Collaboration includes students, who gain experience and enthusiasm with hands-on involvement in research projects. Forrest Ames, professor of mechanical engineering, drew on the talents of this student team for this high-speed wind tunnel project. See the story on Page 19.

Dear Readers:

Richard R. Schultz Professor of Electrical Engineering and Department Chair

This edition of UND Discovery is dedicated to the lasting memory of professor of electrical engineering and department chair Richard R. Schultz, renowned and respected by students and colleagues on and off campus for his many contributions to science, the arts and humanities, and the University community over a lifetime cut too short.  In addition to being a loving father, devoted husband and friend to many, Richard was a scholar, teacher, mentor, researcher, talented musician, actor, artist and competitive runner — a true modern-day Renaissance man, a polymath whose reputation as a master collaborator wholly reflected the theme that weaves its way throughout this edition of UND Discovery (see the story on Richard on the inside back cover).  Richard is and will be greatly missed.

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too), those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”  — Charles Darwin

With respect to research, Darwin’s words are probably even more true today than when he spoke them. The problems we study today — like climate change, sustainable supplies of energy, loss of biodiversity, feeding the world — are so complex that they can’t be solved by researchers from any one discipline.

This presents a particular challenge for universities because departments and faculty are most often organized around disciplinary lines, rather than with a focus on problems to be studied. Collaboration is a priority for us at the University of North Dakota, and enhancing collaborative work is a specific item in our new strategic plan for research and scholarly and creative activity. UND faculty and students are already highly collaborative, but we want to become even better at working together. You will find a summary of the strategic plan on Pages 5-8 in this issue of our magazine. The full-length version of the plan is on our Web site at http://www.und.edu/dept/research/. Development of this strategic plan was itself a collaborative effort between the Division of Research and Economic Development and faculty from a wide cross section of the campus community.

To further foster collaboration, we have just made the first internal grants of seed funding for collaborations among faculty from different UND departments. Like other seed grants, these awards are intended to give faculty the means to plan large collaborative projects and acquire preliminary data so that they can submit full-fledged proposals to external funding agencies. We’ve also created a new award recognizing collaborative work that will be given for the first time at our next Founders Day celebration in February 2011.

The focus of this issue is on collaborations large and small. Our collaboration with North Dakota State University as part of North Dakota EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) is the granddaddy of many other collaborations within our campus and beyond it. Funding from the National Science Foundation EPSCoR program and similar funding from other federal agencies allows us to provide seed money for a variety of research projects that often involve collaborations among multiple investigators. We also remember the late Dr. Richard Schultz, professor and chair of electrical engineering, who was a very visible role model for what it means to collaborate effectively.

Companies in the private sector are also important partners. Our state-funded Centers of Excellence are required to partner with the private sector with the goal of leveraging research to create jobs and other economic impact. Other collaborations with the private sector involve working together to solve a company’s specific problems. Of course, we also work with private companies as we license inventions and technology from UND so they have new products to manufacture and sell. We expect to significantly ramp up our commercialization activity now that we have a new Associate Vice President for Intellectual Property Commercialization and Economic Development, Mike Moore. Mike joined us in early October after we lured him away from Gopher country at the University of Minnesota. You will find a profile of Mike on Page 4 in this issue.

Phyllis E. Johnson

Vice President for Research and Economic Development

Dear Readers:
This edition of UND Discovery is dedicated to the lasting memory of professor of electrical engineering and department chair Richard R. Schultz, renowned and respected by students and colleagues on and off campus for his many contributions to science, the arts and humanities, and the University community over a lifetime cut too short.  In addition to being a loving father, devoted husband and friend to many, Richard was a scholar, teacher, mentor, researcher, talented musician, actor, artist and competitive runner — a true modern-day Renaissance man, a polymath whose reputation as a master collaborator wholly reflected the theme that weaves its way throughout this edition of UND Discovery (see the story on Richard on the inside back cover).  Richard is and will be greatly missed.

