Dr. Mark Salisbury

Dr. Mark Salisbury, a program director and professor at the University of New Mexico, will become the new dean of the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling at St. Thomas on Aug. 10.

Salisbury will succeed Dr. David Rigoni, announced Dr. Susan Huber, executive vice president and chief academic officer. Rigoni has served as interim dean since October, when Dr. Bruce Kramer stepped down because of his Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Huber said Salisbury’s experience on the New Mexico faculty since 1996 and his previous work for 11 years as a computer scientist at the Boeing Co. in Seattle provide him with a rich and interesting background for the dean’s position.

“Mark has been extremely creative and innovative in what he has done at New Mexico while teaching in and directing the university’s Organizational Learning and Instructional Technology program,” Huber said. “I expect that we will see the same characteristics in his work at St. Thomas and in strengthening the programs in our School of Education and Graduate School of Professional Psychology.”

Salisbury, 58, said the St. Thomas position appealed to him primarily because he saw an opportunity to help CELC grow in an extremely competitive environment.

“What is drawing me to St. Thomas is your reputation for being entrepreneurial and willing to look at issues outside the box,” he said. “It is time for us to step forward, make connections and develop partnerships as we re-imagine what form education and professional psychology should take in the 21st century.”

He also has a St. Thomas connection through his wife, Joan. She is a Minnesota native who earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and her master’s degree in human resource development at St. Thomas in 1990. She met Salisbury at Boeing and works in web-based training for Intel. They have three children: Luke, 14; Jake, 12; and Anya, 11.

Salisbury is a native of Astoria, Ore., where the Columbia River enters the Pacific Ocean. He has degrees from the Oregon College of Education (1978, Bachelor of Science in secondary education); Western Oregon State College (1982, Master of Arts in Teaching in economics); and the University of Oregon (1985, Master of Science in Computer and Information Science and 1986, Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction).

Worked at Boeing after graduate school

He was a graduate teaching fellow in the education and the computer and information science departments at Oregon while pursuing his graduate degrees. Boeing hired him in 1985 and he held several positions over the next 11 years, developing software to improve human performance and splitting his time between research and development efforts and commercial products.

“I loved my job at Boeing,” he said, “but after 11 years I had made a ‘lap’ through the company, working in most of the major divisions, and I thought I might move on and do what I was trained for – the life of a professor. That’s how I ended up at New Mexico and in Albuquerque.”

Salisbury is a full professor and directed the Organizational Learning and Instructional Technology program for more than a decade. He describes it as an interdisciplinary program that evolved to the point where it moved last year from the College of Education to the recently renamed College of the University Libraries and Learning Sciences, and the program will have a new name this fall: Organizational Information and Learning Services.

“I have done my lap here at New Mexico in teaching in and developing the program,” he said. “I figure I have another good lap left in me, and I am excited about the opportunity at St. Thomas.”

Salisbury also leveraged his skills after arriving at New Mexico by founding Vitel Inc., which has developed knowledge management systems for federal agencies, national laboratories and public utility companies. His experiences with Boeing and Vitel have helped him in the classroom.

“I liken it to a practicing heart surgeon,” he said in a New Mexico Campus News story in 2002. “I do heart surgery in the morning and then I teach in the afternoon. That helps me to be the teacher I want to be. I think this theory-into-practice approach is of value to the students, too.”

Salisbury has published a book – iLearning: How to Create an Innovative Learning Organization (2009) – and has written dozens of articles related to knowledge management in engineering, business and education journals. He has made presentations at conferences sponsored by organizations such as the American Society for Training and Development, International Society for Performance Improvement and Society for Applied Learning Technology. He is an editorial board member and reviewer for the International Journal of Knowledge-Based Organizations, Journal of Management Learning and Journal of Educational Computing Research.

Huber thanks Rigoni, search committee

Huber thanked Rigoni for his service as interim dean. Rigoni had been an associate dean since 2006 and a faculty member since 2000, and will return to teaching.

“Dave stepped into a challenging situation at a delicate time and performed admirably,” Huber said. “I appreciate his can-do attitude.”

Huber also thanked members of the dean’s search committee, chaired by Dr. Terry Langan, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Committee members included Jackie Punch, chair of the CELC Board of Advisors, and Kim Herrema, Dr. David Jamieson, Dr. Donald LaMagdeleine, Dr. John Melick, Ea Porter, Dr. Karen Rogers, Dr. Patricia Stankovitch and Dr. Doug Warring from the CELC faculty and administration.

Dr. Christopher Puto

Dr. Susan Huber, executive vice president and chief academic officer, said she asked Puto and Gleason to remain in their positions because recent searches for their successors were not successful. The searches will be restarted later this summer.

Puto announced in February 2012 that he would step down as dean last June 30 and transition to full-time faculty member. He agreed to remain as dean during the 2012-13 academic year while the search for his successor was conducted. Witt/Kieffer, an executive search firm based in Oak Brook, Ill., will continue to assist St. Thomas in identifying candidates for the position.

Puto became dean in 2002 and holds the Opus Distinguished Chair. He directed the successful effort to earn accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. He also carried out the combination of graduate and undergraduate divisions into the College of Business, established a full-time day MBA program, doubled to 105 the number of full-time faculty members, opened Schulze and McNeely halls and revitalized the Family Business Center. Among the 449 AACSB-accredited schools, St. Thomas ranks No. 110 for its MBA program and No. 80 for its undergraduate programs.

Dr. Bruce Gleason

Huber appointed Gleason as interim director of the International Education Center last September. He is a tenured faculty member of the Department of Music, has taught at St. Thomas since 1999 and is a former director of Graduate Programs in Music Education.

Gleason has led concert tours of New England and Europe. He has been involved in music history research with government and military agencies, museums, universities, libraries and art galleries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, visiting 30 countries in the process.

Over the last several years, I saw an increasing number of technology news reports about a technology called MapReduce, first revealed by Google in a 2004 paper. In 2006, a group of software engineers created an open source version called Hadoop. This technology uses large clusters of computers, numbering into the thousands, to distribute data and processing. Hadoop is used by a number of very high profile companies, including eBay, Facebook, Yahoo! and Walmart. The technology can tolerate faults and restart tasks as needed. It is designed to efficiently handle terabytes and petabytes of data. Google’s original use was to process the giant index it creates after it crawls the Web in search of information, but it has since spawned applications in many other directions.

One of our adjunct instructors, Gary Berosik, had experience with Hadoop at his company, Thomson Reuters, and encouraged us to explore it. Last year, I attended a local Java user’s group meeting where the speaker from the company Cloudera described the technology and their experiences consulting with it, and that really opened my eyes to Hadoop’s potential. We had an unused computing cluster in our department, so with the help of a student, Harlan Bloom, we got Hadoop running on it. I then decided to teach this technology in my information retrieval course via individual virtual machines and also make the cluster available for student projects.

In today’s computer systems, most of our computing resources are blindingly fast (i.e. CPUs) and hugely abundant (i.e. memory and disk capacity). Moore’s Law predicts that these capabilities double every 18 to 24 months; however, disk access time and throughput have not kept pace with this exponential growth, and this is typically the performance bottleneck for most applications. We compensate by putting more memory in our computers so that we don’t have to access the disk drive as often. Hadoop, operating on a cluster of computers, takes advantage not only of parallel processing but also of parallel disk access. Moving data on and off disk drives in parallel helps alleviate this historic performance bottleneck, and so enables efficient processing of huge amounts of data stored on these disk drives.

Recently, CPU speed is also being strangely affected by Moore’s Law. Instead of racing up the gigahertz ladder, the speed of an individual CPU core is tapering off, so the industry is responding by offering multiple CPU cores to keep pace over time. This, in addition to the disk bottleneck changes, is causing the software engineering community to rethink architecture and programming languages to respond to these changes. At the highest level, I am interested in how traditional applications change under this new paradigm, and what new applications now are enabled by it.

I have two sons. My eldest, Justin, is a junior at St. Thomas, majoring in actuarial science, economics and statistics. My youngest, Nathan, is a senior in high school. He will be attending St. Thomas to major in neuroscience. To help him make his college decision, he asked to attend a neuroscience course, so I found one – taught by Dr. Jadin Jackson, a clinical faculty member in the Biology Department – for him to visit. Afterward, while we discussed Nathan’s academic options, Jadin and I found we had some things in common, including degrees in electrical engineering. Over lunch, he described a computing problem that was getting in the way of his neuroscience research, so we teamed up to see if Hadoop could help him out. Meanwhile, one of my graduate students, Ashish Singh, wanted to work on Hadoop with me in an independent study course, so we decided that he would work on this real-world problem.

During Jadin’s post-doctoral work, he acquired a lot of data from electrodes that were implanted in rat brains. These signals represent individual neuronal activity in a brain region called the hippocampus, which correspond to the rat’s position in space. When the rat finds itself at a tee in the maze and has to decide whether to move left or right to get its reward, the signals reflect the rat’s thinking about moving down the left path, then thinking about moving down the right path, then deciding which route to take and then physically moving. Amazingly, sometimes this signal pattern is generated while the rat is sleeping, so he can see a rat “dreaming” about moving in the maze!

Jadin needs to digitally signal process these signals using a mathematical technique called wavelet analysis, which can pull out both frequency and time information from the neuronal signals. The huge volume of data and amount of computation needed, however, overwhelm his individual computer; furthermore, he would like to have all his processed data available online to query and explore. We hope to show that this processing can be efficiently performed using the parallelism available on a Hadoop cluster, and that the results efficiently can be accessed with a data warehouse component called Hive, which leverages Hadoop. Jadin and I have identified other pre- and post-processing steps that we can explore in future projects in this cross-discipline area called computational neuroscience.

Both Jadin and I enjoy crossing academic boundaries to engage in interdisciplinary work. For me, it is a chance to learn about a new field from an expert and to see if I can apply the knowledge in my own domain to someone else’s real-world problem. This is far more interesting and challenging than contriving a problem. During this process, I also get to deepen my understanding of the MapReduce model and the Hadoop technology, which allows me to share my experiences more effectively with my students.

As another example of how these projects can spawn other activities, I have teamed with another member of our department, Dr. Saeed Rahimi, to create a new special topics course in big data for fall 2012. The course will include these technologies and several others that have gained traction in the industry to deal with the increasingly massive amounts of data and the desire to efficiently analyze them and turn them into information. These technologies provide alternatives to traditional SQL-based relational databases and are better optimized for the fast-growing amount of unstructured and semi-structured data.

In our department, we recently decided to form a Big Data Center of Excellence to integrate our faculty expertise in database, data warehousing, data mining, operating systems, computer architecture, information retrieval and business intelligence around this new area. Our goals are to spawn further research activity within our department, between St. Thomas departments, with other universities and with industry. This effort will influence the curriculum for our existing courses and future ones, including homework assignments, class projects, independent study opportunities and thesis topics. I think this is a good example of using applied research to further our twin goals of maintaining currency and competency in the classroom. This effort is also a good example of a traditional strength of the Graduate Programs in Software, which is to quickly respond to the ever-present changes in the information technology industry, bringing these technologies into the classroom for our students, which in turn benefits their current or future employers.

Bradley Rubin is associate professor at the Graduate Programs in Software program.

From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

Thanks to the efforts of some University of St. Thomas geography students, members of the St. Thomas community can get a nice deal on an annual pass for the NiceRide bike-sharing program.

More than 1,500 NiceRide bicycles are located at 170 stations in the Twin Cities, including four on or adjacent to the St. Thomas campus in St. Paul.

Mitchell Schaps was one of the geography students who helped develop the NiceRide bicycle discount program for the St. Thomas campus.

An annual pass to the NiceRide program is $65, but St. Thomas students, staff and faculty receive a $55 discount.

The annual pass allows you to take a bike when you want one, and return it to any station in the system when you are done riding. Owned and operated by a nonprofit organization, NiceRide is the second-largest bike-sharing system in the United States and recently passed the half-million-ride milestone.

Coupons for the discounted annual NiceRide subscriptions are available at TommieCentral, the information desk located on the first floor of Anderson Student Center. For more information about how NiceRide works, click here. If you are on Facebook, you can visit the Nice Ride at UST page.

The coupons will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. The passes are good for one year from the date of purchase.

To see a map of the NiceRide stations in the Twin Cities, click here.

On St. Thomas’ St. Paul campus, you’ll find the NiceRide stations:

• at Grand and Cretin avenues, just outside the east entrance to the Anderson Parking Facility;
• on the east side of Cleveland Avenue just north of Laurel Avenue (across the street from the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas);
• on the walkway between Anderson Student Center and O’Shaughnessy Stadium;
• 0n Mississippi River Boulevard near the monument at the end of Summit Avenue.

Half a dozen NiceRide stations are located along Grand Avenue. You’ll also find them at St. Catherine University and in Highland Village.

Half a dozen NiceRide stations also are located within a few blocks of St. Thomas’ downtown Minneapolis campus. The two closest are on Hennepin Avenue between 10th and 11th streets, and on 10th Street between the Nicollet Mall and Marquette Avenue.

Four NiceRide stations are located on the university’s St. Paul campus, and several are within a few blocks of the Minneapolis campus.

The grant to fund the NiceRide program at St. Thomas was written by students in Dr. Paul Lorah’s Conservation Geography class. They are: Malia Foster, Lisa Miller, Andrew Henke, Mitchell Schaps, Nick Yannarelly, Jay Kidd, Sonkaley Nelson, Martin Tow, Lauren Reuss, Nicole Elbert, Julie Rech, Phil Gebauer, Emily Jorgensen and Tou Lor.

The $20,000 grant is funded by St. Thomas’ Campus Sustainability Fund, which supports the university’s commitment to become climate neutral by 2035 as outlined by the UST Climate Action Plan‌‎.

