A university should wish to feed the mental leaders of the next generation.  For this, nothing can take the place of contact with the living spirit of research, original work, creative authorship.”
— GB Halsted, “Original Research and Creative Authorship the Essence of University Teaching,” Science, 1:203-207, 1895

The theme for this issue stemmed from our conversations about what is happening at the University of North Dakota that bridges research and academics (the two divisions of the University that we represent).  When we spoke about the student experience and how research fits, we were amazed at how many students at all levels and across UND’s entire curriculum are collaborating with faculty or conducting their own research.  This, we thought, is a tremendous story!

As an innovative pedagogical strategy and a nationally recognized “high-impact” teaching practice, student research creates connections between book learning (and even science lab learning) and real-life applications.  Student research also fosters engagement with campus life, deepening the learning process while promoting student retention and persistence to graduation for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students alike.  Faculty mentors are engaged, as well, and often are motivated to conduct and publish their own research on how students learn, thus creating a unique feedback loop between teaching and research.

Steve Light and Phyllis Johnson

The North Dakota State Board of Higher Education has set a specific goal of increasing the number of undergraduates participating in both paid and unpaid research experiences.  That’s a relatively recent development, and one UND embraces as a multifaceted, doctorate-granting public research university with many of the best attributes of a small liberal arts college.  Among the benefits of this combination is that UND’s mission and identity align with both the national best practices in undergraduate research and the State Board’s goal, specifically because our teaching and research enterprises complement one another so well.  Our faculty are teacher-scholars who care about teaching excellence, instilling passion, bringing research to life in the classroom, and providing students with hands-on opportunities to conduct their own research.  We (Phyllis and Steve) are gratified to work with such a talented faculty who provide these opportunities, and that UND has so many motivated and enthusiastic students who take advantage of them.

As undergraduate education reflects UND’s primary mission, we are especially proud of our undergraduate research opportunities, the focus of this issue of UND Discovery.  You will see in these stories both the diversity of the students and faculty who take part in research and the diversity of opportunities to do so at UND.  Some stories feature qualitative research, some quantitative; some highlight basic research, and some, applied, spanning aerospace, engineering, the fine arts, humanities, law, medicine, and the social sciences.  Student learning outcomes encompass the full range of disciplines as well as skills emphasized throughout UND’s curriculum, including communication, critical thinking, and understanding of our diverse society.

One product of our conversations was reminiscing about the importance of our own undergraduate research experiences.

When I (Phyllis) completed my first year at UND, I was offered a summer job in a biochemistry research lab.  On my first day, I was asked to mix up some solutions needed for my boss’s research.  I blew it!  My record of book learning indicated that I knew well what to do, but I was accustomed to cook-book style chemistry lab instructions — I’d never been asked to put my book learning into action, and I flubbed my first task.  That first job showed me how to put my classroom learning into active use for more than passing exams.  I began to understand how experiments are designed and the results interpreted.  Eventually, I decided I wanted to be a researcher myself.

And when I (Steve) was in my senior year at Yale as a political science major, I joined a graduate seminar on urban politics.  Our capstone project for the course was to conduct some form of empirical study.  Homelessness was a big problem in New Haven, Conn., making the “town-gown” distinction quite apparent.  In addition to researching what other cities were doing to address homelessness, I conducted several interviews with city

officials and administrators of local not-for-profits.  I learned how to conduct systematic qualitative research that could be applied to solve real-world problems.  This was my introduction to the kind of research that would inspire me to become a teacher-scholar in my own field, as well as to move into an administrative role in which I can support undergraduate research at UND.

All students are the product of opportunity.  At UND, our faculty of enthusiastic and expert teacher-scholars are providing distinctive opportunities for our undergraduate, graduate, and professional students to learn, grow, and succeed through research.

Please enjoy their stories!