On Sept. 30, UND lost Richard Schultz, a remarkable engineer, educator and researcher who embodied the spirit of collaboration at the University.

Richard R. Schultz Professor of Electrical Engineering and Department Chair

Schultz, 43, a native of Grafton, a graduate of UND and a 16-year University faculty member, was the electrical engineering department chair and director of the Larry Jodsaas Engineering Entrepreneurship Center in the School of Engineering and Mines. He passed away at his home in Grand Forks following a three-year battle with colorectal cancer.

Never content to simply participate in research projects, Schultz is remembered by colleagues and students as a catalyst who enabled truly collaborative, interdisciplinary research while making student learning his highest priority.

“We’ll really miss him,” said Paul Lindseth, associate dean in the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences, who worked with Schultz on unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) projects.

“He was the kind of individual who doesn’t come along very often,” Lindseth noted. “He dedicated himself to the state of North Dakota, the University and the economic development of the region. He saw that as the key to his role at UND.”

Naima Kaabouch, assistant professor of electrical engineering, worked closely with Schultz.

“People trusted him because they knew he was very competent and knew he would be a great addition to their project,” she said. “His reputation was as someone who was reliable and efficient, which made it easy to collaborate with him.”

Mechanical engineering associate professor William Semke and Schultz were partners in collaboration for 10 years on a variety of projects. Semke understood the secret to Schultz’s research success.

“There was no ego to deal with,” he related. “It wasn’t a matter of him building up his resume or his credentials. He was overly generous. He probably should have kept more accolades for himself, but he freely distributed them.”

Schultz encouraged graduate and undergraduate students to think for themselves when looking for creative solutions to engineering problems.

“He would do everything he could to help guide you, but the expectations never fell,” said Jonathan Musselwhite, an electrical engineering graduate student. “In the lab, Dr. Schultz was open to different paths we wanted to pursue. He still expected the same end goal, but how we got there didn’t have to be his way. That gave us more ownership in our research, our education and our lives.”

Schultz and Semke established the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Engineering Lab in the engineering school as part of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center of Excellence. They conducted payload development and for a project that employed 35 students this past summer.

“He took on tremendous amounts of work in diverse fields and did it extremely well,” Semke said. “He handled the administrative duties, technical research topics and teaching. He was quite unique in that he was able to excel in all of those areas.”

Schultz sought and cultivated collaborations at UND with aerospace, nursing, psychology and business to cover all aspects of UAS development, from the psychological factors of flying unmanned aircraft to the business side of marketing the technology.

One of his collaborators was Ric Ferraro, UND Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of Psychology, whose students Schultz invited to observe remotely piloted aircraft fly during a test at Camp Grafton.

“Richard rolled out the red carpet for just about anybody,” Ferraro said. “He was kind of like a little kid sharing his toys and wanting to see how we could play together. His attitude always put everybody at ease.”

One of the many students Schultz mentored was Florent Martel, who came to UND from France as an undergraduate engineer on an internship. Schultz got him involved in hands-on research, something that didn’t happen in his native country.

“I remember him saying that he would learn more from us than we would ever learn from him,” Martel said. “He was a huge advocate for student-driven research.”

After receiving his bachelor’s degree in engineering, Martel returned to UND as a graduate student where he worked with Schultz to develop collision avoidance technology for remotely piloted aircraft. Along with Craig Silvernagel, who teachers entrepreneurship at the School of Business, they founded a company called Machine Visionaries, LLC.

Silvernagel and Schultz coauthored an award-winning paper and taught an entrepreneurship class together. He knew Schultz as an outstanding communicator who understood the business and marketing aspects of R&D.

“Richard was not only a highly competent engineer, but he was also very interested in marketing and very competent at it,” he said. “He understood that you had to wrap a cool name and a cool brand around the product.”

Schultz received a B.S. in electrical engineering from UND in 1990, graduating with Summa Cum Laude honors. He earned his master’s and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Notre Dame, then returned to UND.

Retired professor emeritus Thomas Owens, who knew Schultz both as a UND student and a young faculty member, remembered that he stood out from the beginning.