In addition to providing more than 600 discounted NiceRide subscriptions, the project has an educational component: Students will analyze how members of the St. Thomas community use the NiceRide system and then estimate reductions in carbon emissions that may result from using bicycles rather than cars.

My work at the Opus College of Business is not my first career, but I have been fascinated with intellectual property law since I wrote my first research paper on fair use in copyright as an undergrad. I’d planned to proceed directly to law school, but because I had developed an interest in the publishing industry, I spent my first ten years after college working in college textbook and scholarly publishing. It was this work, including negotiating international subsidiary rights and distribution agreements, which made me realize the importance of understanding foreign law in international business practices. I pursued my J.D. in the early 1990s, focusing on private and public international law and intellectual property, and practiced with a boutique business law firm in Minneapolis after graduating. It was during that time that I began teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas.

I love both teaching and research. My research always follows along two tracks: pedagogy and the scholarship of teaching and comparative law. The first stream helped me to develop my teaching philosophy and what I believe are appropriate projects to prepare undergraduates and graduate students for business careers. I’ve presented this work at conferences in the United States and Europe and am delighted my jury simulation has been used in colleges and universities across the United States, including Wharton’s M.B.A. program.

My substantive research has focused on comparative law in the digital age. As people and businesses interact on the internet, knowing foreign laws and the philosophical and  historical underpinnings for those laws becomes increasingly important. My first big scholarly piece delineated what U.S.-based multinational employers with operations in the EU needed to know about the European Union Data Privacy Directive. European views on privacy differ substantially from those in the United States. European Law gives people a fundamental human right in data about themselves that protects them from unauthorized processing. This means that businesses and employers must follow very specific rules if they are going to use someone’s personal information, including obtaining permission to do so. Because of my law school training, my co-writers gave me the tasks of researching the historical basis for the Data Privacy Directive and explaining the requirements of the EU law, including how the law varies from country-to- country. The work was important to me professionally, not only because it was published in a top journal, but also because I learned a great deal about European Union law. Data privacy also became a key topic in the undergraduate international business law class when we studied comparative privacy law and how differing perceptions on privacy impact how businesses operate.

My research then shifted to international and comparative intellectual property law. For companies based in the United States their intellectual property (patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets) are often their most valuable asset. Intellectual property law, long considered esoteric and outside public scrutiny, has become more and more controversial as millions worldwide download their favorite music and movies without paying the copyright owners and as patented technologies expand to include genetics and inventions implemented on computers or software. Increasingly, the international community has mandated a certain level of harmonization in national laws.

I began my comparative intellectual property work in the early 2000s, focusing on copyright in the digital era. Two World Intellectual Property Association treaties designed to address the issue of copyright infringement via the Internet recently had been transposed into national law. I completed one of the first comparative studies of the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the European Union Directive on Digital Copyright. That paper focused on some of the more draconian aspects of the laws, which circumscribe many of the uses we have come to expect, such as use for research, teaching, private use and news casting in instances where the digital content is protected by code.

For the last several years, my research has focused on patent law. I began this work with a marketing colleague in preparation for an international conference in Brazil. We compared the development of the pharmaceutical industries in Brazil and India based on how and when each country implemented World Trade Organization requirements for drug patents into their law. One of the most hotly debated issues in patent law has been the proliferation of patents for software and business methods. A colleague from the University of Florida and I recently have published the most comprehensive article on this side of the Atlantic comparing the U.S. approach to patenting software and business methods to how the issues are handled under European law in the European Patent Office, the United Kingdom and Germany. Last year, the United States passed the American Invents Act, our first comprehensive patent reform in almost 60 years. Shortly after the law was enacted, a group of scholars in the Academy of Legal Studies in Business invited me to provide a comparative law perspective in a book project designed to consider the impact the AIA will have on American businesses. Part of the impetus for the book is that much patent scholarship does not provide this kind of business orientation. My work considers changes in U.S. law that allow business competitors to challenge the validity of issued patents at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office without having to resort to costly litigation. The work compares the new U.S. system with that in operation in the European Patent Office, where post grant oppositions have been useful in weeding out bad patents. It also considers the U.S. system in light of national patent offices in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and China, which have abandoned their post grant review procedures in recent years.

My research in comparative and international law has opened a world of opportunities to me. Based on this research, I have been invited to teach in Russia, Hungary, France and Germany, and as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at Bene Suef University in Egypt. It also has led to other foreign travel, including Jordan, where I participated on a panel that considered the impact of culture on the development of intellectual property laws at the World Arbitration Forum on Intellectual Property. The forum was attended by academics, intellectual property lawyers and judges from around the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf.

Most recently, I traveled to Beijing, China, this year on a faculty development grant to speak with intellectual property scholars and practitioners. The opportunity to meet colleagues and practitioners from these countries, which are in the throes of developing patent laws appropriate to their cultures and economies in light of international norms, has been both fascinating and instructive and has helped me develop a sensitivity to how those issues play out in their laws.

According to my colleagues at the recent book colloquium, I am one of the leading experts in the academy on comparative intellectual property law writing in the United States. Because of its size and relative power in shaping global intellectual property law debates, some believe the United States has set the accepted, international standard for intellectual property protection. I don’t agree. There is much we can learn from how intellectual property laws function in other countries. In the creation of the America Invents Act, many looked to Europe when formulating post grant review procedures. In addition, as countries – such as China, India and Brazil – continue to develop as global economic engines, their laws also will develop in ways that best meet the needs of their economies. Because it is likely some of these countries, particularly China, will have a growing impact on the global intellectual property agenda, it is important to understand the economic and cultural norms driving changes in those countries.

I’ve been fortunate to have a number of very talented undergraduate, JD/MBA and law students involved in my work over the years. They have helped me with the discrete pieces of my comparative law research; moreover my comparative work has influenced my collaboration with students on their own research through a number of the Young Scholars and Collaborative Inquiry Grants and/or in their independent study courses.

Last year I worked with one of our legal studies in business students, directing her research on EU laws impacting social media. Her paper was selected as a finalist in the Academy of Legal Studies in Business’ student paper contest. She presented the paper at the academy’s national conference in New Orleans. This student has been accepted to the St. Thomas School of Law and it is my hope that this kind of research preparation will serve her well in graduate school. I hope to work with another law major during the coming academic year on a project that considers recent changes in China’s intellectual property laws.

Teaching is my family’s “business.” Both of my parents were teachers and the first generation in their families to attend college. They were my role models and played a pivotal role in my decision to become a professor. My dad was one of 13 children and the son of an immigrant from Slovenia. He was one of nine in his family to attend college and become educators. Education was the way he and his siblings moved toward the American dream. My mother also was the first in her immediate family to earn a college degree. She served as an inspiration as well. In addition to teaching, she became a researcher, writing one of the seminal works in listening communications. Both of my parents completed their undergraduate educations at private Catholic schools.

I am really proud to be following in their footsteps and that I’m able to teach and research at St. Thomas in the tradition I passed down to me by my parents. In the mid-1980s, while working in the publishing industry in Chicago, I wanted to teach at a college of business and had considered a Ph.D. in marketing at the time. My career, however, took me in a different direction. I’m absolutely delighted it has brought me to teaching in the Opus College of Business, where I have the opportunity to research the law in my areas of interest – areas that I believe will have an impact on the business community.

Susan Marsnik is associate professor of Ethics and Business Law at the Opus College of Business.

From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

The programs are free and offered in part to celebrate the center’s 40th year at St. Thomas. The center offers an extensive calendar of spring and fall semester short courses and educational programs that are tailored for those 50 and older.

No registration is required for the summer programs. Each will be held in Woulfe Alumni Hall on the third floor of Anderson Student Center, located at the corner of Summit and Cretin avenues.

The summer programs are:

“The Seductive Quality of the Music of Film” will be presented from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 5.

Dr. Christopher Kachian of the St. Thomas Music Department will discuss the purpose of film music and techniques that composers and directors employ to keep viewers entranced.

Kachian heads the Guitar Studies Program at St. Thomas and has given more than 500 performances in Japan, China, Africa, Cuba, Costa Rica, Peru and throughout Europe and North America.

“Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” will be presented from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 19.

The programs begins with Stanley Kubrick’s funny and thought-provoking 1963 film and ends with a discussion on the making of the film, its impact 50 years ago and its relevance today.

The discussion will be led by filmmaker James Snapko, who has taught film studies and filmmaking at St. Thomas since 2002.

“Psychology and Aging” will be presented from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 17.

Dr. Ben Denkinger of the Augsburg College Psychology Department will examine how our thinking, memory, socialization and acquired knowledge changes in the course of normal, healthy aging. In particular, he will discuss how different forms of intelligence and memory stay stable or fluctuate as we age, as well as some of the approaches to managing and accommodating these expected changes.

Denkinger is a cognitive and biological psychologist who specializes in age-related changes in memory and the perception of time.

They are members of the largest ordination class since 2005, when 15 men were ordained to serve as priests in the archdiocese.

All 10 attended the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity and earned Master of Divinity degrees. Over the past four years they participated in the Teaching Parish Program, spending time in a parish each week to participate in various aspects of pastoral service.

Those who will become priests Saturday are:

Deacon Leonard Andrie, 36, of Inver Grove Heights. He and his mother, Sandy, are parishioners at Inver Grove Heights’ St. Patrick parish. Andrie earned his bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Notre Dame before working in the field for five years in Minneapolis. He was also a school teacher in Virginia for two years. He then attended the University of St. Thomas, where he earned master’s degrees in Catholic studies, theology and divinity. His teaching parish was St. Odilia in Shoreview, and he spent time in Omaha, Mexico and Venezuela during his summers while in seminary. Andrie will celebrate his Mass of Thanksgiving at 5 p.m. Saturday, May 25, at St. Agatha Church in Coates.

Deacon Andrew Brinkman, 27, of Ann Arbor, Mich. His parents, Ronald and Christine, live in Ann Arbor, and his home parish is Minneapolis’ Church of St. Stephen. An avid skateboarder, Brinkman spent his years prior to seminary enjoying his passion for skateboarding as well as working at a pastry shop. He is intrigued by the potential of evangelizing on behalf of the environmental movement. Brinkman’s teaching parish is also the Church of St. Stephen, and it’s where he’ll celebrate his Mass of Thanksgiving at 11 a.m. Sunday, May 26.

Deacon John Drees, 26, of Shakopee. He and his parents, John and Marie, are parishioners at St. Mary of the Purification in Marystown. Drees enrolled in seminary soon after graduating from high school, and spent one summer doing hospital ministry in Grand Forks, N.D. His teaching parish was St. Pius X in White Bear Lake, and he will celebrate his Mass of Thanksgiving at 10 a.m. Sunday, May 26, at St. Mary of the Purification in Marystown.

Deacon Joah Ellis, 26, of Blaine. He and his parents, Daniel and Carrie Ellis, are parishioners at the Church of the Epiphany in Coon Rapids. After graduating from high school, Ellis worked one summer for the Anoka County Parks and Recreation Department before enrolling in the seminary that fall. As a young boy, he got to know many priests over dinners at his home, which often were followed by games of pick-up basketball. His teaching parish was the Church of St. Timothy in Maple Lake, and he will celebrate his Mass of Thanksgiving at 11 a.m. Sunday, May 26, at the Church of the Epiphany.

Deacon Spencer Howe, 26, of North Oaks. He and his parents, Jeffrey and Jeanette, are parishioners at the Church of St. Paul in Ham Lake. Howe was raised in the Evangelical Lutheran tradition. He became curious about Catholicism after his grandmother returned to the faith in 1999. Two years later, he and his father were received into the Catholic Church together. Howe enrolled in St. John Vianney Seminary immediately after graduating from Mounds View High School. He spent his summers while in the seminary in Ethiopia and Rome, and his teaching parishes were St. John the Baptist in New Brighton and St. Stephen in Anoka. He will celebrate his Mass of Thanksgiving at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, May 26, at St. John the Baptist Church.

Deacon Andrew Jaspers, 34, of Lake Crystal, where his parents, Dr. Anthony and Mary, still live and attend Holy Family Church. After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy from Marquette University in Milwaukee and Fordham University in New York City, respectively, Jaspers taught at Creighton University in Omaha where he also wrote philosophical articles for various Catholic publications. His teaching parish was the Church of the Epiphany in Coon Rapids. Jaspers’ Mass of Thanksgiving will be at 10 a.m. Sunday, May 26, at the Cathedral of St. Paul.

Deacon Luke Marquard, 33, of Faribault, where he and his parents, Stephen and Mary, are parishioners at Divine Mercy parish. After earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Butler University in Indianapolis and a master’s degree in education from the University of Notre Dame, Marquard worked in public relations, marketing and communications in Indianapolis and Chicago. He then went on to teach Catholic elementary school in Denver as part of Notre Dame’s ACE program. His teaching parish was Forest Lake’s St. Peter Church, and he will celebrate his Mass of Thanksgiving at 10 a.m. Sunday, May 26, at Divine Mercy.

Deacon Brian Park, 32, of Fort Worth, Texas, where his parents, Paul and Mary Kay, still reside. Park began to consider the priesthood while pursuing his bachelor’s degree in history from Texas A & M University in College Station. After graduation, he traveled the country for three years as a team supervisor for NET Ministries, where he led retreats for Catholic teens. He entered the pre-theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in 2007. His teaching parish was St. Paul’s Church of St. Agnes. Park’s Masses of Thanksgiving are at 9 a.m. Sunday, May 26, at the Church of St. Joseph in West St. Paul, and at his boyhood parish, where his parents still worship, St. Bartholomew Catholic Church in Ft. Worth at 9 a.m. Sunday, June 2.

