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May 2008 |
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Opinions
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VCSU growth plan, part two |
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
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By Ellen Chaffee Last week I explained that VCSU’s Growth Plan for 2008-2010 emphasizes increasing the number of online graduate students and the number of intercollegiate sports, which would lead to more student athletes on campus. Growth of the graduate program is well underway. Growing sports requires a good deal of hard work and commitment, but it could pay off handsomely in the next three to five years.
There is more to the story. The Growth Plan involves the entire university in a multi-faceted campaign to grow enrollment.
On the academic side, faculty members are taking their courses and programs to new levels on the two dimensions that already give VCSU a distinctive niche: relating to real world practicalities and capitalizing on the technology edge. These qualities are not only central to a VCSU education, but they are also highly valued both by young people who want hands-on experience and by adult learners who have very practical reasons for taking classes.
For example, programs in business and information technologies are working with the Institute for Customized Business Solutions to revise programs and create new options, with support on the “soft skills” side of the business equation from faculty in communication arts. In addition, VCSU’s health sciences program fits the real world/technology emphasis very well and is gearing up for expansion. The next step is a planned two-year nursing program in Valley City in collaboration with local health care providers and Minot State-Bottineau, scheduled to begin next fall.
In addition to these enhancements, we will increase student scholarships and streamline services for students.
Promotion and recruiting are essential elements of the plan. Each of the key program changes will receive customized marketing services. To increase awareness of VCSU in key regions, we are working with a communications firm on a VCSU awareness campaign. VCSU will launch an updated, recruiting-focused VCSU web site next summer.
Another new VCSU initiative is in development, for which we will seek supplemental funding from federal, state, or foundation sources: a multi-campus strategy to bring “just in time, right on target, where you are” learning opportunities for adults throughout eastern North Dakota. Whether one is looking for job qualifications, knowledge to qualify for promotions or career changes, or personal enrichment, the goal will be to match adult learners with convenient and appropriate learning opportunities. Our experience working with Sheyenne Care Center and others to bring nursing education to the community persuades us that we could find make a big difference for individuals and employers through such a project.
Several pieces of the Growth Plan have specific enrollment goals. Others are more difficult to quantify but they are also enrollment drivers. The goal for fall 2008 is to have at least 1,050 students, an increase of about 65 from last fall. The following year, we believe we could have at least 1,125, and at least 1,400 after full implementation of the athletic plan, which could be as early as 2012, depending on financing and construction schedules.
Now that’s growth! |
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Legislative Report: Carpe ventum! |
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
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By Phil Mueller Carpe ventum is a Latin term that means “capture the wind.” The race seems to be on to do just that. There are wind farms popping up all over North Dakota. The wind energy industry grew more in the United States than any place in the world in this past year. Currently our country produces 16,842 megawatts of wind energy behind only Germany with 21,800 megawatts. Even with the phenomenal growth, the United States only produces .9 percent of its electricity from wind.
The United States has an unquenchable thirst for energy. The use of that energy has made our country what it is today. The countries electrical power need grows by 1 percent each year. Our country must continue to grow its ability to generate electricity using all of its current resources including clean coal and also find other ways to make electricity.
North Dakota is blessed with an 800-year supply of coal and it also has the wind energy potential of any state in the nation. Currently, North Dakota produces 350 megawatts of wind-blown electrical energy. It has the potential for much, much more. It has been estimated that if all North Dakota's wind resources were developed, the state could produce one-third of the nations electrical needs in the form of wind energy. Coal energy has been and is in the process of developing cleaner coal technologies, but that does cost a lot of money and that cost will be passed on to the consumers. Wind energy does not produce undesirable byproducts. It is truly a green energy source that will become even more valuable in the future.
Transmitting wind energy to those large urban centers that need the power is a challenge. The cost of one mile of transmission line is one million dollars. Development of transmission is a problem that is being resolved, but much is still yet to be done.
How does big scale wind energy development in North Dakota happen? It is going to take the right federal and state policies to assist wind development. North Dakota has some policy in place to help, but much more needs to be done. Wind energy development takes land and wind rights. Wind energy takes developers. There are many wind developers in the country that range from very large corporations to local wind farm cooperatives. To develop a wind farm is a complex and very expensive endeavor. For land owners who may have the right location for wind energy, it is vitally important that the landowner has all the facts and knows the options available. Legal counsel is recommended.