“He was a North Dakota boy who wanted to be in North Dakota, who wanted to be at UND and wanted to be a teacher,” he recalled. “And he was outstanding. Student learning – not teaching – was his primary objective.”

To the students and faculty who knew Schultz and worked with him, he was far more than an educator and researcher. He engaged them and inspired them to do more, to go further than they imagined possible. He did it by leading by example up to the very end of his life.

“For three years, he was facing his cancer and working,” Kaabouch remembered. “His door was always open for students and faculty. He was always writing grants and always doing things with students. He was just an amazing person.”

Lindseth said that Schultz remained totally involved in the UAS project, trying to accomplish as much as possible and long as possible.

“That was Richard,” he said. “He wanted to be totally engaged. That’s the way his professional life was and the way his private life was. He lived it right up to the end.”

Asked what UND will miss most about Schultz, Martel said, “What we’ll miss most about him is the way he brought collaborative efforts between the disciplines, not just the other engineering disciplines, but other departments on campus. The University will miss his passion for interdisciplinary work.”

Schultz sought and cultivated collaborations at UND with aerospace, nursing, psychology and business to cover all aspects of UAS development, from the psychological factors of flying unmanned aircraft to the business side of marketing the technology.

One of his collaborators was Ric Ferraro, UND Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of Psychology, whose students Schultz invited to observe remotely piloted aircraft fly during a test at Camp Grafton.

“Richard rolled out the red carpet for just about anybody,” Ferraro said. “He was kind of like a little kid sharing his toys and wanting to see how we could play together. His attitude always put everybody at ease.”

One of the many students Schultz mentored was Florent Martel, who came to UND from France as an undergraduate engineer on an internship. Schultz got him involved in hands-on research, something that didn’t happen in his native country.

“I remember him saying that he would learn more from us than we would ever learn from him,” Martel said. “He was a huge advocate for student-driven research.”

After receiving his bachelor’s degree in engineering, Martel returned to UND as a graduate student where he worked with Schultz to develop collision avoidance technology for remotely piloted aircraft. Along with Craig Silvernagel, who teachers entrepreneurship at the School of Business, they founded a company called Machine Visionaries, LLC.

Silvernagel and Schultz coauthored an award-winning paper and taught an entrepreneurship class together. He knew Schultz as an outstanding communicator who understood the business and marketing aspects of R&D.

“Richard was not only a highly competent engineer, but he was also very interested in marketing and very competent at it,” he said. “He understood that you had to wrap a cool name and a cool brand around the product.”

Schultz received a B.S. in electrical engineering from UND in 1990, graduating with Summa Cum Laude honors. He earned his master’s and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Notre Dame, then returned to UND.

Retired professor emeritus Thomas Owens, who knew Schultz both as a UND student and a young faculty member, remembered that he stood out from the beginning.

“He was a North Dakota boy who wanted to be in North Dakota, who wanted to be at UND and wanted to be a teacher,” he recalled. “And he was outstanding. Student learning – not teaching – was his primary objective.”

To the students and faculty who knew Schultz and worked with him, he was far more than an educator and researcher. He engaged them and inspired them to do more, to go further than they imagined possible. He did it by leading by example up to the very end of his life.

“For three years, he was facing his cancer and working,” Kaabouch remembered. “His door was always open for students and faculty. He was always writing grants and always doing things with students. He was just an amazing person.”

Lindseth said that Schultz remained totally involved in the UAS project, trying to accomplish as much as possible and long as possible.

“That was Richard,” he said. “He wanted to be totally engaged. That’s the way his professional life was and the way his private life was. He lived it right up to the end.”

Asked what UND will miss most about Schultz, Martel said, “What we’ll miss most about him is the way he brought collaborative efforts between the disciplines, not just the other engineering disciplines, but other departments on campus. The University will miss his passion for interdisciplinary work.”