Deacon James Peterson, 27, of Minnetonka. He and his parents, Jim and Ann, are parishioners at Chanhassen’s St. Hubert Church. He attended Holy Family Catholic High School in Victoria before earning a bachelor’s degree in theology from St. John’s University where he also ran track and field. His teaching parish was Immaculate Heart of Mary in Minnetonka, and he spent his summers while in seminary in Mexico and Venezuela. Peterson will celebrate his Masses of Thanksgiving at 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. Sunday, May 26, at Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Deacon Andrew Stueve, 40, of Hanover. He and his parents, Bernard and Kay, are parishioners at Mary Queen of Peace in Rogers. He graduated with an associate degree in accounting from Hennepin Technical College before pursuing a 10-year career as an accountant. Stueve’s teaching parish was Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Maplewood. His Masses of Thanksgiving will be at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 26, at Mary Queen of Peace, as well as 10:30 a.m. Sunday, June 9, at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The program can be heard at noon Tuesday, May 21, on the “Minnesota Public Radio News Presents” program at 91.1 FM. The program also can be heard via the Internet. Information is available here.

The program is part of Minnesota Public Radio’s 2012-13 Broadcast Journalist Series, which is co-sponsored by St. Thomas’ College of Arts and Sciences and its Communication and Journalism Department.

The MBEA honors businesses that exemplify high standards of ethical conduct in the workplace, the marketplace and the community. Recipients are recognized in three size categories: small (under 100 employees), medium (100 to 500 employees) and large (more than 500 employees). The 2013 honorees are:

• Small: Cresa Minneapolis/St. Paul
• Medium: Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union
• Large (two firms honored this year): Cummins Power Generation and St. Francis Regional Medical Center

In addition to the engraved MBEA award, each recipient received a letter of congratulations signed by Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton.

Keynote speaker Gregg Steinhafel, chairman, president and CEO of Target Corp., shared his company’s belief about ethics in business: “We believe clear rules of the road are essential – not just for Target’s overall performance, but for team members to succeed at our company.” Emphasizing the point, Steinhafel added: “To Target, ethics is integral to disciplined execution. We want to win, but we want to win the right way.”

Finalists for the 2013 awards who were cited for their commitment to ethics in business also included: Douglas Scientific; Latuff Brothers Auto Body; Mintáhoe Catering and Events; and Premier Disability Services LLC. All were saluted as outstanding Minnesota businesses.

Since its inception in 1999, the MBEA has recognized 42 Minnesota-based businesses for embedding ethical standards into their cultures and practices. “Strong ethical cultures don’t happen by accident; they grow out of intentional efforts by leaders who connect values and performance,” according to David Rodbourne, MBEA co-chair.

“Minnesota is fortunate to enjoy a strong reputation for ethical business, and this award helps acknowledge that,” said Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies LLC and MBEA co-chair.

The MBEA is sponsored by the Twin Cities Chapter of the Society of Financial Service Professionals and the Center for Ethical Business Cultures (CEBC) at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Beginning this year the Minnesota chapter of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA) joined as a co-sponsor.

Past recipients and a form for nominating candidates for the 2014 awards is available at this website.

Minnesota Public Radio will broadcast an April 29 lecture given at St. Thomas by National Public Radio psychology and mental-health reporter Alix Spiegel.

The program can be heard at noon Wednesday, May 15, on the “Minnesota Public Radio News Presents” program at 91.1 FM. The program also can be heard via the Internet. Information is available here.

Later in the day, Slate magazine editor David Plotz will speak at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 15, in the auditorium of O’Shaughnessy Educational Center on the university’s St. Paul campus.

The lecture is free, but reservations are required.  Make them by going to this Minnesota Public Radio website.

The programs are part Minnesota Public Radio’s 2012-2013 Broadcast Journalist Series, which is co-sponsored by St. Thomas’ College of Arts and Sciences and its Communication and Journalism Department.

Chelsea Mills (left) and Alex Mathison observe snow monkeys at the Minnesota Zoo as part of their psychology project.

It’s a droll contrast to the indoor viewing area, where a thunderous procession of schoolchildren, hopped up in a frenzy of field-trip fever, press their noses to the windows, beseeching the primates to entertain them.

These Japanese macaques, more commonly known as snow monkeys, are the subject of a study conducted by St. Thomas seniors Paige Peterson, Chelsea Mills and Alex Mathison. The trio recorded six hours of video footage of the monkeys over six days in an effort to study the primates’ play behavior. Specifically, they scrutinized the younger monkeys (under 4 years old) and infants to determine how parental interference influences their play behavior.

One logistical challenge the group faced was dodging the aforementioned packs of children – free from watchful parents’ eyes – gone wild. Apparently, they enjoyed monkeying around with their cameras. “There were so many times when our cameras were blocked by a kid standing in front of them − sometimes done on purpose to wave at the camera − or were bumped into, which moved the camera angle around,” Mills said.

When mommy’s away, the children will play

Dr. Sarah Hankerson, a psychology professor at St. Thomas and adviser for the project, said, “This project represents one of the first attempts to understand why Japanese macaque mothers are so protective of their young. By focusing on the circumstances surrounding intervention, we can generate strong hypotheses on maternal concern. We can also examine the frequency, composition and timing of play bouts.”

Before beginning the study, Peterson, the project’s lead researcher and a psychology major, hypothesized that “there will be very few events of play (chasing, light biting and pulling, etc.) behavior inside a 10-foot circle of the mothers.”

Why? The group expected that the juvenile monkeys, much like humans, would feel less pressure to conform to adult social practices the further away they are from their mothers. They chose 10 feet because it seemed to be the easiest distance when making assessments from afar through videos.

Peterson explained that the social structure of Japanese snow monkeys is considered “despotic” (with the alpha male, beta male and older mothers, in that hierarchical order, ruling the roost) and that, contrary to the popular belief that monkeys swing care-free from tree to tree all day, snow monkeys have low levels of social tolerance.

“Based on previous studies,” she said, “it appears that since mothers don’t have good social bonds with other adults, they are going to be more protective with their offspring. This prevents the young monkeys from having contact with other group members. Babies are overprotected and grow into overprotective parents. It’s a cycle. They’ll try to play, but mothers usually keep one hand on their babies.”

Hankerson explained further that “as a result of strong maternal concern, it is possible that Japanese macaque juveniles need to be ‘sneaky’ in order to engage in play behavior.” She added that of any well-studied primate species, snow monkeys are the top party poopers – a fact that sparked Peterson’s curiosity; likewise, much of primate research investigates the connections between humans and or evolutionary predecessors, and according to past research the team scoured before beginning their study, scientists already have determined that both humans and primates spend much less time playing as they become grown-ups.

According to Hankerson, “Non-human primates can tell us a lot about the basic structure of behavior in group settings. We can look at the rudimentary way individuals handle conflict and affiliation. Being highly social animals, Japanese macaques can serve as models of group dynamics. This study looks at play behavior, which may seem a non-functional activity, but infants (both human and non-human) develop skills, improve physical strength and dexterity, and learn a lot about the world around them and their place in it by engaging in play behavior.”

The students’ research of human children found that the tapering of children’s play behavior coincides with the time period when schools eliminate recess from the children’s school day – roughly at the end of middle school.

Furthermore, Mills and Mathison explained, “In humans, authority figures place pressure on children to stop playing, causing play to become less frequent as they grow older. This pressure may be perceived by children that it’s time to focus on school and conform to a more structured schedule. Seeing this sort of behavioral pattern in snow macaques could suggest that we are not the only species to experience these types of pressures.”

What the group found after reviewing the footage was consistent with their hypothesis, with a small twist. Mills said, “The young monkeys played more often, and for longer periods of time, when they were farther away from the mothers. Chasing play tended to happen even if their mothers were close (less than 10 feet away), but a lot of the wrestling and biting play happened when they were farther away (more than 10 feet ). When the mothers were close and the young monkeys started wrestling, the mothers tended to interrupt their play, too.”

She added that while play behavior lets young monkeys practice certain behaviors on their own (such as how to avoid a predator), it can be troublesome to the group as a whole. “Play behavior tends to draw a lot of attention to the group, making them more noticeable to predators,” Mills noted. ”Along these lines we can kind of understand the role it plays in human behavior, too. While playing for a child is really important in their own individual development, it’s only when they reach the age when play stops that they can really start contributing to society as a whole. I think whether that is a good thing or bad thing just depends on how you look at it and what you consider to be more important.”

Although there are many mysteries still to be solved regarding snow monkey behavior, relatively speaking, much has been discovered, as they are among the world’s most studied animals.

The group hopes that “this research could help give insight into the complicated evolutionary pressures we experience today and the reasons behind why we experience them.”

About snow monkeys

Japanese macaques are the northernmost-living nonhuman primate and are native to Japan. Many inhabit northern Nagano, a mountain town in Japan that hosted the 1998 winter Olympics.

They are one of the few animals that are known, like humans, to wash their food before eating it. Their diet includes insects, soil, leaves, fruit and fish.

They also have been known to roll snowballs and fling them at each other in playful fights.

So why weren’t the monkeys, uh, monkeying around much on that cold day in April? Peterson shrugged and took a guess: “I think they’re a lot like us that way. In this weather they just want to hole up and keep warm.”

The awards celebrate Minnesota businesses that exemplify and promote ethical conduct in the workplace, the marketplace and the community. Keynote speaker for the awards lunch will be Gregg Steinhafel, chairman and CEO of Target Corporation.

Go here to learn more and register.

The MBEA confers awards in in three size categories: small (under 100 employees), medium (100 to 500 employees) and large (more than 500 employees).

The 2013 award recipients will be announced at the May 15 program. The finalists are:

• Small-size category: Cresa Minneapolis/St. Paul;  Douglas Scientific; and  Latuff Brothers Auto Body
• Mid-size category: Affinity Federal Credit Union;  Mintahoe Catering and Events; and  Premier Disability Services LLC
• Large-size category: Cummins Power Generation; and St. Francis Regional Medical Center

Since its inception in 1999, the MBEA has recognized 38 Minnesota-based businesses, ranging in size from less than 10 employees to more than 150,000.

The program is organized by the Twin Cities Chapter of the Society of Financial Service Professionals and the Center for Ethical Business Cultures (CEBC) at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. This year the MBEA welcomes the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors as a co-organizer for the awards.

A list of past MBEA recipients can be viewed at this website.

From the inception of St. Thomas, we have had pre-eminent designers complete buildings that are important to the history of American architecture, including Clarence Johnston’s Chapel of St. Mary (1905), Emmanuel Masqueray’s Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas (1918), and Edwin Lundie’s Gainey House (1954-1957). But, perhaps the most notable work completed for St. Thomas was done by turn-of-the-20th-century architect Cass Gilbert.

The year is 1890. The high school, college and seminary of St. Thomas Aquinas, founded by Archbishop John Ireland, have been holding classes for five years in a single, Second Empire style building located on the site of the present day north campus. The time had come to consider a more elaborate setting, given the expanding interest in religious training at the seminary.

Ireland had the land, 60 acres donated by Irish immigrant William Finn. He needed an architect and patron to create and finance his vision. The patron? None other than railroad baron James J. Hill, who would contribute $500,000 to the project in honor of his devout Roman Catholic wife, Mary.

As historian Mary L. Wingerd noted in Claiming the City: Politics, Faith and the Power of Place in St. Paul (2003), Hill had a vested interest in the seminary for business reasons as well. Archbishop Ireland was committed to the Americanization of Minnesota’s culturally diverse Catholics, and his goal was to establish a seminary that would train priests to impart American Catholic principles to their parishioners. Since most of Hill’s employees were Catholics, it served his purposes to support the education of priests who would Americanize his workforce. It also served Hill’s purposes to recommend a capable designer to the archbishop.

On Oct. 22, 1891, James J. Hill summoned Cass Gilbert to his imposing new residence on Summit Avenue. Gilbert, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Ecole des Beaux-Arts based architecture program, had worked in the office of the most important architecture firm in late 19th century America, McKim, Mead and White, before returning to St. Paul in 1882. A six-year partnership with James Knox Taylor dissolved about the time of this particular meeting.

Cass Gilbert. (Photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society)

Gilbert’s career was taking off and Hill had been the benefactor of his success in Gilbert’s designs for several depots for his Great Northern Railway. When Gilbert arrived at Hill’s mansion, he found Archbishop John Ireland and Father Louis Caillet (Mary Hill’s confessor) there with his host. The purpose of their meeting was to discuss the design of new buildings for the expanding seminary. The next day, Gilbert and Archbishop Ireland drove out to see the land Ireland had selected: forty wooded acres sloping toward the east bank of the Mississippi River at the end of Summit Avenue.

Archbishop Ireland contributed to the seminary’s design as much as he could, but Hill left no doubt that he was the one who was fully in charge. Gilbert historian Geoffrey Blodgett described their encounter in Cass Gilbert: The Early Years (2001): Hill “fixed his intimidating one-eyed glare on the young architect and told him that he was answerable to Hill, not the archbishop, on all issues touching design, construction, and cost.”

Hill’s continuous intervention into the minutia of everything from heating systems to door locks must have challenged Gilbert. He regularly gave the architect a dressing-down if the slightest changes were made without his approval; and he even threatened to find someone else to work with or to stop work altogether.

Gilbert seriously considered withdrawing from the project more than once, but he saw it through to the end.

Despite the power struggle with Hill, Gilbert succeeded in producing an environment that supported Ireland’s goals: a place for the education of American priests with a  campus that engaged with its natural environment and developing residential area around it.

Gilbert designed six buildings for the seminary: an administration building, a classroom building, two dormitories, a refectory and a gymnasium. The original plans called for a chapel as well, but this was put on hold until later. Hill wanted the buildings to be plain but dignified. Gilbert responded with a pared-down aesthetic similar to the Great Northern depots he had already designed for Hill in Willmar, Grand Forks and Anoka, a safe choice since their design had already weathered Hill’s exacting scrutiny.