Phyllis E. Johnson, Vice President for Research and Economic Development
Steve Light, Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education

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, executive associate vice president for university relations.  Editor:  David Dodds.  Contributors:  Juan Pedraza, David Dodds, Patrick C. Miller, Jan Orvik, and Caitlin Slator.  Principal photography by Jackie Lorentz,

Office of University Relations.  Photograph on Page 10 provided by Sarah Hartman.  Photographs of Citation weather research jet on Page 1 and DOW radar truck on Page 11 provided by UND’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences.  Photographs of Pearl Young on Page 6 and astronaut Karen Nyberg on Page 7 provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).  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

ABOVE:  Undergraduates had the opportunity to utilize UND’s Cessna Citation II weather research jet as part of the SNOwD UNDER project described in Pages 10-11 on this issue of UND Discovery.

Research experience as an undergraduate has fired the enthusiasm of Jessica Greer, who has become the only North Dakotan to be awarded a prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for 2011-2012.

The editors and writers of UND Discovery took particular pleasure — more than usual, I might say — assembling the stories and photos for this issue.  The focus on students, many of them undergraduates, and the exceptional research they’re doing had an energizing effect on us as we prepared to tell their stories.  Two undergrad women really stand out in my mind as I pen this letter.  The first, Korey Southerland, graces our cover.  A one-time high school dropout, Korey has distinguished herself by combining interests in the disparate fields of atmospheric sciences and political science.  She is successfully melding science and policymaking into one study program.  Learn more about Korey and her ambitions on Page 4.

Then there’s Jessica Greer, 24, from Grand Forks.  Coincidentally, she too dropped out of high school.  She eventually got her GED and continued on to college.  But that’s not what makes Jessica so noteworthy.  As this issue was about to go to press, we learned that Jessica was one of only 275 across the country — and the only one from North Dakota — to be awarded a prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for 2011-2012.  But even more than that, Jessica is emblematic of the undergraduate researcher at UND.  For more than a year, Jessica, a junior majoring in biology, has been working in Steven Ralph’s lab as an undergraduate research assistant.  And, no, she’s not just sweeping floors or washing beakers.  She’s using “forward genetics” to search for insect-resistant genes in poplar trees.  This kind of real-world experience lays the foundation for when she pursues a career in agricultural biotechnology and studies alternatives for pesticides by modifying plants’ own natural defenses, among other agricultural innovations she’s got in mind.

Jessica and Korey are what this issue is all about: UND student researchers overcoming barriers, seizing opportunities and excelling!  —  David Dodds, Editor, UND Discovery

UND’s US MASTER program aims to stimulate interest in environmental research among underrepresented students

More University of North Dakota undergraduates will have the opportunity to get involved early in environmental research, thanks to a scholarship program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The US MASTER (Undergraduate Scholarships with Mathematics and Science Training in Environmental Research) is the brainchild of Alena Kubatova, associate professor in the UND Department of Chemistry.  Collaborating with her to develop the program are Rebecca Simmons and Brett Goodwin, biology; Gregory Vandeburg, geography; and Ryan Zerr, mathematics.

The six-year NSF grant provides students with four years of support for up to $10,000 a year.  Kubatova and her collaborators are working with other UND branches, including American Indian Student Services, TRIO Programs, Enrollment Services, and Distance Education.  Their goal is to recruit eight freshmen or transfer students for the fall semester.

Reaching out to new prospects

“The major intention of the grant is to bring in underrepresented students,” Kubatova said.  “These are first-generation students and students with financial need.  Statistically, these are the major obstacles in completion of an undergraduate degree.  We are also targeting American Indians in our recruitment because there aren’t many in the sciences.”

An analytical chemist who studies techniques to determine the composition of aerosols in the atmosphere that contribute to climate change, Kubatova has a good reason for making environmentally oriented research projects the program’s primary focus.

“Young people know and care about the environment.  We are looking for talented young students because the research has to be done by people who are motivated.” — Alena Kubatova

“Young people know and care about the environment if it’s not clean,” she explained.  “They’ll do environmental research because they understand environmental problems.  We are looking for talented young students because the research has to be done by people who are motivated.”