The International Space Station Agricultural Camera was an example of Richard Schultz’s efforts to blend hands-on student involvement and interdepartmental collaboration. In this 2003 picture, he inspects a preliminary mockup of the camera with mechanical engineering graduate student Austin Zeller (left). The camera was brought to the Space Station in November of 2008.

Patrick C. Miller | Staff Writer

The wind tunnel built by Forrest Ames and his students mimics the operational interior of a jet engine in flight.

Collaborative research and development is just what Forrest Ames, a UND mechanical engineering professor, and his research partner, Yilidirim Bora Suzen at North Dakota State University, had in mind when they put together an innovative jet engine airfoil test and analysis program.

Funded in part by a grant from ND EPSCoR, the Ames-Suzen team has set up a program to solve a puzzle that’s dogged turbine engine designers for decades: how to effectively deal with the varying demands of low-pressure turbines.  This research is all about producing useful, real-world results.

“I always wanted to stay relevant to industry,” said Ames, who also serves as associate dean for academic affairs in UND’s School of Engineering and Mines.

After chatting with engineers in the jet engine industry, Ames and a team of students created a novel high-speed wind tunnel to test turbine engine airfoils at the low pressures and widely varying loads they encounter in certain real-world situations.

“I’m the experimental guy who’s looking at these difficult flows,” Ames said.  “Bora Suzen, a faculty member in NDSU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, is a computational guy who’s developing new tools so the gas turbine industry can predict these flows.”

The test unit that Ames and his student team constructed is powerful enough to handle the varying air speeds and pressures that mimic the operational interior of a jet engine in flight.  It will produce test data for Bora Suzen to analyze.

“Basically, it’s about building new and better turbines,” Ames said.

Juan Pedraza | Staff Writer

French 340—Business French: most of us would think that’s the utilitarian language of French banking and business. But Sarah Mosher’s course description signals instantly that this class is all about a compelling new way of teaching “business” French.

Mosher, assistant professor of French in the UND Department of Modern & Classical Languages & Literatures since 2008, introduces the students who sign up for French 340 to the world of blood diamonds, slavery and colonialism—all based on the business and economics of empire-building. But this is no lecture-and-take-notes class. It’s all about the direct involvement of students in their own education.

“We’re looking at what’s going on, at human rights violations and environmental destruction, at public health issues, all economically based, all from the West,” Mosher said.

Students in French 340 engage in 16 weeks of role-play where each student is a delegate from a particular French-speaking nation. Each student—working as part of a committee—creates an identity and an enterprise, for example a school or an orphanage. A name badge and desk plaque identifies each person’s name and the nation they represent. During the last four weeks class, students present their particular human rights issue, the problems associated with it, propose remedial legislation, and debate the proposals—all in French.

“It’s really getting students to think about business in a different way,” and honing their French skills while doing that, Mosher said.

The class—packed with attentive students of third-year French—has no attendance problems, reports Mosher, whose doctoral dissertation was titled "Shooting The Canon: Feminine Autobiographical Voices of the French-Speaking World.”

French 340-Business French is where students learn not only about speaking and writing French, but also about economic awareness and understanding.

“Traditionally, when you think about French studies you think about kings and castles and the French Revolution,” said Mosher, who is a member of the advisory council of the UND Center For Human Rights and Genocide Studies.

“But that approach fails to recognize that France today has the largest populations in Europe of Muslims and Jews: 6 million Muslims, 600,000 Jews, altogether about 11 percent of France’s population. The identity of France is changing and it includes the so-called ‘Bidonvilles,’ the immigrant slums that are located, among many other places in France, one mile from the Eiffel Tower, with no clean water, no electricity.”

“It’s important for American students to know these stories, know about colonialism, and the bloody wars of independence, about blood diamonds and child soldiers,” Mosher said.

However, Mosher noted, studying the modern and the controversial definitely does not mean dumping the traditional and the classical.

“The French literary canon is very rich, it’s the starting point for Francophone studies, we can’t ignore it,” she said. That means students of French at UND will learn about the “Shakespeares” of French literature, Corneille, Racine, and Moliere.

“But we can’t stop there,” she said.