As Hill kept pushing Gilbert to reduce costs, the architect drew together Renaissance inspired elements to produce well-proportioned buildings with smooth brick walls, hipped roofs and arched windows. The north and south wings of the administration building housed, respectively, a private chapel and a library large enough for 20,000 volumes. The three stories of the central portion housed administrative offices, apartments for professors, a common room, parlors and reception rooms. At four stories plus the attic, the north and south dormitories each had a chapel, and together they provided enough space for each of 120 students to have two private rooms. There also were bathrooms with hot and cold water and an infirmary.

The St. Paul Seminary building, now demolished. (Photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society)

In the two-story classroom building there were four classrooms, one of which was a “physical” and chemistry laboratory. On the second floor there was a “great hall” (also referred to as the aula maxima) with a platform at the front and seating for as many as 500 people, a space that served the community as well as seminary.

The two-story refectory housed a kitchen and dining hall described by a contemporary writer as having a “lofty ceiling of native woods, broad, old time fire place, plentiful supply of light.”

From the outside, the most notable feature of the gymnasium building that doubled as the school’s heating plant was its smokestack, complete with a Latin cross in brick relief at its uppermost reach. For recreation, the two story structure offered a large gymnasium with open trusswork and four smaller rooms, one of which was used for  reading. Although the 1893 financial panic slowed things down, the buildings were completed in 1894 at a cost of $184,268.13, well under the $200,000 budget, as Gilbert was proud to point out — and even then Gilbert had a hard time getting Hill to pay him in full.

In an article in the April 1895 issue of the Catholic University Bulletin, Father Patrick Danehy, one of the seminary’s professors, described the new buildings as being “in the North Italian style, simple, solid and impressive.” To him, “the solidity of their walls reminds one strongly of the monastic edifices of a bygone age.” For Archbishop Ireland,  on the other hand, the seminary was meant to be contemporary and forward looking, designed to meet the latest needs of the modern, American Catholic Church.

Even with its nod to tradition, the facilities the seminary provided were fully up-to-date,  from a heating plant that was reportedly so advanced that it was written up in the Engineer’s Journal, to a physics and chemistry laboratory designed to make sure the students would be well-informed when questions came up about the relationship between science and religion.

The campus also was decidedly unmonastic. Rather than clustering the buildings tightly around an inward-looking, cloister-like courtyard, Gilbert oriented all of them  northsouth and grouped them loosely, leaving a good bit of space between them. He also oriented them so that they would have a connection with the surrounding community.

Summit Avenue skirted the northern boundary of the site, and the east-west trajectory of Grand Avenue defined the campus’ main axis. This became all the more apparent when a drive – essentially an extension of Grand Avenue – was installed through the center of the court. The campus was thus connected with and open to the community, and it also provided a reason for people to come: the classroom building housed an auditorium that could seat as many as 500 people for public lectures.

Ireland’s decision to place different functions in separate buildings was an unusual choice at a time when most seminaries were housed in a single, large building. Ireland believed that seminary education ought to cultivate the body as well as the mind and spirit, and he contended that exercise should be part of the students’ education.

Ireland may have been responding to growing concerns about seminarians being too stationary and disconnected from the world, as they remained holed up in the large, all-purpose buildings where they lived and typically were educated. And he also may have imbibed the growing taste for “muscular Christianity,” a movement that advocated physical exercise as a means to the production of a form of Christianity that was robust and manly.

Physical education was becoming an increasingly important component of education, as Gilbert would find in designing buildings at the Shattuck School in Faribault, Minn., and Madison Central High School. With the campus-like arrangement Gilbert produced, the students would be compelled to get outdoors to go from building to building,  and they also would have the gymnasium available for more vigorous exercise. Beyond this, there were acres of what Danehy described as “native sward threaded with graveled walks and dotted with flower beds” where the seminarians could stroll.

The result was a campus designed to produce a new, American priesthood, through modern facilities serving a modern educational agenda, encouragement of physical as well as mental exercise, and integration with the community.

Perhaps Gilbert’s most iconic Minnesota design is the state capitol building.

By the time the seminary was ready to build its chapel, Gilbert had extricated himself from the project and moved to New York. He may have been relieved rather than offended when his architect friend Clarence Johnston was tapped to do the chapel’s design. Predictably, the seminary was known, for a time, as the Hill Seminary after its major benefactor, and its resemblance to Hill’s Great Northern railroad buildings was not lost on observers.

What remains of the St. Paul Seminary is now part of the University of St. Thomas’ south campus. Three of the buildings have been demolished and several still serve the  university community. The two dormitories – Cretin and Loras halls – have been remodeled, with the former an undergraduate student residence and the latter an office building. The gymnasiumheating plant survives as the university’s Service Center, although at one point it was considered as a potential dedicated art gallery for exhibitions, a notion that may come to be in a new fine arts building in the coming years.

In To Work for the Whole People: John Ireland’s Seminary in St. Paul (2002), author Sister Mary Christine Athans noted that designing and overseeing the construction of the Minnesota State Capitol (1895-1905) or even the United States Supreme Court Building (1928-1935) in Washington, D.C., probably was an easier task for Gilbert than building the seminary.

Even though Gilbert at times was constrained by Hill’s patronage, he stayed true to his classically inspired architectural vision and created at the end of Summit Avenue, the start of our own version of an American architecture, appropriate to the Catholic identity of those creating it.

About the authors: Victoria Young is an associate professor of modern architectural history at St. Thomas. Katherine Solomonson is an associate professor of architectural history in the College of Design at the University of Minnesota, and is working on a book documenting Gilbert’s career.

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

“I try to go off the beaten track when I choose where to take my students,” said George, director of bands, Symphonic Wind Ensemble and string orchestra, and chair of the St. Thomas Music Department. “I want to take them out of their comfort zone and be pushed into a different atmosphere that they wouldn’t be able to experience here.”

This wasn’t George’s first time traveling abroad to work with international composers and music ensembles. His music exchange started 19 years ago when he was invited to Mexico City to lead a weeklong seminar at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His charge was to discuss wind band music, form an experiment ensemble and give a concert.

The trip was such a success that they invited George back and asked him to direct and form what is now the Banda Sinfonica at the Escuela Nacional de Musica of UNAM. George returned to Mexico City two to three times a year to help develop the program until they finally hired a full-time conductor. People heard of the work he did there, and George began to receive invitations to work with other international ensembles.

Listen to the fourth movement of Roger Cichy’s Bugs, a piece commissioned by the Symphonic Wind Ensemble in 1999.

George’s research has taken him around the world to learn about the different ways countries make and perform music. As a conductor, clinician and lecturer he has traveled across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica, continental Europe, Ireland and the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, China, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and India. He has worked with professional groups such as the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Great Britain and the Band of the People’s Liberation Army in  China. He also has conducted in prestigious venues such as the Sydney Opera House, the Oriental Arts Center in Shanghai and the National Theatre of Performing Arts as well as the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing.

Perhaps the most meaningful benefit of these shared experiences is that they have allowed George to bring international composers back to St. Thomas to write original music for his students to perform.

“I think the most unique thing we do that most other music programs don’t is to commission new works of composers, particularly from other countries,” George said. In the last 22 years they have commissioned 80 new works for the symphonic wind ensemble, and at least half of those come from international composers.

Students learn more than they anticipate from the international pieces they have performed. Philip Smithley ’15 said that the band members were challenged last fall when they were given a piece of music titled “Desi Jhalak,” meaning “A Peek Into India,” written by Bollywood composer Shamir Tandon. Smithley said there is a “vast difference in the way music is rehearsed and performed in India, where it is not notated but rather improvised after years of studying, compared to Western music where all of our music is written out.”

George smiles as he ends a performance of the String Orchestra in the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas. (Photo by Mark Brown)

Alexandra Gobell ’13 explains that the band members are often out of their “comfort zone” when performing international pieces, but that bringing the composers to St. Thomas allows them to learn about the story behind the pieces and teaches them about the composers’ native countries. Then, when possible, George takes the students to the countries where they perform such pieces as “Desi Jhalak.” Going to India was a way for the students to experience the culture of the music that they perform.

“A very important part of our touring process is the exchange of experiences. I want the students to be able to serve the culture through their music. Instead of going somewhere passively like a tourist, I want them to be immersed in the culture by meeting with their peers and trading stories and experiences of what it’s like to make music in our country, what it’s like in their country and what the differences are,” George said.

This exchange happened between Amber Neid ’14 and composer Tandon. The song was originally sent to the band in an electronic audio format without any sheet music. Neid worked with Tandon to put the song on paper so that the band could read, rehearse and perform the piece.

“That gave us a lot of practice on aural skills rather than just reading music off a piece of paper,” Neid said. “I think that made all of us better musicians. Seeing the composer light up when he heard a ‘western ensemble’ play his traditional Indian music was worth all of the work we put into it. Then, when we played it in India, it was a huge hit because it was music the audiences could relate to, but with instruments they had never seen or heard before.”

George and the students are challenged musically when working with groups of different countries, and because they are working in a new culture.

“Whenever I’m asked to conduct national music of the country I go to, it’s really intimidating because I know everyone knows it, and I’m just now learning it,” George said. “It takes a lot of study, a lot of asking questions, a lot of listening to styles of music so I approach it and seem competent.”

George has experienced many differences between how cultures approach music and rehearse. In Latin America, he learned how musicians approach rhythm differently; “What’s popular to them is highly rhythmic dances. Instead of our Top 40 music, they listen to samba and all kinds of art and dance forms. They feel these rhythms rather than read the music on the printed page.”

There are similar challenges in China where communicating meanings of the same word is expressed by tone, and George says that their music approach also is that way with bending and inflection that our language – and music – do not possess. In England or Australia, learning new terms for familiar musical functions is the challenge. “I have to think about how I’m going to say certain things and as I speak, I have to translate the terms in my brain,” George said. The same translation process happens when he must speak Spanish in Latin America. In countries where George does not know the language, however, a translator is needed, which presents numerous challenges.

Listen to a selection form Chen Qian’s Ambush! From All Sides as played by the Symphonic Wind Ensemble.

“My rehearsals are very fast-paced and to the point,” George said. “When I can’t just deliver what I want to say and I have to use a translator, I must adjust to still make it efficient. And you just hope that what the translator is saying is exactly the message that you’re trying to get across.”

In order to adapt to these situations, a certain kind of personality is needed to not only travel but also to work with people of different cultures. “If you try to force your preconceived notions onto what you’re going to experience, you’re going to be miserable. You have to have a personality that is adaptive,” George said. When he worked in Mexico, he had to get used to starting later; “When we started rehearsals at 10 a.m., we wouldn’t actually start until 11:30 a.m. At first I got upset, but then I just went with it. So, the next time we started at 11:10 a.m., then at 10:30 a.m. and then finally we started at 10 a.m. If I just tried to force it, it wouldn’t have worked.”

Traveling as part of his career was not something George expected. His first time on a plane wasn’t until he was 18 years old. Now his children, who he and his wife often bring on these trips, have seen more of the world than most adults.

“I’ve been extremely fortunate. When I started at St. Thomas I never thought my life would take me in the direction it has taken me in terms of international experiences,” George said. “The best part for me is that when I go places, people native to the culture will take me to where they go, not to where tourists go. It’s a tremendous opportunity and I feel very blessed.”

Though his interest in traveling came later in life, George’s love for music started when he was a young boy in Geneva, N.Y. “It all goes back to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass,” George said. His uncle used to have eight-track  tapes that he and his older cousin would listen to, and the sounds of Herb Alpert’s trumpet playing fascinated him.

When his cousin began to play trumpet, George was inspired to learn to play as well. He played trumpet from elementary school through high school, and then played professionally. But it was in high school when George’s interest in conducting began.

During study hall, George went to the band room to practice. When no one was watching, he stood on the podium and pretended that he was conducting a full band. Without knowing it, George was being watched by his band director. To encourage George’s interest in conducting, the band director let him rehearse a piece that George later conducted at a high school band concert.

“My life ambition was to become a high school band director,” George said. After receiving a B.M. in music education and trumpet performance from Ithaca College, he began teaching high school band in New York.

“I realized that there was more than just teaching music in high school; there’s also hall monitoring and cafeteria duty. I wasn’t interested in doing those things,” George said. So, he earned an M.M. degree in music education from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and a D.M.A. degree in conducting from the University of North Texas. During that time he also performed as a professional trumpet player and taught at the university and privately. George then came to St. Thomas in 1991.

Once a solo conductor in an empty band room, George has conducted some of the best bands and orchestras in the world, and his students are greatly benefiting from his passion and ambition. “Dr. George has been a huge inspiration for me as a future director, teacher and conductor,” Neid said. “Watching him conduct during our rehearsals has taught me a lot that I can’t learn at a desk,” Neid said.

The student musicians in Brady Educational Center practice and rehearse for perfection. But George gives them something more than notes on paper – he introduces them to the world through the music they play.

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

With that fame came a move to commissions of a large scale, such as the 1997 Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the 2003 Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and across the river in Minneapolis, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, finished in 1993. These projects supplanted Gehry’s need to design domestic space. But in the summer of 2012, a Gehry-designed duplex became owner-occupied in New Orleans, a part of the actor Brad Pitt’s Make it Right Foundation’s project in the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward.

How do we connect Gehry’s Winton Guest House to the Make it Right House? What has Gehry changed, updated or invented in his domestic architecture in the last 25 years? This is the question I will be examining during my sabbatical next year.

After traveling to New Orleans several times during the last two years to lay the groundwork for this research, I realized that the city was a perfect fit for an architectural history graduate seminar at St. Thomas. And this spring, The Architecture of New Orleans course was born.

New Orleans has been called many things – the Crescent City, The Big Easy, The Birthplace of Jazz, NOLA, the City that Care Forgot. The city’s racial and ethnic makeups have created a variety of architecture found nowhere else in the United States. Settled by the French in the 18th century and controlled by Spain in 1763, New Orleans was also home to a large population of free people of color, as well as slaves.