The state and local government needs to develop policies that assist wind development but at the same time protects the landowners of North Dakota. If you have questions about wind energy state policy in North Dakota, call me, Sen. Larry Robinson, or Rep. Ralph Metcalf.
Carpe ventum!
Mueller, a Democrat, is a North Dakota state legislator. He lives in Valley City. |
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Hair-raising Topics... Violence is never the answer |
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Friday, 15 February 2008 |
We all have those days where nothing goes right. We all have those periods of darkness, where bills pile up, frustrations mount and we look to the heavens and ask, “Why?”
Despite these tough times, we soldier on; knowing that when times get their worst, the only direction things can go is up.
There’s a disturbing trend shaping up in our nation, where frustrations are no longer just voiced – shooting occurs. Yesterday a young man dressed in black shot 21 people, killing several, at Northern Illinois University.
This comes on the heels of a shooting incident that stunned a nation last year at Virginia Tech University.
It seems the answer to some people’s frustrations requires guns and a need to kill as many people as possible before committing suicide. The message is clear – “I hurt, so everyone should hurt as bad as I do.” The shooters inflict as much pain on those around them, people they may see every day and never talk to because they have “perfect” lives and “don’t know” what real pain is like.
This sort of violence isn’t restricted to college campuses.
These are some of the same emotions that drove the two high school students at Columbine.
These are some of the same angers that drove a man in Missouri just last week to open fire at a City Council meeting because he felt the board wasn’t listening to him.
Why do people feel the only way to get others to listen is by force?
Violence should never be the answer to a problem. Martin Luther King Jr. knew this and preached peaceful resistance. Gandhi knew this and also preached peace for years in India.
The threat of violence may be a deterrent, but violence can never be an effective answer.
This nation was created because of the American Revolution, but let’s be honest. The colonies spent years protesting, dumping tea into harbors and denying King George his taxes before violence erupted. Oh, and by the way, Americans fought for independence, but there would have been no war if King George hadn’t decided to force the colonies to comply.
We are a world populated with counselors, preachers, spiritual leaders, intellectual leaders and friendly neighbors, all willing to lend an ear. Most of the time frustrations are just a sign that we need to take a step back, take a deep breath and get control of ourselves. Once we are under control, we can then deal with the situation at hand logically and without the anger, fear and depression that frustrations cause.
Unfortunately, the stories heard more and more involve mass shootings or strange murders. Several killed at a Lane Bryant near Chicago, a meat cleaver murder in New York City, a man terrorizing K-Mart customers with a rifle in Washington.
Maybe the world has gone mad.
It’s time we all stood together. It’s time to help those who need it, comfort those in pain, support those in distress and listen to those who are frustrated and angry.
It’s time for us to add to Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream. It’s time to end the nightmare of violence that is sweeping this nation.
Violence is never the answer. Together, let’s find the right answer.
Roger Bluhm is publisher of the Times-Record. |
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City meetings are fascinating, no fooling |
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Friday, 15 February 2008 |
There is a story that when Alexis de Tocqueville was making his two-year tour of America in the 1840s, he attended a New England town meeting.
As you might expect, he saw a lot of petty bickering, nit-picking over not very important points and, of course, long speeches by the kind of people who have to have their say on any subject, whether they actually have anything to say or not.
He returned to his boarding house that night and wrote a journal entry, full of Gallic scorn for these American rubes.
That night he awoke, sat bolt upright in bed and exclaimed, “Mon Dieu! They are governing themselves!”
That was his “Ah-ha!” moment, which led to him writing Democracy in America, perhaps the most perceptive book on our country ever written by a foreigner.
As the new city reporter on a small town paper, I have to attend a lot of meetings: City Commission, School Board, Development Corporation, etc. I find it fascinating.
“Oh wow,” I hear you say, “he must be the kind of geek who uses Robert’s Rules of Order for bedtime reading - and doesn’t fall asleep.
Well, there was a time when I’d have thought the same. Civics classes in high school didn’t really grab me. I took the required poly sci course in college and no others, and while I’m sure I must have been exposed to The Federalist Papers at some time in my education, I probably forgot it as soon as I finished it.
Then, in 1991, I moved to Eastern Europe.
My first years there were a series of “ah-ha!” moments: “So that’s what they were talking about!”
Americans take for granted that our government powers are distributed right down to the local level. If we want a stop sign at an intersection, we don’t take our petition to Congress, we take it to city hall.
In communist Eastern Europe, governments of the cities and towns functioned as bureaus of the national government. When I got there, they were building all of the structure of democracy from the ground up. Poland, for example, has only recently instituted elected mayors and town councils.