“We have to see the whole picture, especially going into the very exciting 20th and 21st centuries, when we have, for the first time, this entire new generation of Francophone writers, a whole new chorus of voices who are changing how French is written and read,” Mosher said.

“So this is much more than ‘draw up your resume in French’ and learn a few terms from business and economics," she said. "We are all about looking at political relationships of dominance and power. It’s a lot of fun—I love it.”

Juan Pedraza | Staff Writer

UND Discovery is published by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development, with assistance from the Office of University Relations, Peter Johnson, director.  Editor:  David Dodds.  Contributors:  David Dodds, Patrick C. Miller, and Juan Pedraza.  Principal photography by Sarah Kolberg and Chuck Kimmerle, Office of University Relations.  Photographs of oil patch activity on Pages 2, 3 and 6 provided by UND’s Energy & Environmental Research Center.  Minnewaukan flooding impact maps on Page 10 created and provided by Christina Cummings.  Antarctica photographs on Pages 12 and 13 provided by Jaakko Putkonen.  Please send inquiries and comments to the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development, University of North Dakota, 264 Centennial Drive Stop 8367, Grand Forks, ND 58202-8367.  The University of North Dakota is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution.

www.research.und.edu

David Bradley studies infectious disease issues with private firms like NovaDigm and Avianax, which are partners with UND’s Center of Excellence for Life Sciences and Advanced Technology.

There isn’t a movie around that’ll clobber you with “scary” faster than the real-life bug Yersinia pestis, that vicious little plague germ.

Then there’s malaria: delivered by a mere mosquito bite, it stays with you for life.  Or how about Dengue fever or Lyme disease or the West Nile virus?

They’re among the nastiest diseases know to humanity, and they’re being studied right here at the University of North Dakota by teams of high focused scientists.  They’re tackling basic questions — defining the diseases, the bugs that carry them, and how they travel — all the way up to the problems or treatment and cure.

Among the most intense centers of research in this area is the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, part of the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

“Academically at UND we’re growing, and the companies such as Novadigm doing this kind of research here are plusses,” said David Bradley, associate professor and department chair.  “We have an adjunct faculty member from Novadigm.  We have collaborative relationships with North Dakota State University, as well, including Dr. C. Satishchandran, professor and director of the Center of Excellence for Biopharmaceutical Research and Production.  UND’s Department of Internal Medicine in Fargo has a large infectious disease unit doing a lot of clinical work.”

“The recent cholera outbreak in Haiti clearly tells us that infectious diseases, the epidemics, haven’t gone away,” Bradley continued.  “They’re definitely still with us.  Who knows what or when the next SARS — severe acute respiratory syndrome — or H1 will be?  That’s very hard to predict.”

UND has joined the search for infectious disease agents, causes, vectors (the insect carriers) and therapies, Bradley noted.  Other scientists are looking at the “cure” end of the research puzzle, dubbed “translational” science.

For instance, “Dr. Matthew Nilles asks bacterial questions, but he’s looking at how that affects the host, asking closer to translational questions,” Bradley said.  “My lab is asking viral questions.  I collaborate extensively with Matt.”

UND also has a group of scientists studying vector vectors, the critters that carry the disease agents and deliver them to animals and people.

“They’re doing vital research and as group, a cluster that works across disciplines, across departments, and across campuses.  We all also collaborate with R&D companies such as Novadigm,” Bradley said.  “When you have a cluster doing specific research, say, on a tick-borne or mosquito-borne pathogen, you’re much more likely to get funded.”

Juan Pedraza | Staff Writer

Support from EPSCoR enabled Diane Darland to set up her research program quickly. An assistant professor of biology, she is exploring the influence of heterotypic cell-cell interactions during central nervous system development.

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it,” wrote American advertising guru Allen Kay. Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group founder Steve W. Gilbert put it in more action-oriented terms: “Don’t predict the future, build it.”

These sentiments sum up the enduring legacy of the North Dakota Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (ND EPSCoR), a North Dakota University System program launched in 1986 to build an exemplary research infrastructure, develop human resources, and increase technology transfer from universities to the commercial sector.