With the arrival of the 19th century the American element of New Orleans grew with settlers from the Northeast sharing the city with immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Sicily and beyond. Each group has contributed to the architectural legacy of New Orleans in powerful ways, and students in my graduate art history seminar this spring are exploring this variety in their research with topics focusing on cemeteries, voodoo, New Urbanism in housing projects, food markets, public parks, hospitals, sacred spaces (including a contemporary Spanish Baptist church rebuilding after Katrina), colonial plantations, biophilic design, historic preservation, Pitt’s Make it Right Houses, and the connection between Walt Disney and the French Quarter.

The research provides a fabulous overview of the layers of New Orleanian architecture – strata that were made visible on a recent trip our class took to the Crescent City this past spring break.

Students found their own ways to New Orleans early in the week and researched their projects. We all gathered as a group on Thursday, March 28, at Jackson Square in the French Quarter for a walking tour of the Quarter, Central Business District and Warehouse District. I had scoped out the buildings on a previous visit and our tour required that each student present a five-minute on-the-street talk about their building as we progressed through the neighborhoods.

The students were expected to connect their presentations into our classroom discussions and also address the building as an art object. What did they see now that they were standing in front of it? There is no better way to understand the built environment than to be out in it: looking, touching and getting a feel for context and scale. I was thrilled to watch New Orleans come to life for the students.

Saturday morning found us in the Garden District at Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. The cemeteries of New Orleans, with their above ground tombs, are amazingly beautiful, and they clearly reflect the character of the city built largely just a few feet above sea level. After our cemetery visit, a little lagniappe (something extra) found us touring the adjacent neighborhood, stopping by Sandra Bullock and John Goodman’s grand Victorian-era homes.

On Friday, we were fortunate to visit the Lower Ninth Ward with John Williams, the executive architect of Brad Pitt’s Make it Right houses and a longtime New Orleans designer. Supported by funds from the Art History Department, we spent five hours on a bus tour with John. It was one of the greatest architectural experiences I have ever had, and I think my students felt the same.

The area is still, after almost eight years, coming back to life. The Make it Right Foundation hopes to build 150 homes in the neighborhood. But basic services such as grocery stores, schools and the like have not returned to the Lower Ninth. It’s still a very tough go for folks who have returned. Students were able to meet with residents, including John “Smitty” Smith and Ron Lewis at his “House of Dance and Feathers,” and learn their stories of evacuation and survival.

A duplex designed by Frank Gehry in New Orleans. (Photo by John Williams)

And it was here in the Lower Ninth where we encountered Gehry’s work. The pink and purple duplex, its hues selected by the homeowner, recalls the liveliness of New Orleans’ vernacular domestic shotgun houses and Creole cottages. It is built out of environmentally friendly materials and includes solar panels and other sustainable features. The variety of porches encourages engagement with neighbors and passersby.

Gehry believed in Pitt’s vision and wanted to make a house that responded to the “history, vernacular and climate of New Orleans,” as he stated on Make it Right’s blog.

The completion of the house is history in the making – a work by Gehry and a foundation that helped the hardest hit citizens of New Orleans when other entities were slow to do so. And now, the University of St. Thomas has a connection to both.

With the exception of a historically low supply of homes on the market, an analysis of Twin Cities real estate data for March shows positive signs any way you look at it.

In the Twin Cities, the median sale price of a traditional home (not a foreclosure or short sale) in March was $209,900, the highest seen since last summer. It’s up 2.4 percent over the February median price of $205,000 and up 6.04 percent over the March 2012 median price of $197,950.

That’s according to the Residential Real Estate Price Report Index, a monthly analysis of the 13-county metro area prepared by the Shenehon Center for Real Estate at St. Thomas’ Opus College of Business.

Each month the center tracks nine housing-market data elements, including the median price for three types of sales: nondistressed (traditional-type sales), foreclosures, and short sales (when a home is sold for less than the outstanding mortgage balance).

Herb Tousley

In his analysis for March, Herb Tousley, director of real estate programs at the university, examined the impact of better economic conditions on different facets of the housing market.

“Employment plays a major role in household formation,” he explained. “As the number of people who are employed increases, more people will be moving into places of their own.”

Minnesota’s unemployment rate of 5.5 percent is well below the national average, and the state added 50,800 jobs in the last six months.

“These positive employment indicators will increase the rate of household formation, requiring additional housing units. Since the inventory of existing homes for sale is expected to remain at historically low levels in the near-term future, look for continued growth in the number of new homes built in 2013.”

And that, he said, has turned up a new wrinkle: where to build the houses.

“The increase in the construction of new homes is beginning to create a shortage of finished lots,” Tousley said. “The number of vacant, developed lots in Minneapolis and St. Paul has been decreasing over the last several years.”

At the end of the first quarter of 2012 there were 27,093 vacant, developed lots in the Twin Cities metro area, or a 101-month supply. By the end of the first quarter of 2013, the number had decreased to 24,559, or a 58-month supply.

“As the shortage continues, home builders are finding they have to pay premium prices for desirable lots,” he said.

From Jan. 1 to April 11 this year, 1,177 building permits were issued for single-family home construction in the metro area. That is a 54 percent increase compared to the same period a year ago, when 763 permits were issued; moreover, the sale of new homes was up 12.2 percent in March compared to the same month a year ago.

How scarce are used homes in the Twin Cities? In March 2013 there were 12,941 homes for sale; that compares to 18,291 in March 2012 and 23,467 in March 2011. Put another way, In March 2013 there were 3.47 homes for sale for every closed sale; in March 2012 the ratio was 4.85; in March 2011 the ratio was 6.93; and back in March 2008 it was 11.1.

Tousely said that since the beginning of 2012, the inventory of homes for sale has been consistently running 25 percent to 30 percent below the previous year’s level. As he has explained in earlier reports, as median sale prices increase and homeowners’ equity positions improve, eventually more homes should be listed for sale.

Another positive note in the March report is the growth in nondistressed or “traditional” sales not affected by mortgage foreclosures or short sales. In March 2012 there were 1,885 traditional sales, or 51.8 percent of all sales in the metro area. In March 2013, there were 2,318 traditional sales, which was 62.1 percent of the total. That’s an increase of nearly 20 percent.

“As we move into the spring and summer of this year we should see a stronger housing market that is dominated by traditional sales,” Tousley said. “Look for the percentage of distressed sales to continue to moderate as we continue into the summer selling season. There will be fewer foreclosures and short sales on the market as the economy continues to improve.

“Increasing median sale prices means that fewer home owners will be ‘under water’ and an improving employment situation will lead to fewer borrowers becoming seriously delinquent on their mortgages.”

More details about the market, including the composite indexes for traditional, foreclosure and short sales, can be found on the Shenehon Center’s website.

Research for the monthly reports is conducted by Tousley and Dr. Thomas Hamilton, associate professor of real estate at the university. The index is available free via email from Tousley at hwtousley1@stthomas.edu.

So he moved to Alaska.

“I picked Juneau thinking it was the largest city in the state since it was the capital. It wasn’t,” he said, laughing at his innocence. He didn’t know it then, but his misjudgment would prove inconsequential. His yet-to-be-lived career would fly him to the world’s most cosmopolitan cities.

As founder and executive director of the Clean Washington Center (1991 to 2006), an environmental technology center in Seattle, Dougherty brought his vision – to assist U.S. companies in processing and finding markets for recyclable materials − to manufacturers and governments around the globe.

In 2007, his work for the United Kingdom was honored by Her Majesty, the Queen of England, Elizabeth II, who bestowed on him the title “Honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.”

Dougherty said he doesn’t know who nominated him (the process is shrouded in secrecy) or why he, in particular, was selected, but he left a prolific trail of crumbs that may lead to the reason.

His story begins nearly 50 years ago in a tiny capital city on the panhandle of southeast Alaska.

“You can make a difference if you believe in something and you push for it”

Dougherty got his start at 22 in the office of Alaska Gov. William Allen Egan, the state’s first governor. (Alaska was a territory and did not officially become a state until 1959.) Egan tasked a small team that included Dougherty to secure national funding to get anti-poverty programs going for the rural villages inhabited by Eskimos and Alaska natives. Their effort was part of the national Great Society program, a plan created by President Lyndon B. Johnson to eliminate poverty and racial injustice in the United States.

“That was really transforming,” Dougherty said. “Even though I was a junior guy I realized what an impact I could make. … I realized, ‘Gee, I can make a change.’ And these were substantial changes we were making up there. Not only did we bring Head Start, we brought electricity to these villages and created co-ops for them.”

Dougherty also took part in educating Eskimos and Alaska natives on their rights to their lands − “lands that had never been ‘bought’ from them (when the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867),” Dougherty explained.

“So there was a land claims bill submitted to Congress to pay them for their land, but it wasn’t going anywhere until oil was discovered (in 1968) on the North Slope (the northernmost section of Alaska),” he said. “A judge ruled that the oil companies couldn’t build a pipeline through Alaska to Valdez until they knew who owned the land. So the oil companies jumped in with the natives and got them to push a settlement to the land-claims groups. In the end, the Eskimos and Indians received a huge settlement from the federal government, which then helped them create a more economic base and growth.”

This first job, he emphasized, “made it clear to me that you can make a difference if you believe in something and you push for it.” After several years, Dougherty and his family moved to Anchorage, where he served as assistant city manager. There he led an initiative to consolidate the city of Anchorage and all of its emerging, outlying suburbs – which had their own local governments – into one unified government. It had to go to vote, and it passed.

“I think Alaska was a good thing for me because it’s so sparsely populated that one young guy in his early 20s could make an impact,” he said.

Even so, after getting married and having two children in Alaska, Dougherty began to feel confined and isolated and wanted his kids to grow up in a bigger city with more opportunities.

Seattle and Tougher Challenges

After relocating to Seattle with his family, Dougherty took on “bigger” and “tougher” challenges as assistant director of the state’s Department of Trade and Economic Development.

Gov. Booth Gardner tasked Dougherty with helping smaller businesses get more financing, for which he created two programs − one in which the state of Washington allowed small business to make public stock offerings, an option available only to big business at the time. The other would create an economic development finance authority that would “sell nonrecourse bonds to help small business and economic expansion in the state,” Dougherty explained.

While hearing Dougherty’s testimony before the state legislative committee on behalf of his proposals (both of which passed after much effort), Maria Cantwell, the committee chair and now a U.S. senator (D-WA), played an inadvertent role in charting the course of his career.

She asked him to conduct a yearlong study to devise a plan for reducing Seattle’s ballooning collection of recyclables – a pile so massive the Wall Street Journal dubbed it “Mount Glassmore.”

Dougherty remembers how Cantwell broached the subject: “She said, ‘You know, the cities are collecting papers and plastics and glass. Where are the markets for those?’”

The question threw him for a loop. Dougherty responded with a laugh, “I don’t do garbage!”

One thing he did know: Seattle had started recycling plastic, paper, glass and aluminum, and they were piling up. He also knew the city was paying $20 per ton to ship the papers “to somewhere in Asia to do something with them,” he said.

After completing their study, Dougherty and his team “came to the conclusion that if you didn’t get the industry in your own region to figure out how to process that material and put it back into your own products then recycling wasn’t going to work. Because nobody wanted glass. Plastic companies certainly didn’t want plastic. And the paper industry could only take certain grades of paper.”

The study brought to light a number of conundrums. Dougherty asked himself: “What are the engineered properties (of the recyclable materials)? How do you process this stuff in an economical way so they can be put back into product?”

His answer to these challenging questions was the Clean Washington Center, which he created in 1991. The organization, an effective blend of industry experts and government officials, worked to create markets for recyclable material. Its offshoots continue its mission today.

The CWC was so successful that it soon received $4 million from the federal government to make its work available to other states.

Among its successes were developing markets for recyclables that resulted in an average of about $100 a year per household in avoided waste removal costs.

In 2001, Dougherty told online magazine Recycling Today, “This region has always had the capacity for paper, but we have also developed the capacity for plastics, too. Five years ago we had no capacity to use recycled plastics – mainly PET and HDPE. Now it is a different story. Our engineers went to plastic plants and helped them convert to recycled feedstock. The result is that now we have an annual capacity of 12 million pounds of PET and HDPE. … so that has worked really well.”

After helping several states develop similar programs, the CWC’s trail of success stories caught the attention of New Zealand. Hong Kong, Spain, Australia and Scotland followed suit.

That’s a WRAP

Dougherty remembers the fraught phone call he received from the United Kingdom in 2000: “I was up in Scotland helping them develop a program (Remade Scotland) when I got a call from a spokesman for the environment minister from the U.K. saying, ‘We are so far behind in recycling. … The European Union has set down regulations and if we don’t meet certain levels of recycling we get financial fines. Could you set up a center for all of the U.K., including Northern Ireland?’”

The challenge he was up against was huge. And tough.

David Dougherty’s Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire medal. (Photo by Mark Brown)

Using the CWC as a template and £84 million from the British government, Dougherty acted as a special adviser to shape the work programs and strategy that culminated in WRAP (Waste and Resources Management Programme). Among his collaborators was WRAP founding chairman Vic Cocker CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a rank one notch above “Officer”), brother of rock musician Joe Cocker.

Liz Goodwin, CEO of WRAP, who worked with Dougherty in the organization’s infancy, attested, “There were a lot of market failures that needed to be addressed. Some of the issues were lack of awareness, lack of infrastructure to make it easy for people, lack of reprocessing – both technology and infrastructure – lack of end markets, lack of confidence in end markets and lack of standards.”

When WRAP first began, Goodwin said, “household recycling rates (in the U.K.) were around 10 percent compared to 43 percent today. We were just starting on the journey  to increase recycling. … There hadn’t been any real focus on end markets or developing markets for the materials that were collected. There was very little infrastructure.”