Even in Western Europe, government is not nearly as local as in America. In England, firemen are employees of the national government.
And about those Robert’s Rules of Order I mentioned? Nobody I knew in Poland had ever heard of them.
“You mean there’s a book you can go out and buy that tells you how to run a meeting? Wow!”
On returning to America after 13 years, I have found this country to be quite the most interesting foreign country I’ve lived in so far. And seeing my wife (a native Polish woman, if you remember) experience it for the first time has given me new eyes to see it. She has enthusiastically plunged into that most characteristically American institution, the volunteer organization. Nowhere else in the world are there so many private, voluntary organizations as in this country.
Oh yeah? Well wait until you’ve had your fill of all the bickering, pettiness and anger.
Listen, I know all that.
“Those who love sausage and revere the law, should never watch either being made,” Bismarck said.
Human beings are, well, human. And human institutions are not run by angels, but by men and women remarkably like you and me.
Bickering? Disagree is what free men do.
Pettiness? If our concerns seem small, perhaps it’s because free men tend to mind their own business.
Anger? Perhaps we ought to be thankful there are public matters people feel strongly enough about to get angry about.
But wouldn’t you rather be covering really important things?
Important to whom? I assure you that how Jefferson Elementary School goes about getting a new roof is important to me. My son is under it several hours a day.
And, I’ve covered events in Congress and watched how a great republic works. It’s interesting too, but small towns are where democracy happens. And watching how it works is fascinating, warts and all.
Steve Browne is a reporter for the Valley City Times-Record. |
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Blonde on the Prairie... Strive to arrive laughing |
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Friday, 15 February 2008 |
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By Jodi Rae Ingstad It is around 6 a.m. as I’m typing this column. I’m in my cabin with just the meow of the cat keeping me company. The only light emitted from our cabin at this early morning hour is the light of the computer screen. The desk that my computer calls home is a built in desk with two built in shelves above it. The highest shelve is completely dedicated to old family photographs of our Grandmas and Grandpas. All the people in the photographs have died. Grandma didn’t keep any secrets so it’s no secret that she and I both hate the word “died.” Instead of looking at the photographs and knowing they’ve died, I look at the photographs and know they arrived – in Heaven that is.
Now the clock says its 6:08 a.m. Nothing in my cabin has changed since I began typing. The cat is still meowing and the only light emitted is coming from my computer screen glaring back at me. The only difference is my eyes have moved down to the only other shelf in the built in desk. This shelf has a long mirror against the back with books and trinkets holding it up. The shelf is at face level for me. During the day light hours I never see myself in that mirror. But sitting here in the dark with the computer lighting my face up like a Broadway marquee I can see myself like I’ve never seen myself before! I can only see myself from the chin up and for that I scream, “Thank God!” My face is illuminated in the dark by the computer screen in the same light an x-ray in a doctor’s office is read. My face glows like an apparition sitting on the bookshelf- a very wrinkled apparition. With my hands on the keyboard and my eyes looking at myself up-lit in white light I clearly recognize the damage of all the smiling I’ve done in my life. In this light it looks as if someone took a paring knife to the sides of my nose and carved the capital letter “C” down to the top of my chin and that’s if I’m just frowning. When I turn that frown upside down and into a smile I see 3 capital “C’s” take shape across the width of my cheeks. Children could learn about the alphabet on my face in this light. The letter “U” is clearly visible under my eyes at this time of morning and in this light. But it’s only visible when I smile.
If the elderly only knew that most of my wrinkles came from them. I spend a lot of time with the people who have mastered the wisdom we younger folks still search for. One wise friend of mine kept staring at my teeth as I was greeting him with a huge smile. I still have all my wisdom teeth besides all my other teeth. I couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t looking into my eyes as I spoke. He looked like he was in a trance. When I was done talking he very loudly stated, “Jesus in Heaven! You have more teeth in your mouth than a horse!”
I have kept a journal entitled, “The wisdom of my smile lines.” What my wise friends who have lived lots of years have taught me is that there is no humor funnier than that which the tongue speaks without a writer. I got a very deep crease in my face when I asked a wise friend, “How come you’re not eating your hard-boiled egg?” Her reply was, “Haven’t you heard? They give me gas.”
Wise people allow themselves the indulgence of laughter. I’ve learned that wrinkles are the reward for doing it perfectly. Because of them I strive to die and arrive laughing. I’m going to another room now. My head looks awful sitting on this shelf!
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