Kubatova saw a need for the program because many undergrads don’t have the opportunity for involvement in research until they’re juniors or seniors.  The US MASTER program gives incoming freshmen two semesters of orientation to scientific research, time they can use to help decide the direction they want to take.

“During their first year, the students will be getting a comprehensive idea of the various fields and people involved in different areas of research,” Kubatova said.  “This will help them decide to apply to work under these projects.”

The students will attend seminars conducted by UND faculty members from biology, chemistry, geography and mathematics before being assigned a project and mentor.  They will also visit research labs, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Human Nutrition Research Center and the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC).

“From my perspective, environmental research is about soil or air pollution and how things get contaminated,” Kubatova said.  “But environmental research can also involve evolutional changes in biology.  It can be applied in mathematics and geography.  In the seminars, researchers from a variety of disciplines will present different aspects of their work, have discussions and interact with the students.”

Impact through interaction

A native of the Czech Republic, Kubatova came to UND from Belgium to work in the laboratory of internationally known scientist Steven Hawthorne, a research manager at the EERC.  As a post-doc, she not only learned a great deal about analytical techniques using mass spectrometry but she also worked with students and learned how to write grants.  She originally came to stay at the EERC half a year, but it turned into five years.

”During that time I started to teach, I realized that I liked the interaction with students,” Kubatova said.  “The class interaction is great, but in the lab, you feel you have more impact with that personal interaction.”

The desire to teach led to accepting a position in UND’s Department of Chemistry in 2005 where Kubatova usually employs two or three undergraduates on her projects.  A student who conducted research on the longevity of wood preservatives for Marvin Windows received an award to attend the American Chemical Society national meeting.

“I think undergraduates are very important in the lab,” Kubatova said.  “The tough part for faculty who are doing research is to figure out how to involve undergraduates.  You really try to get national-level funding for research, which means that you need to write proposals and provide accomplishments at that level.”

Finding the right fit

Knowing how an undergrad can properly fit into a project is another challenge.

“Undergraduates are initially more task-oriented, although it depends on the individual,” Kubatova noted.  “They have to learn many new things, so you have to be very careful with the projects that are appropriate to their experience.  You don’t want them to get overwhelmed.  You want them to learn, but you also want to get some productivity.”

The knowledge and experience undergraduates receive in the lab often helps them determine the direction of their education and career choices.

“There are those who think they know what they want to do and then decide to explore more options after doing research,” Kubatova said.  “That’s great.  It’s the best time because once you graduate, the longer you persist in one field, the harder it is to switch.  If they do research initially, it’s the perfect time to make decisions.  It’s really about broadening horizons.”

Sponsored research programs at the University of North Dakota had a state and regional economic impact of $217.7 million in fiscal year 2010, an increase of $22.4 million over the previous year. — Division of Research and Economic Development

Patrick C. Miller | Staff Writer

Joining Korey Southerland (front) by UND’s Cessna Citation II weather research jet are David Delene (left), research assistant professor of atmospheric sciences; Paul Sum, associate professor of political science and public administration; and Gretchen Mullendore, assistant professor of atmospheric sciences and faculty advisor to UND’s Women in Science group.

Korey Southerland pulls together wide-ranging academic programs to pursue interests in science and public policy.

A one-time high school dropout and first (along with her sister) in her immediate family to go for a college degree, University of North Dakota senior Korey Southerland is breaking new ground.

She’s also blazing new academic trails with a program of study that includes atmospheric sciences, environmental geography, and political science, with a minor in mathematics.

“I’m a double major in environmental geography and political science,” said Southerland, who plans to graduate in May 2012.  “I’m also adding an atmospheric science emphasis to my geography degree because I have had trouble deciding which of the two to major in.  So I’m not precisely sure yet what my diploma will read, but I’ll be pursuing both B.S. and B.A. degrees.”

In addition to her regular lineup of coursework, Southerland has participated in several research projects, reflecting a trend at UND to engage students in research, regardless of their majors or year in school.