North Dakota EPSCoR, celebrating its 25th anniversary, is part of a larger national effort that was launched 31 years ago.

Funded through federal-state partnerships intended to give states like North Dakota an opportunity to secure federal research dollars, ND EPSCoR manages a comprehensive research development plan that involves infrastructure improvement programs, science outreach and recruitment programs, and technology transfer and commercialization programs.

“The overall goal of ND EPSCoR is to increase the competitiveness of North Dakota for merit-based grants and contracts in support of science and technology research from federal funding agencies,” said Mark Hoffmann, Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and co-principal investigator (with David Givers at North Dakota State University).  “EPSCoR enhances collaboration for faculty and student researchers, in addition to supporting individual efforts.”

Significant support

For researchers such as UND’s Diane Darland, assistant professor of biology, that means a lot:  “I received significant support from EPSCoR when I arrived as a new faculty member.  A generous startup package that enabled me to start my research program fairly quickly.”

The national EPSCoR Program has made tremendous contributions to U.S. excellence in science and engineering by assisting more than 25 states and two territories in building a competitive research infrastructure.

“I have personally visited several university campuses that were the direct beneficiaries of EPSCoR funding, and can attest to the positive impact that the program has had on those institutions and the students, faculty, and the communities they serve,” said John H. Marburger, III, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, in a recent statement about the national EPSCoR.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) established EPSCoR in 1979 in response to Congressional concerns about the geographic concentration in states such as California and Massachusetts of federal support for academic research and development (R&D).  NSF EPSCoR and similar federal programs are designed to expand and enhance the research capability of scientists in states that traditionally have lacked strong university-based research efforts to compete more successfully for a portion of the federal academic research and development budget.

Expanded program

Congress began expanding EPSCoR beyond NSF in 1990.  Today, EPSCoR is a family of competitive merit-based programs at seven federal research and development agencies: the National Science Foundation (NSF); the National Institutes of Health (NIH); the Departments of Defense (DoD), Energy (DoE), and Agriculture (USDA); the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

These programs represent federal-state partnerships to enhance the science and engineering research, education, and technology capabilities of states that receive smaller amounts of federal R&D funds.  Through EPSCoR, participating states are building high-quality, university-based research efforts that serve as the backbone of their scientific and technological enterprises, capable of ensuring a strong and stable economic base far into the future.

North Dakota has invested a total of about $35 million in EPSCoR.  The cash return has been $260 million in merit-based awards comprising close to $60 million in federal agency infrastructure grants made to ND EPSCoR and more than $201.7 million of peer-reviewed, merit-based grants to EPSCoR-supported principal investigators.  That’s an eight-to-one return on investment.

ND EPSCoR has demonstrated a strong and steadfast commitment to science outreach and recruitment, and to technology transfer since its inception in 1986, Hoffmann noted.

Diversity commitment

A key component of ND EPSCoR’s commitment to increasing diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is NATURE: Nurturing American Tribal Undergraduate Research and Education.  A culturally relevant program that incorporates Native science, NATURE provides a STEM education pathway for American Indian high school and tribal college students.

This collaborative model engages North Dakota university professors with STEM teachers and faculty from reservation high schools and tribal colleges.  Emphasizing hands-on learning, the program provides American Indian students with educational summer camps, Sunday Academies during the academic year, and mentored research experiences.  About 140 American Indian students are enrolled in the STEM pathway program.

ND EPSCoR’s federal research partners include NASA, NSF, and NIH.  ND EPSCoR also coordinates the state’s EPSCoR activities with DoD, DoE, and USDA.

Juan Pedraza | Staff Writer

“Basking in the spotlight of history on election night as he addressed tens of thousands of supporters, the president-elect acknowledged the magnitude of what had just occurred,” wrote Steven Light, professor of political science and public administration and associate provost for undergraduate education at UND, in the opening chapter of a new book that spotlights the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its effects on minority representation.

