semester has been an adventure for all of us—I am
sad to see it go.
Four Vikings named NSAA Champions of
Character
Four Valley City State University student-athletes have
been named NSAA Champions of Character by the North
Star Athletic Association.
Mychael Bruce (junior, San Tan Valley, Ariz.), Stephanie
Miller (senior, Esko, Minn.), Jenna Coghlan (senior, Valley
City, N.D.) and Malik Jackson (senior, Las Vegas, Nev.) all
earned the awards, representing their respective VCSU
fall sports: football, volleyball, women’s cross country
and men’s cross country.
Champions of Character awards are earned by
standout student-athletes who know, do and value
the right things in all areas of life. The five core values
of the NAIA Champions of Character program include
integrity, respect, responsibility, sportsmanship and
servant leadership.
Each NSAA fall sports head coach nominated a
recipient for the NSAA Champions of Character award.
Goodman, Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism at
Kent State University; and Frank LoMonte, executive
director of the Student Press Law Center, among many
others.
Listopad and Heitkamp also gave comments,
with Heitkamp congratulating the New Voices Act
supporters and offering her support and insight into
maneuvering through Congressional channels for
federal legislative action. “Many great movements
have started with students,” she said.
VCSU’s Listopad received a Hugh M. Hefner First
Amendment Award at a reception at the Playboy
Mansion in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2015, in
recognition of his efforts in support of the John Wall
New Voices Act.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (right) visits with Sue Skalicky,
journalism adviser at Bismarck Legacy High School, about
censorship of student journalists.
The New Voices Act is named in honor of the late
John Wall, a high school teacher and North Dakota
legislator who died in 2014. Wall, a 1970 VCSU
alumnus, served five terms in the North Dakota House
following retirement after 34 years teaching English
and journalism at Wahpeton (N.D.) High School and
Sargent Central High School in Forman, N.D.
Sen. Heitkamp meets with Listopad, New
Voices supporters on campus
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp met with supporters of the John
Wall New Voices Act of North Dakota (HB 1471) on the
campus of Valley City State University on Tuesday, Nov.
24.
The John Wall New Voices Act protects high school and
college student journalists from direct and indirect
censorship. Since the bill passed the North Dakota
House and Senate unanimously and was signed
in to law in April 2015, advocates in more than 20
states have been working to replicate North Dakota’s
legislation.
Organized by Steven Listopad, VCSU assistant
professor and director of student media, the event
brought Heitkamp together with a group of more
than 20 New Voices supporters in the VCSU Student
Center’s Norway Room and a dozen others via video
conference.
Those assembled heard from Masaki Ova, assistant
editor of the Jamestown (N.D.) Sun and one of the
original student authors of the New Voices Act;
Lucy Dalglish, dean of the Philip Merrill College
of Journalism at the University of Maryland; Mark
Larry Woiwode (left) and Gregory Brister, VCSU assistant
professor, pose prior to Woiwode’s Dec. 3 reading.
N.D. poet laureate Woiwode at VCSU
Larry Woiwode, North Dakota poet laureate, read
from his works in VCSU’s Theatre 320 in McFarland
Hall on Dec. 3. Woiwode read one of his poems and a
selection from a novel he’s working on; he then fielded
questions from the audience and did a book-signing
session.
Gregory Brister, Ph.D., assistant professor of English;
the Lecturers and Readers Committee; and the
Department of Language and Literature hosted the
event.