WRAP was, and continues to be, a success. Its achievements include helping the U.K. recycling and reprocessing sector to quadruple in size between 2000 and 2008,  diverting 670,000 tons of food from landfills, decreasing growth in household packaging waste and developing a “world-first technology for the closed-loop recycling of plastic bottles, which has led to the creation of a new market for recycled plastics in the U.K.,” according to its website.

Dougherty’s work on WRAP did not go unnoticed.

He remembered, “I got a call at 5 a.m. from the British Embassy. He informed me ‘You have been to the U.K. a lot.’ And I thought ‘Uh oh, I’m going to need a working visa. This is not good.’”

But the man continued: “‘ … your significant contributions to the United Kingdom and other countries have been noticed, and noticed at the highest level. This culminates six months of research on you, and I’m calling to tell you Her Majesty wishes to bestow one of the highest titles on you for your contributions to the world.’”

The honor is not given liberally. Notably, that year Bono was named an honorary Knight Commander of the OBE. Few Americans have received the title. Gen. George S. Patton and Bob Hope are among the Americans honored with the title “Officer.”

A Reluctant Tree Hugger

Thinking restrospectively on his career, Dougherty said, “To be honest, I was more attracted to the prospect of making recycling work than answering a calling to be an environmentalist. My wife is more of an environmentalist than I am.”

But when you spend a couple hours with him, it becomes clear he harbors an inner tree hugger.

“I’ve never seen this as a waste issue. It was always a materials efficiency issue,” Dougherty said. “Once you take down a natural resource, how do you use it many, many times before you eventually have to discard it? As the population continues to expand, these resources are going to get scarce.”

When he reminisces about how far recycling has come in the United States and his small part in its progress, his eyes light up: “When we started recycling it was just glass, paper and aluminum. And then we expanded to plastic. With paper in the beginning they could only take certain grades of fiber, but now they can take all grades. That’s a true example of recycling. We used to cut a tree down to make the Sunday paper and it had a 20-minute life span before you threw it away. Now that same fiber gets used seven or eight times before it gets thrown away.”

In addition to his work with governments, Dougherty has innovated technologies for recycling discarded material into usable, marketable products for corporate clients. He worked with Adidas, turning shoe scraps – canvas, plastic, leather – into artificial turf and other products. In a collaboration with the Miami Heat, he worked with engineers to turn tire rubber and shoe scrap into better cushioning for the team’s practice court. He also helped facilitate the invention of rubberized asphalt from ground-up car tires,
an innovation that is laid on California roads by law and has been implemented in several other states.

“You’ve got to use those resources because this planet is going to have a lot more people and it has got be able to stretch its resources. To me it was always an issue of using our natural resources more intelligently,” the environmentalist in him said. Retired for a few years now, Dougherty “found a new challenge: working with Seattle Historic Parks.” As a board member, he is leading an initiative to create a conservatory for each of the budget-tight city’s 18 deteriorating historic parks.

In his long and decorated career, Dougherty traveled a path that took him around the world and transformed him into many things: executive, government worker, officer, problem solver, believer, even, arguably, environmentalist.

But when reflecting on the whole of his career, Dougherty’s choice of words evoke the spirit of a 22-year-old adventurer who once made his way from Minnesota to Alaska in 1965: “I didn’t plan this. I just followed the road.”

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

The program is the next in Minnesota Public Radio’s 2012-13 Broadcast Journalist Series, which is co-sponsored by St. Thomas’ College of Arts and Sciences and its Communication and Journalism Department.

David Plotz

The event is free, but reservations are required. Make them by going to the Minnesota Public Radio website.

Plotz will be interviewed that evening by Eric Ringham, digital Web editor for “The Daily Circuit” on Minnesota Public Radio News. Prior to coming to MPR, Ringham was a commentary editor at the Star Tribune newspaper in Minneapolis.

Plotz joined Slate as a writer when the online magazine was launched in 1996 and has been editor since 2008. Before joining Slate, he was a senior editor and staff writer for the Washington City Paper; he also has written for The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, GQ, New Republic and The Washington Post.

A 1992 graduate of Harvard University, Plotz won the National Press Club’s Hume Award for Political Reporting in 2000, was a National Magazine Award finalist (for a Harper’s article about South Carolina’s gambling industry) and won an Online Journalism Award for a Slate piece on Enron. He also appears on the weekly Slate Political Gabfest podcast with John Dickerson and Emily Bazelon.

Eric Ringham

Based in the United States, Slate is a current affairs and culture magazine created by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley. Since June 2008, Slate has been managed by The Slate Group, an online publishing entity created by The Washington Post Co. to develop and manage Web-only magazines.

Plotz is the author of two books: The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank (2005) and Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible (2009).

Minnesota Public Radio’s Broadcast Journalist Series, now in its 17th year, commissions renowned journalists for a 24-hour residency four times a year. They share insights on their craft and issues that affect our world.

In spring, nature shows us what is possible. First, buds appear and later we see trees become full with leaves, and flowers show us their color. Sometimes this is a gradual unfolding, each leaf or flower taking time to show itself. We get to know what is possible with each new leaf and begin to imagine how full the tree might become. Other times it seems to happen overnight with a great burst of energy. We go to bed with the tree outside our window looking nearly bare and wake up with leaves everywhere. It’s as if the tree is saying “I’m here, notice me, look at what I have to offer.”

Salina Renninger

For those of us working in higher education, May is also a time of graduation and the celebration of many student accomplishments. Like spring, it calls forth a sense of potential and possibility. Many students excitedly look toward their futures. Families feel a mix of pride in their child’s accomplishments and hope for a successful path beyond college. As educators, we join in these emotions. We have guided, cared and supported students toward their success and we want the best for them.

The truth is, however, that upon graduation some students will show up fully right away and some will take a bit longer to show their fullness. This will depend on a number of variables. The “right conditions” matter. Just as the spring vegetation varies in inherent hardiness and response to the soil, sun and water conditions, students vary in their own internal resources and responses to the various environments in which they are expected to bloom. There is only so much that one has control over, and given the current news headlines, it might be well to remember this.

If one Googles the term “college graduate outlook,” a variety of headlines will appear. These will range from “job outlook positive for 2013 college graduates” to “job outlook for college graduates is grim.” Many of these stories focus on data that evaluates rates of unemployment, underemployment (part time or poorly paid work), and overqualified workers (working in a “high school job” with a college degree). A 2012 Rutgers University study titled “Chasing the American Dream: Recent College Graduates and the Great Recession” (http://www.heldrichpodcasts.com/Chasing_American_Dream_Report.pdf) noted that only one-half of the 444 study participants (individuals who graduated between 2006 and 2011) indicated they worked full time. A 2013 report from the Pew Charitable Trusts (http://www.pewstates.org/uploadedFiles/PCS_Assets/2013/Pew_college_grads_recession_report.pdf) suggests that while all young adults are impacted by the economic conditions in the United States, college graduates are better off than their peers with an A.A. or high school diploma.

On the one hand, it’s not looking good; on the other hand, it could be worse. By any stretch of the imagination, this is not likely reassuring to a new graduate or anyone who cares for a new graduate. Still, it’s what we have. Given this reality, I am reminded of John Krumboltz’s happenstance learning theory (http://www.studentintegration.fi/filebank/77-The_Happenstance_Learning_Theory.pdf ). The theory provides a dose of optimism and expectations for success, eventually. One of the important tenets of this theory is that one’s career path is a result of a mixture of planning and serendipity, and that it is not fully within one’s control.  It is not linear and organized. Rather, most career trajectories are a mixture of intentionally planned events (e.g., earning a degree) and making the most of the opportunity that comes one’s way (serendipity). Additionally, people play an active role in what opportunities come their way. Maintaining an exploratory attitude to each endeavor in which one engages has the potential to yield more opportunity over time.

Ask any person you want about “work story” and you will quickly see how much the role of “chance” plays in his or her trajectory. Sometimes it comes in the form of discovering that your neighbor knows someone who knows someone who can help you get your foot in the door at a particular corporation. Other times it’s applying for one job but being offered something else you hadn’t considered, but wind up loving. Nonetheless, it’s also important to recognize the same chance opportunities may not be as readily available to all individuals. Work by Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald (http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/04/22/177455764/What-Does-Modern-Prejudice-Look-Like) on why individuals may be more likely to help others who are perceived to share some type of group identity suggests that discrimination can unintentionally occur when individuals solely reach out to those more “similar” to them. While happenstance learning theory recognizes the power of the individual to create opportunity through networks and experiences, it is important to recognize some inherent limits. Extending opportunity toward all, versus solely those who share similar identities, is necessary and required for everyone to thrive.

Happenstance learning theory is not only about making interpersonal connections and creating opportunity through openness to various experiences. It also is about getting to know one’s self and what that could mean in the work world. It might involve discovering aspects of a job that are satisfying and determining how to have similar experiences, but in a different work setting.  By way of example, I would suggest that my own experience of cleaning residence hall bathrooms as a college sophomore taught me that I love completing tasks with a beginning, middle and end.  It’s quite satisfying. Nearly 30 years later, doing very different work, I find I am the same. I still enjoy tasks that have clear beginnings and endings. Happenstance learning theory suggests observations like this are worth paying attention to. I didn’t take the job to clean bathrooms because I love cleaning. I took the job because it was conveniently located in the residence hall in which I lived and paid a fairly decent wage compared to other positions on campus. By staying open to the experience and learning what I could, I found out something important to my lifelong career satisfaction.

Thus, while the job outlook data may look somewhat discouraging, I challenge new graduates to adopt an attitude of discovery, potential, possibility and generosity. Scan the horizon for new prospects and say yes when they arrive. Offer your assistance to others when you can. Notice what energizes and excites you, and what depletes and diminishes you. Make efforts to engage in greater energizing activities and fewer activities that deplete you. This approach will yield results. I also encourage the important others in our young folks’ lives to help them maintain this perspective during daunting times.

And always know that like the trees and flowers of spring, some graduates will burst onto the scene in full foliage and color and others will take a bit longer to unfold. In the end, their beautiful offerings will all be revealed, if we assist with creating the right conditions for discovery and success.

Talk to St. Thomas graduates working in journalism, and they don’t take long to get around to it. Here’s Ryan Shaver, sports anchor at KIMT-TV in Mason City, Iowa: “I think the only surprise was how much work the Real World is. I knew that we were going to be turning out stories, but my first day on the job I had two voice-overs and a package. I was used to having a week to turn in stuff.

“So even though the deadlines were harsh at TommieMedia, I was just not expecting the amount of work that goes into my job now.”

Shaver ’12 is among the first group of graduates from the Communication and Journalism program who didn’t have a chance to work for The Aquin, the venerable student newspaper that had operated on the St. Thomas campus since 1933. Shaver earned his stripes working for TommieMedia, the online student-operated news organization that replaced The Aquin in 2009. Shaver served as TM’s sports editor, production editor and, finally, as its director.

He and 10 other TommieMedia veterans stepped into the Real World in May 2012. Those of us who keep an eye on the Real World of journalism were a bit surprised when all 11 found jobs in their desired field.

Dana Ashby is one. She was TommieMedia’s advertising and public relations director in spring 2012, a position that did not exist with the ad-free Aquin. Ashby works as a digital media coordinator at Periscope, an advertising agency in Minneapolis.

“My boss says on a weekly basis, ‘I only hired you because you knew what media was,’ and I learned that at TommieMedia,” Ashby said. “I was doing sales at TommieMedia, and I learned what this area was because that’s what we did there.”

Her job at Periscope is “more behind the scenes of working with that ad server and being able to monitor different campaigns and being able to interact with clients immediately.”

“TommieMedia gave me those decision-making opportunities and showed me the consequences with this real living, breathing digital experience,” she said.

The Real World was a concern among those of us who laid The Aquin to rest and replaced it with the brave, new whirlwind TommieMedia, one of the first online student-operated news organizations in the country. The goal was to reflect what was happening in the Real World.

At the time, the Real World of journalism was changing rapidly. Newspapers cut staff as revenue from retail, national and classified advertising tumbled. The Pew Research Center reported that print advertising revenue nationwide fell from a peak of $49 billion a year in 2006 to about $27.5 billion in 2009, when the plot to kill The Aquin was hatched. Online advertising revenue was growing, while the cost of printing and delivering thousands of papers every day seemed less and less sustainable.

We watched thousands of dollars each year go for printing 11 editions of 2,600 copies of The Aquin for a student population of more than 11,000. Even with those few copies, The Aquin would pile up in the Murray-Herrick post office like fallen leaves.

CAS Associate Dean Kris Bunton, chair of the Communication and Journalism Department at the time, set TommieMedia in motion. We would merge The Aquin and Campus Scope, a periodic television news magazine, into one website. Campus Scope adviser Tim Scully came onboard as a TM adviser, as did I and professors Mark Neuzil for his editorial experience, Greg Vandegrift for his video reporting experience and Craig Bryan, who would lead the students in our new advertising venture. The website launched in September 2009.

We were further ahead of the curve than we thought.

Print Still Reigns

Imagine my surprise when Shane Kitzman ’10 told me that newspaper design was something he wished TommieMedia had taught him. Kitzman, the last Aquin editor and second TommieMedia director, took the job of sports editor at the Northfield News after he graduated. When he said this over sandwiches at a Northfield eatery, Jordan Osterman, current Northfield News sports editor, and Miles Trump, sports editor of the Waseca County News, nodded in agreement.

“When I went into the Real World, and when he did and he did, you had to be able to design a page,” Kitzman said. “So TommieMedia was great, but the first position that you get when you come out of school will probably have a design element. I had to learn on the fly.”

“That’s where you start,” Osterman said. “If you’re in print, it’s going to be at a weekly newspaper.”

Print operations still generate far more income in the Real World of community journalism than does online advertising. Video skills are prized, too, but print reigns.

“They love [video] at small newspapers,” Kitzman said. “They drool over that.”