This year, for example, Southerland presented a research poster titled “Report on the Polarimetric Cloud Analysis and Seeding Test 3 (POLCAST3) Field Project” at the American Meteorological Society Conference in Seattle.  The poster was co-authored by her science mentors, Gretchen Mullendore and David Delene, both of the UND Department of Atmospheric Sciences.

She also presented a paper in a unique undergraduate research conference at the University of Manitoba (UM) organized by UND political science faculty members Paul Sum and Brian Urlacher and hosted by their UM colleagues.

Loving math

Southerland, who grew up in Oklahoma City and Minneapolis, received an award from the McNair Scholars Program, a federal TRIO program funded at 194 institutions across the United States and Puerto Rico by the U.S. Department of Education.  The McNair Scholars Program helps undergraduate students prepare for doctoral studies through involvement in research and other scholarly activities.  McNair participants are either first-generation college students with financial need, or members of a group that is traditionally underrepresented in graduate education and have demonstrated strong academic potential.

“I’m keen to understand how science and policy connect,” Southerland said.  “If you want anything to develop in science, you have to have public policy support.  I grew up fascinated by the weather, so when I came here I registered as an atmospheric science major.  But then it happened: I fell in love with political science after a research methods class with Dr. Jason Jensen, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration and director of the MPA (Master of Public Administration degree) program.  He connected science with policy using statistics — and that made the connection for me.

“As a result of that class, I wanted to become immersed in doing science and at the same time communication to policy stakeholders who are so crucial for science to succeed,” she said.  “So after researching graduate programs that would combine these interests, I decided that I wanted to be part of scientific success by also being a part of science and policymaking.

“I engaged in a math minor because I was scared of math,” Southerland said.  “I immersed myself into math courses, but I didn’t do very well in my first math class.  Thus, I saw it as a challenge, saying to myself, ‘Yes I’m Korey, I can do it,’ with the help of mentors such as Dr. Mullendore and Dr. Delene.  I love mathematics now!”

Women in Science

Southerland also found time to organize, along with a team of faculty advisors,  Women in Science, a student group that aims to encourage women — both faculty and students — at UND to mentor and support each other in terms of their ambitions relative to work in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professions, and the challenges related to getting women into STEM careers.  She is the group’s first president.

Before coming to UND, Southerland, a self-acknowledged high school dropout, completed the transfer curriculum at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, where she was co-founder of the Student Committee on Public Engagement.

Inspired by her mother, a political activist, Southerland was a delegate to two Minnesota conventions and has demonstrated her dedication to public service by volunteering and conducting outreach with various political and community organizations.

Southerland received UND’s competitive “Communicating Climate Change” internship, funded by NASA’s Global Climate Change Education Program, in which she conducted research using NASA Earth observation datasets.  As part of that program, she designed translational Webcasts and lesson plans for students and the general public.  She also works at UND’s Aerospace Research Center, helping students figure out resources for their research projects.

Last year, she received the Milton R. Young scholarship, a competitive political science departmental scholarship that seeks recipients with an exemplary dedication to public service.

Southerland was selected last spring to be a weather intern for UND’s award-winning Studio One at the Television Center, creating weather news stories and assisting in the production of the weekly Studio One show.

Undergraduate research

According to the National Conferences on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), over the past 20 years there has been a tremendous growth in undergraduate research at all types of institutions, from community colleges to research universities.  What once was primarily an activity undertaken by faculty at four-year schools has become an important pedagogy for teaching and engaging undergraduate students and revitalizing the curriculum.  Government agencies and private foundations have recognized the important role of undergraduate research in helping to diversify the science pipeline, NCUR says.

In a joint statement of principles in support of undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activities, the NCUR board says, “We believe that undergraduate research is the pedagogy for the 21st century.  As an increasing body of evidence makes clear, inquiry-based learning, scholarship and creative accomplishments can and do foster high levels of student learning at a variety of public and private postsecondary locations, including doctoral and research institutions, comprehensive universities and liberal arts colleges.”