President Obama told the cheering crowd in Chicago on election night that “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, tonight is your answer.”

So, some folks argued that we had now reached the “post-Obama era” when the country no longer had to worry about racial equality, especially at the polls.

But not so fast, argues Light in The Law Is Good: The Voting Rights Act, Redistricting, and Black Regime Politics, which reads a lot more like a fascinating social novel full of interesting characters than the political science text it was written as.

“The end of the story has yet to be told,” Light said.

“As it happened,” Light wrote, “Obama’s election corresponded with the timing of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the most important and effective civil rights law in U.S. history, and the major reason why, as an African American, Obama could vote, let alone become president.”

That challenge was struck down and the Voting Rights Act has been re-authorized, yet ongoing voting discrimination based on race or ethnicity underscores the continued need for vigilance, Light asserts in his book, recently released by Carolina Academic Press, a publisher of books that address law and policy issues by making them accessible to a general readership.

The Law Is Good addresses three questions of central importance to scholars, students and anyone else interested in the intersections of race and American politics: What is the Voting Rights Act; how does it work; and do we still need it?

Light’s story revolves around an account of the struggle for minority voting rights and representation in the small-town south.

He deftly highlights how electoral success of African-American officials in Tallulah, La., stems from electoral districts drawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act.  Light shows that despite that success, many challenges to equality still remain in towns like Tallulah.  And, he notes, the upcoming round of redistricting following the 2010 Census is sure to generate more controversy about the ongoing role of race in America.

Light wrote the book not only as a scholarly work with significant research behind it, but also from his personal experience serving as a civil rights analyst in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Voting Section, where he looked closely at the politics and policy of race-based redistricting.

The Law Is Good is a must-read for understanding the political process of voting in the United States.  The book will generate great discussions about the continuing role of race in American political, economic and social life — yesterday, today and tomorrow.

About Steven Light:

Distinguished University of North Dakota political scientist and Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education Steven Light is a Yale graduate who received his Ph.D. from Northwestern.

Light, a member of the UND faculty since 2000, is responsible for providing strategic vision and leadership on innovative and high-impact best practices in undergraduate education and also teaches and conducts research on American government, constitutional law and race politics.  Before that, he taught at Marquette and Northwestern Universities, and served as a civil rights analyst in the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, where he enforced the Voting Rights Act and assessed the effects of redistricting on minority representation.

Light also is co-director of UND’s Institute for the Study of Tribal Gaming Law and Policy, the first academic institute in the United States dedicated to understanding the impacts of casinos owned and operated by tribal governments.

The author of more than 40 articles and three books on the subject, Light is widely recognized as a leading national expert on Indian gaming.  With frequent collaborator Kathryn R.L. Rand (dean, UND School of Law), Light has testified on Indian gaming regulation and oversight before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., and his first book was featured on C-SPAN’s Book TV.  He is quoted regularly in such media outlets as the New York Times, public radio’s Marketplace and Bloomberg.  Light and Rand blog on Indian gaming at their Web site, Indian Gaming Now.

In addition to tribal gaming, Light has published on best practices in university teaching and learning, including assessment and diversity, the policy effects of court decisions and affirmative action.

Juan Pedraza | Staff Writer

UND Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of English and Women Studies Sandra Donaldson was the natural choice to head up one of the more challenging recent scholarly projects in Victorian literature.

A career expert on famed English poet and thinker Elizabeth Barrett Browning (EBB), Donaldson was the earliest published among a group of fellow EBB scholars who determined that it was time to undertake a full scholarly edition.  Those credentials led to her being named general editor of the new five-volume The Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (2010, Pickering & Chatto), the most comprehensive modern collection of EBB’s published and unpublished works to date.

And now that the long-awaited edition is complete, Donaldson can proudly reflect on the specialization and collaboration that made it all possible.

“I like taking care of details, organizing things, seeing patterns,” Donaldson said, explaining the work of general editor.