“But at the same time, they didn’t hire you to do that video, to be a video person for them,” Osterman added.

“Video is like this added bonus,” Trump said, “but it’s not like this mandatory part of your day-to-day job, whereas layout is.”

The fact is, print advertising still accounts for far more revenue than the online edition.

“We hear it all the time that print is still where we make our money,” Osterman said. “And maybe somewhere down the line, it will be online, but right now, print is still the money horse.”

So did TM fail in preparing them for the Real World? No. Community journalism is the art of doing everything, and doing everything is something TommieMedia stresses. All three of these TommieMedia veterans found success at small papers. They represent the past three winners of the Minnesota Newspaper Association’s Best Young Journalist award for weekly papers.

Sean Crotty covers a men’s basketball game. (Photos by Mike Ekern ’02)

Kitzman moved from Northfield in July 2012 to become a Web producer for WCCO-TV in Minneapolis. Like Shaver, Kitzman has found the TommieMedia experience to be right in line with his new job.

“I loved the print,” Kitzman said. “I loved having a finished product that could be so set in stone and so tangible.

“Now at WCCO.com, it’s just like TommieMedia again, where my work is cool for one day, but then I haven’t done anything for a day. If I don’t create a blog for one day, the next day it’s deadly. I really didn’t do much that day.”

TommieMedia provides the greatest gains for St. Thomas students interested in broadcasting, advertising and public relations. TM produces daily video news and sports reports, and weekly studio shows. Its ad people have built a growing clientele, and the PR staff does everything from signing up students for email updates to handing out TM goodies at football games.

Shaver said TommieMedia’s hands-on approach has served him well.

“I learned a lot about the basics of writing and editing,” Shaver said, “but just that we had our own TV studio, and had people like Professor Vandegrift, who had been in the business, really prepared me for what I was getting myself into. People like Professor Scully could go over my video for things that were as simple as lighting an interview.

“When I got to my real job, my bosses were really impressed that I knew how to light an interview, how to frame things like that, and they didn’t have to sit down and teach me to do all that stuff over again.”

Shaver and Kitzman agreed that for online journalism, TommieMedia gets it right. Kitzman uses the same content-management system at WCCO that he used at TommieMedia, while Shaver said KIMT’s system is much like it. And each of these alumni said TommieMedia’s emphasis on using social media is crucial.

“Twitter is one of the most powerful tools we have that we use on a day-to-day basis,” Trump said. “It’s how we engage with everyone.”

Engaging Readers … and Student Journalists

TommieMedia has been engaging people like The Aquin never could. Online analytics show that for Nov. 15 to Dec. 15, 2012, the last month of the fall semester, 24,250 “unique” visitors came to the site 50,193 times and viewed 122,026 pages. They came to the TM website from 97 countries and translated its pages into 60 languages.

The most-viewed page for the month profiled Tommie Award finalists (3,177 views), followed by the memorial service for a student who died on campus (2,678). Athletics was a big draw, topped by 1,298 viewers for the football team’s national semifinal victory and 1,004 viewers for St. Thomas’ victory in the volleyball national championship game.

Having thousands of people see your work is about as real as it gets. Finding value and reward in your work is even better. The greatest contribution TommieMedia makes might be in hooking 35 to 50 students a semester on the Real World of journalism.

“I never worked at The Aquin,” Trump said, adding that he enjoys online journalism because TommieMedia was where he “first jumped into journalism.”

“I enjoy more the fact that online, there is a sports section that can be constantly changed and updated,” Trump said, “because I just see that everything is constantly moving, that the media is constantly changing and constantly flowing, and I have this area where people can go to check the progress as these teams play. I like that.”

Read more from CAS Spotlight.

Dr. Camille George poses next to the Ultralight Mod Pod, a breadfruit drier she co-designed last year. (Photo by Mike Ekern ’02)

The event, open to members of the St. Thomas community, begins with a 4:30 p.m. reception. The program runs from 5 to 6 p.m. Those planning to attend are asked to RSVP here.

Highlight of the celebration is the premiere of the documentary “Field to Fork,” a film is about Dr. Camille George’s work to engineer the post-harvest processing of breadfruit in Haiti.

“My five-year goal is to feed 100,000 Haitian school kids a day,” she said.

In 2003, George, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, led student-teams from the School of Engineering, French Department and Communication and Journalism Department to St. Vincent and collaborated on preliminary designs for shredding and drying breadfruit.

Later, another team of students studied the entire process of using breadfruit, from harvesting to shredding to drying to grinding it into flour. And in 2012, the School of Engineering, along with Minnesota-based nonprofit Compatible Technology International, held a “Peace Engineering” contest to build and deliver a breadfruit-drying device to the Breadfruit Institute, a subdivision of the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kauai, Hawaii.

Breadfruit is an underutilized staple crop long recognized for its potential to provide food security in tropical regions. The fruit, named for its bread-like fragrance, is high in carbohydrates and contains many minerals and vitamins. A significant challenge in taking advantage of this food source, however, is its short shelf life once picked.

In addition to the breadfruit project, George and the Peace Engineering program have worked on a low-power cooling system, solar-powered water-pasteurization system and a method to produce shea butter more efficiently.

A goal of each project is to use engineering to help empower impoverished women and enabled them to profit from their countries’ natural resources.

The May 9 event also celebrates the collaboration of the St. Thomas School of Engineering with the Fetzer Institute, Compatible Technology International, Satag Inc. and the Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church.

More information can be found at this Peace Engineering website and in this article, “Dr. Camille George Engineers the Future of Breadfruit.”

Even when discussing the financial benefits, many people, including the national media, make a serious error in focusing exclusively on the first job for which the college senior is prepared. While everyone is relieved when the graduate finds that first paid position, the most important thing about that job is that it leads to a second one, which leads to a third and so on. I am reminded of this fact on the many happy occasions when I run into a former student. Among other of their life’s details, I am always interested to learn where their career paths have taken them. While I never could have predicted in advance where their paths would lead, I am never surprised by even the most unexpected of outcomes. This is because I know that their liberal arts education has prepared them for just about anything.

As a result of their liberal arts education, students do not receive only a limited body of knowledge with which they might practice a profession. Were that the case, many people who graduated 20 years ago would no longer be employable, since the profession for which they might have thought to be training no longer exists. That they still are employable, and that students of today will continue to be employable 20 years in the future, has little to do with any job-related information they may have received and much more to do with important skills they learned. These would include critical-thinking skills, problem-solving skills and the ability to consider new ideas on one’s own – to become a lifelong learner.

I believe these learned skills, and others, are the ones that lead our students successfully along their career paths. I was reminded of this fact while reading this year’s Star Tribune feature on 10 Minnesota business leaders to watch in 2013. For those featured, the single most popular college major field of study was history, a major chosen by three of the 10. Other majors included psychology, political science and philosophy.

Obviously, liberal arts graduates do not begin their careers at the top, but the skills they learn in college help lead them there. Let’s be sure to include that fact when calculating the return on investment.

Read more from CAS Spotlight.

Tonia Bock

Consider for a moment two extreme historical examples: Martin Luther King Jr. and Adolph Hitler. The degree to which each was a good person is a rather stark contrast. One worked to alleviate gross societal injustices and oppression while the other worked to instigate it. How did each get to be such a person?

We can look to historical biographical sources, of course, to help answer this question. Yet we also want a more general answer that applies not only to these two individuals but also to you and me, and our young generation in particular. How do infants become morally upright adults? Ultimately, psychologists studying morality, such as myself, want to understand moral development so that we can inform teachers how to facilitate, strengthen and support future generations’ moral character. Some psychologists (e.g., the late Lawrence Kohlberg) dedicate their entire career to advance our knowledge of moral development so that we can educate our young to be more like King and less like Hitler.

One of the first generations of psychologists studying moral development (e.g., Kohlberg) focused on understanding how our reasoning about right and wrong changes from childhood to adulthood. The psychologists believed that adults who grow to reason in morally principled ways will behave morally. Plato once said, “To know the good is to do the good.” If we know the morally principled thing to do, then we will do just this. Right? Certainly this early generation of psychologists believed as much. Many studies since have shown that the psychologists weren’t necessarily wrong – there is a positive correlation between moral reasoning development and moral behavior; however, the correlation, even though it is statistically significant, is pretty small, meaning that knowing the right thing to do does not always lead to the person doing the right thing. We have countless examples of this from history as well as from our everyday lives. We regularly see news stories about politicians and Hollywood stars who do things they know are wrong. If we look closely at ourselves, we see that we also sometimes do things we know are wrong, except that unlike the politicians and stars, our wrongdoings are not usually news headlines.

So if people know the right thing to do, why don’t they just do it? This question has inspired some psychologists studying morality to turn their attention away from moral knowledge and reasoning to a concept called moral identity. What is moral identity? It is generally defined as the degree to which moral concerns (e.g., justice, caring, generosity) are a central part of one’s identity (i.e., your sense of who you are). It is a somewhat new concept, with psychologists starting to develop slightly different conceptualizations. Regardless of how psychologists are conceptualizing moral identity, they all assume and are interested in individual differences, meaning that some individuals have a strong moral identity while others have a weak one. Individuals with a very strong moral identity prioritize moral commitments over all other nonmoral commitments, obligating themselves to live consistently with their respective moral concerns; thus, one who has a strong moral identity would feel compelled to be a good person, at least respective to his or her prioritized moral commitments. Theoretically, then, these people would not only know the good but also prioritize and consistently do the good. A person with a weak moral identity, on the other hand, would highly prioritize nonmoral commitments (e.g., having wealth, being attractive, being popular) over moral commitments; thus, he or she would be more likely to know the right thing to do but not act accordingly with their knowledge, presumably because they are more driven by their highly prioritized nonmoral commitments.

Being a psychologist who studies morality, I of course find this notion of moral identity to be quite fascinating. My particular interest in this area surrounds two specific questions: How do we think moral identity is developed over time? How do we best assess people’s moral identity? Given that psychologists are still working on their theoretical conceptualizations of moral identity, there is a lot of work to be done on answering both of these questions. I’ll briefly sketch out some of the ideas and challenges that lie ahead for us.

If psychologists presume that individuals vary in how strong their moral identity is, then they should have some idea about how these differences emerge over time; currently, it seems we have some very general ideas. Some psychologists mention the importance of parenting in early childhood, describing how parents who frequently, consistently and jointly attend to the moral dimensions of situations with their young child will help them to not only build mental images of what it means to be a moral person but also construct memories of morally relevant events and interactions.

Other psychologists have focused on the importance of moral identity formation in adolescence. According to them, adolescence is a time of unique growth in cognitive, social and personal understandings. Individuals in their teens (and early 20s) become better able to construct more complex notions of who they are, now being able to incorporate abstract ideals and traits, possibly moral, into their sense of identity. To date, the most specific theory of moral identity formation argues that individuals must simultaneously develop and increasingly prioritize the values of (a) benevolence and (b) achievement. As the theory goes, these two values are initially independent from one another. As they become increasingly prioritized, the person cannot allocate his or her attention and resources to both – the person either needs to choose one over the other or integrate them. According to this theory, those who integrate the values of benevolence and achievement in their goals and commitments are those who have the strongest moral identity. Initial research has supported such a developmental model, but there is a long road ahead to more fully verifying it. It is hoped that additional explanations and models of moral identity development will also be advanced in the near future to paint a more complete picture of moral identity development from birth through old age.

My other interest in moral identity is how we should best assess it. The currently existing assessments have faced some rather serious criticisms. A few paper-pencil surveys of moral identity exist. The advantages of this type of assessment are that they are very easy for researchers to use and participants to complete. For example, one assessment has several virtues listed at the top of the survey (e.g., caring, fair, generous). Participants are then asked to indicate whether they agree or disagree with several statements about the importance of these virtues. Not surprisingly, all participants rate these virtues as being important to who they are. Individual differences exist, but they are very small.

The main criticism is that surveys such as these underestimate the individual differences in moral identity because, well, who would want to acknowledge that these virtues are not important to them? Psychologists call this social desirability bias, and it is a frequent issue in any research that deals with morality.

The other type of moral identity assessments are lengthy, intensive individual interviews. Social desirability is less of an issue because researchers ask rather general open-ended questions about how the interviewees describe themselves. The main disadvantage, though, is the time and energy it takes psychologists to not only conduct the interviews but also reliably code and analyze the data. Few researchers use this method, and when they do, it takes a rather long time to complete the entire research process.

These are just a few examples of the issues and challenges that researchers currently face in studying moral identity. I am quite confident that exciting theories and research are yet to come. I am most curious about how important researchers will find moral identity to be in doing the good. Maybe one day we can modify Plato’s saying to read, “To prioritize the good is to do the good.”

Read more from CAS Spotlight.

Five teenagers had been on a Saturday morning duck hunt on Lake Elysian in southern Minnesota. Their boat had capsized, and one was missing. Trump, the paper’s sports editor, sports reporter, sports photographer, sports columnist and sports-page designer, soon found himself in the middle of a heart-wrenching story about an athlete dying young.

Brady Hruska, 17, was a wide receiver for the Waterville-Elysian-Morristown High School football team that was to face Medford that night in the state playoffs.

“I was the one who found out that he died that morning,” Trump said. “Then I was the first one to go out to the scene, and authorities were still looking for his body in the lake.”

Trump posted reports of Hruska’s death on the paper’s website, with pictures of the search effort. After the playoff game that evening, he wrote about the community’s tribute to one of its children. His story, including a photo slide show, was a tribute as well to the small towns he serves around Waseca and to the art of community journalism.

In the next two days, he added a news story about the accident – full of the details and quotes that are the hallmark of good reporting – and a touching column about how proud he was to be part of the Waseca County community. A close reading of those stories shows why Trump deserved to be honored in January by the Minnesota Newspaper Association as New Journalist of the Year for a weekly paper.