Donaldson led a varied and talented team of junior and established EBB scholars in creating the edition.  Nine people from three countries (the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom) are listed as part of the editorial team, including university professors and curators at the Armstrong Browning Library of Baylor University.  One of the editors, Barbara Neri, is also a performance artist who specializes in spot-on, historical re-enactments of Barrett Browning.

A number of graduate students and other scholars also are credited with assisting the project.

“We all were writing, and in addition I had to make the voice consistent across all five volumes,” Donaldson said of one of her duties as general editor.

The idea for the project stemmed from a 1995 conversation among Donaldson and two other principal editors, Marjorie Stone, professor of English and women’s studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Beverly Taylor, professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  The three lamented the lack of quality and accurate materials for teaching university students about EBB.

Available at the time were outdated works with no annotations, some errors and missing facts because they simply were not known yet.  Donaldson and her colleagues knew that without a full scholarly edition, with all the right background and context, a good classroom edition of EBB’s works could not be achieved.

In the early 2000s, work on a new scholarly edition began in earnest.  A publisher, London-based Pickering & Chatto, was chosen and work was divided and assigned among the editors.  Another important consideration was how “copy-texts” — an author’s original text — might be treated and defended in the new edition.

“Some say only the first version should be used because that is what created the writer’s first audience,” Donaldson said.  “I didn’t really like that idea at all because so much was added (in EBB’s later versions.)”

Donaldson’s team had hoped to tackle the daunting task in three volumes, but the publisher suggested more, settling on the eventual five-volume set early in the process.

“I never imagined it would be that big,” she said.

Donaldson was a hands-on manager, not only serving as general editor but also as volume editor of parts three, four and five, including EBB’s verse novel, “Aurora Leigh.”  Stone and Taylor primarily handled parts one and two.

Donaldson said Volume Five, with its inclusion of works that had remained largely unknown — some uncollected during her lifetime and others simply unrecognized as hers — was especially exciting to research.

“I love (all the volumes), but that (Volume Five) was the most fun to do because we were truly discovering things,” she said.

Donaldson said the collaborative nature of the project worked because there was an implicit sense of trust among the writers despite their geographical differences.

The collaborations were not exclusive to the established EBB scholars on the team.  Junior scholars, who in some cases were working toward their master’s and doctoral degrees, also benefited.

While at UND, master’s degree candidate Jane Stewart Laux contributed to the edition by painstakingly recording variants to EBB’s “An Island,” inspecting it line-by-line and comparing it with various other versions of the same poem.  After graduation, she was named editorial associate on the project.

“She had some wonderful material to work with and she got paid to do it,” Donaldson said.

Then there was Clara Drummond, who, at the time the project was in development, was a doctoral student at Boston University.  Drummond’s master’s thesis and Ph.D. dissertation on EBB’s translations of Aeschylus’ “Prometheus Bound,” as well as Drummond’s classical journal essay on the same topic, were used and cited extensively by Donaldson in a portion of the edition.

Donaldson also credits Simon Avery, a senior lecturer of humanities at the University of Hertfordshire in England, as another invaluable member of the team.  During the course of the project, he became a professor at the University of Westminster in London.

“We learned a lot from Simon, in particular, and Clara did an incredible task — she had knowledge that we did not have,” Donaldson said.

Donaldson said the entire process was an effective exercise in collaborative writing.  The resulting edition now allows readers, literary historians, students and scholars to more easily study the life and works of EBB.

“Before, you’d have to go to the different libraries around the world where we went to read them,” she said.  “There were no other places to see these unpublished works, of course.”

As part of a requirement to receive National Endowment for the Humanities funding that helped support the project, Donaldson and her team had to lay out a plan for digitizing their work; in other words, make the research accessible on the Web.

Donaldson currently is working with UND’s Crystal Alberts and the Chester Fritz Library to create a Web presence that features full presentation of all versions of some of EBB’s substantially revised poems.

Donaldson said she is happy with the way the long-overdue EBB scholarly edition turned out.  It had been more than a century since anything equivalent had been published.  She said also she is grateful for the support of the UND community and the great reception the edition has received.

David Dodds