Trump is the third TommieMedia veteran in three years to win the award. Jordan Osterman won in 2011 when he was at the Waseca County News, and Shane Kitzman was honored in 2010 when he was the Northfield News sports editor – the job Osterman now holds. They all worked together at TommieMedia in various leadership roles, and in the small world of Minnesota journalism, their lives remain intertwined.

That October Saturday, Trump did not write his usual “gamer” about WEM’s playoff victory.

“What they wanted me to do was write a community reaction story for the football game,” Trump said, “and then they needed someone to actually cover the game, because it was a playoff game. So Jordan came down.”

The Northfield News and the Waseca County News are owned by the same company, Huckle Media, and often share resources.

“You kind of have to, because for sports, especially, it’s only one guy per place,” Osterman said.

But Osterman’s stake in the story was personal, too.

“I’d covered that kid and that team the whole year before, so I knew him pretty well,” Osterman said.

As the story broke, Kitzman was working a shift as Web producer for WCCO-TV in Minneapolis. One of his practices was to monitor Twitter for breaking news.

“We only found out because I was reading (Miles’) tweets that were retweeted by Owatonna,” Kitzman said. “When I saw that come down, I thought, ‘Oh boy, oh boy.’”
WCCO sent a satellite truck and reporter Reg Chapman to cover the story.

Trump grew up in Mankato, 30 miles from Waseca. Kitzman is from Northfield, and Osterman is from St. Paul. With their ties to the area and their experience at TommieMedia, the three are well-suited for the do-everything duties of community journalism. For Trump, those tasks have their own special rewards.

In a column he wrote shortly after Hruska died, Trump told about an incident at a Waseca High School volleyball game. A chant started in the student section:

“WE LOVE MILES, CLAP-CLAP, CLAP-CLAP CLAP.”

“That, I can honestly say, was one of the higher points in my life,” Trump wrote, adding that he wasn’t telling the story to brag.

“I feel blessed to have a job that’s appreciated in the community,” he wrote.

Read more from CAS Spotlight.

Questions of how the nervous system influences human behavior can be traced to 3,000 years B.C., when an Egyptian surgeon noticed that soldiers suffering particular head injuries displayed specific kinds of behavioral changes. Nearly 2,500 years later, Hippocrates taught that the brain was the origin of all intellect and emotions. But without the ability to directly observe its complex inner workings, medieval physicians and philosophers discounted the impact of the brain, and attributed thoughts and emotions to other internal organs. Depression, for instance, was said to be caused by an excess of black bile in the liver. This perspective was highly influential, and it persists in some aspects of the modern world, where a Valentine’s Day card evokes feelings of love by showing a heart, rather than a brain.

Although philosophers, poets and playwrights through the centuries could draw upon introspection to gain insight into the mind, the scientific study of the brain was not possible until technology helped to solve key mysteries of its fundamental nature. At the turn of the 20th century, a few scientists applied techniques borrowed from photography, electricity and biology to carefully study the brain and nervous system. Further technological breakthroughs in physics, chemistry and computing during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s allowed nerve cells and brain circuits to be examined directly, and the seeds of neuroscience were planted.

True to these roots, modern neuroscientists approach some of the most intriguing questions in biology and human behavior from a wide range of perspectives. Neuroscience is an interdisciplinary endeavor in which scientists weave webs of collaboration through seemingly distant fields. Molecular biologists who study DNA collaborate with psychologists who use carefully crafted behavioral experiments to explore how genes affect memories. Even the Dalai Lama has paired with functional anatomists to help investigate how meditation impacts the brain. Such a wide range of perspectives and collaborations can bring about insights into human thought and behavior that would not have been possible a decade ago; however, this complexity also can make neuroscience a difficult subject for undergraduates to explore.

Evolution and Growth

At the University of St. Thomas, undergraduate study in neuroscience can trace its origins to a “behavioral neuroscience” concentration first offered by the Psychology Department in 1990; however, this early program did not reflect the interdisciplinary nature of modern neuroscience. As psychology professor Roxanne Prichard noted, “The major did not require much biology, chemistry or advanced math.” Upon being hired in 2006, one of Prichard’s first tasks was to make sure the program addressed the breadth of the field and prepared students to compete for positions in top neuroscience graduate programs. The result was the creation of a new interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience, jointly administered by the Biology and Psychology departments. The program began in 2008, offering a bachelor of science degree in neuroscience. Three faculty members were officially affiliated with the fledgling program, and one student graduated with a neuroscience major that year.

The low initial numbers masked tremendous growth the program would soon face. Two more faculty members were hired in 2009 (one each in biology and psychology), and as word spread about the new program, it quickly gained popularity for its interdisciplinary approach. Sibel Dikmen, now a senior, recalled being attracted to the program her freshman year: “I liked that the neuroscience major adds diversity to the sciences. From an educational standpoint, the Neuroscience Program forced me to broaden my horizons.”

A student works with a microscopic section of brain tissue at a Cryostat machine during a neuroscience class. (Photo by Mark Brown)

Evan Eid, a 2010 graduate who is now a researcher with the Environmental Protection Agency in Duluth, Minn., said the Neuroscience Program provided him with the motivation and focus to complete his studies. “When I heard about the neuroscience major, I jumped at the opportunity. Neuroscience opened up such a fascinating world for me,” Eid said. “I saw my professors’ passion for the subject and that really motivated me to try harder.”

Appealing to a group of students whose interests span traditional disciplines, the program now counts more than 200 degree-seeking students, making neuroscience the university’s largest interdisciplinary program and one of the most popular majors in the College of Arts and Sciences.

In response to this rapid growth, several changes were made to the Neuroscience Program. In 2012, the faculty approved a new structure for the major that brings more cohesion to a body of interdisciplinary coursework that might otherwise feel disconnected. This curricular overhaul also added eight new courses to the neuroscience major that strengthen the program by helping students unify their foundational coursework in biology, chemistry, math and psychology within the framework of neuroscience. The breadth of coursework might seem overwhelming, but Prichard sees it as a clear advantage, particularly for students interested in the health professions. “The program has really given students more choice in their course plan,” she said. “Many students are interested in the body and human health not just from a biological standpoint but also from chemical and psychological perspectives. The Neuroscience Program exposes students to multiple ways of investigation and problem solving.”

Students agree. Adam Wieckert, a senior who transferred to the University of St. Thomas after learning about the Neuroscience Program, said, “The program adds an interdisciplinary approach to understanding life. I think the program is headed in the right direction.”

The rapid increase in numbers of students and courses has raised some challenges. Almost immediately, the Biology and Psychology departments had to hire several new faculty members to support the program. For these newly hired professors, the Neuroscience Program was a significant reason for joining the College of Arts and Sciences. Sarah Heimovics, a behavioral neuroendocrinologist hired by the Biology Department in 2012, was particularly attracted by the opportunity to help build a strong Neuroscience Program. “I was thrilled to join a university where student interest in neuroscience has grown,” she said. “There is a community of faculty trained in the neurosciences, there is strong support for the program at the administrative level, and there is a large pool of bright, motivated students. These are the primary reasons why I accepted a position here.”

The Neuroscience Program also attracted Sarah Hankerson, a behavioral ecologist who joined the Psychology Department in 2012. “The presence of the program and the strong support by the administration showed a lasting commitment to interdisciplinary education,” she said. “It also demonstrated the ability of the university to adapt to the rapidly changing face of science.” Hankerson, whose own work encompasses both biology and psychology, pointed out the value of this interdisciplinary approach: “Our students gain an understanding of how biological processes impact our daily lives, social interactions and mental health. Being a part of the Neuroscience Program allows me to fully embrace the interdisciplinary nature of my work.”

The College of Arts and Sciences faculty affiliated with the Neuroscience Program reflect the diversity in modern neuroscience. For example, Heimovics might be out in the field observing birds one day and in the lab looking at neurons under a microscope the next. Students benefit from this diversity in approach. As Heimovics remarked, “Moving forward, our students will understand the nervous system at multiple levels of analysis, making them better prepared and more competitive in their chosen careers.”

Making Connections Through Student-Faculty Research

As a result of recent hiring, 10 faculty members from the Biology and Psychology departments are now associated with the Neuroscience Program, and it is an active group. These professors conduct cutting-edge research, attract external scientific funding and publish their work in prestigious scientific journals. But most importantly, these faculty members are committed to involving undergraduate students at every stage of their research programs. Each year, dozens of undergraduate students gain research experience by working alongside professors in labs and during field studies. These opportunities give students the chance to experience modern neuroscience as it happens, often in the role of a scientific colleague. Jadin Jackson, a computational neurophysiologist who joined the Biology Department in 2011, emphasized the quality of these experiences: “The laboratory experience that students gain is on par with specialized graduate student workshops offered at the national and international level. Students gain hands-on experience with neuroscience techniques that deeply enhance and enrich the topics covered in the classroom.”

Professor Sarah Heimovics, right, works with student Carissa Libbenga and St. Catherine University student Margaret Miller (standing, left), at a Cryostat machine during a neuroscience class. (Photo by Mark Brown)

In addition, some students earn competitive research grants awarded by the University of St. Thomas to conduct their own projects in collaboration with a professor. Chloe Lawyer, a junior who conducts research in neuroscience, has experienced all aspects of scientific projects. But when she started, she wasn’t sure she was interested in research. “When I started working in the lab, I was uncertain about my future,” she said. Lawyer began working on a project in Kurt Illig’s lab in the Biology Department, investigating whether the chemical dopamine impacts memory formation in the brain. Dopamine is widely known as the neurotransmitter that is activated during pleasurable events, like eating chocolate.

Dopamine also is activated by drugs of abuse such as cocaine, and this activation may be the reason such drugs are addictive. After working on this project, Lawyer’s uncertainty cleared. “I quickly realized that I had a passion for research,” she said. Lawyer continued to collaborate with her professor to conduct experiments to discover how the dopamine system changed during adolescence. With experience on two projects, she was ready to design and carry out experiments of her own that would help determine whether the changes in the dopamine system during adolescence might contribute to the prevalence of drug addiction in teenagers.

Working with two other undergraduate students in the lab, Lawyer examined the brains of developing laboratory rats, which are used as a model for human brain development. The students started out by looking at the levels of dopamine receptors – the part of a neuron that receives messages from other cells – and found that these levels were low in juvenile and adult rats, but were very high during adolescence. Genes that encode these receptors were activated more during this time, too. But did this spike in receptor levels have any behavioral relevance? To complete this project, the students conducted two more sets of experiments. In the first, they showed that adolescent rats had a more difficult time learning new information than juvenile or adult animals. In the second, they showed that learning in adolescent rats could be improved by using low doses of drugs that specifically target the activity of dopamine receptors. Finally, in February 2013, the paper detailing their work was published in the high-profile, peer-reviewed scientific journal PLoS One. Lawyer and the two other undergraduates are co-authors on the study.

The project took almost two years to complete, but the hard work paid off in a number of ways. Lawyer reflected, “Research has allowed me to form close relationships with the faculty at St. Thomas, and also has connected me with neuroscientists throughout the country.” Neuroscience students make these connections by presenting their findings at national and international meetings, including the Society for Neuroscience and the Association for Chemoreception Sciences conferences. Lawyer plans to use these connections next year as she begins to identify programs where she can pursue a Ph.D. in neuroscience, but she said the experience has been about more than networking: “Most of all, it has been an incredible learning experience, and the St. Thomas faculty do a fantastic job at developing students’ skills as researchers.”

Betsy Smith, a junior neuroscience major, also conducts independent laboratory research. She said this has been her best experience at the University of St. Thomas. “It is an incredible opportunity that has allowed me to learn more than I would have in a classroom alone. The collaborative student-faculty research programs are unique because they focus on students being the primary investigators in the lab, allowing them to explore their own interests.”

By working closely with professors on innovative research, students learn how to critically analyze problems and pursue innovative solutions with modern scientific tools. Many recent graduates of the Neuroscience Program have continued their education in medical, dental and graduate schools. Brittni Peterson, a 2010 graduate and co-author on the PLoS One study, is now a Ph.D. student in neuroscience at the University of Minnesota. She credits the research experience she had as an undergraduate with helping her find her career path. “The research experience at St. Thomas is exquisite, because it allows for direct, one-on-one interactions between students and faculty,” she said. “At a larger university such as the University of Minnesota, it is uncommon to have these close interactions. I would not be where I am today without the St. Thomas Neuroscience Program and its faculty members.”

In just five years, the Neuroscience Program has made a positive impact on CAS students. With new courses in the curriculum and a larger, more engaged community of faculty and students, the program is in position to support further collaborative learning; however, new challenges can limit these opportunities. As Prichard said, “We have expanded with new faculty hires, but we really need to expand our teaching and research space to provide a high-quality experience.” Psychology professor Uta Wolfe agreed: “Most of us temporarily set up our projects in shared spaces. More research would get done if rooms could be set up permanently.”

Another challenge is that faculty members in the program are split between two departments that are housed in separate buildings at different locations on the St. Paul campus. This physical separation limits the opportunities to work together to foster cross-disciplinary relationships. As Hankerson said, “A closer connection between departments would enhance our communication and collaboration, both in the classroom and in the lab.” Such enhanced collaboration would lead to more and better opportunities for students; “the closer the connection among faculty, the stronger the program.”

The ongoing challenges and changes facing the Neuroscience Program do not diminish the strength of its approach, however. “The future of the program looks bright,” said Dr. Greg Robinson-Riegler, chair of the Psychology Department. “Interdisciplinary study holds the key to answering the ‘big’ questions, and there really are no bigger questions than the nature of the biological mechanisms underlying consciousness and behavior. The Neuroscience Program puts students on the cutting edge of science. I’m proud that UST is one of only a handful of comparably sized institutions to have a rigorous Neuroscience Program.”

Read more from CAS Spotlight.