“My experience in research is that it motivates us as students to learn by doing,” Southerland said.  “But it doesn’t work without really dedicated faculty mentors.”

Southerland plans to pursue a doctorate in atmospheric or climate policy.

“I want to focus on identifying and specifying best practices within the scientific community for translational research to promote effective communication and develop sound public policy,” she said.

Juan Pedraza | Staff Writer

Times have surely changed, said Gretchen Mullendore, an atmospheric scientist at the University of North Dakota and the faculty adviser for a new group on campus: “Women in Science.”  Many barriers have fallen — sort of — and there’s less hostility toward women in the so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) professions.

“There are indeed more women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” said Mullendore, who helped to launch Women in Science at UND.  But, she cautioned, there still are many challenges, stereotypes and questions that impede young women’s choices regarding careers in those professions.

“Yes, we’ve made great progress, but many barriers remain and many of them are invisible,” Mullendore said.

A similar program is UND’s Society of Women Engineers (SWE), chartered in 1974 to inform young women, parents, counselors and the public of the qualifications and achievements of women engineers and the opportunities open to them.  UND’s SWE student section has been honored four times as the best in the nation.

As noted in literature published by the national Association for Women in Science (AWIS), women in STEM professions, in both academy and industry, have had to overcome serious job discrimination, lower pay and professional isolation.  AWIS and similar groups across the country have spent decades fighting for equity and career advancement for women “from the bench to the boardroom.”

“We envision a day when women of all ages will participate fully in science, technology, engineering and mathematics as manifested through equal opportunity, pay equity and recognition commensurate with their accomplishments,” AWIS says in its mission statement.

Mullendore, a severe storm and climate change researcher, sees Women in Science as a place where women can network and mentor and support each other in dealing with both general and specific issues relating to their professions, their careers and their personal goals and objectives.

Korey Southerland, a UND senior who’s a double major in environmental geography and political science and minor in math, said Women in Science at UND is first and foremost a student group.  As the group’s first president, Southerland says men are welcome, too.

“I feel that, unfortunate as it is, men have designed society in accordance to early beliefs that men are superior to women,” she said.  “This belief allowed men to create a world where they are treated better than women.  However, I feel that it is both women and men who are responsible for solving this problem.  We need the support of men to make the process of fighting for the proper place of women in society easier.  We need to push the world to see that a woman’s potential to succeed at anything is the same as a man’s.”

A key goal of Women in Science is to encourage women to mentor each other.

“Mentoring is really all about having good discussions with people in your field, people who care about the same things that you do,” Mullendore said.  “It’s about being able to share experiences so that you can know that other people have thought about these things, and maybe they’ve found some ways to deal with challenges that arise.”

Mentoring can mean many things in the context of Women in Science.

“It could be traditional career mentoring, but also can include work-life balance issues,” said Southerland, who plans to graduate next May and head to graduate school.  “Another really big area in which young women could use mentoring is path finding, deciding who they want to be.”

Ultimately, Mullendore and Southerland say, it’s about sharing the journey.

“I’ve been interested for a long time in supporting women in science,” Mullendore said.  “I want to share my own journey as a scientist, which is why, among many other reasons, I’m thrilled that there’s now UND Women in Science.  Our main goal is providing a place where women can network across campus for mentoring and support.”

UND Women in Science is open to anyone interested in this opportunity to encourage women in STEM areas.

Juan Pedraza | Staff Writer

Pearl I. Young arguably is the most noteworthy graduate of the University of North Dakota that nobody’s heard of.

Well, that may be stretching it a tad, as there is a handful on campus that know exactly who Young was and why she’s important to the world of aviation science.

Suezette Rene Bieri is one of those.

Bieri, an educational program coordinator in the UND Space Studies Department, administers the Pearl I. Young Scholarship for the North Dakota Space Grant Consortium.  The award is open to UND female undergraduates w

ho are majoring in engineering, math or science, have at least a 3.5 grade point average, and, ideally, are involved in a research project that would be of interest to NASA.

Bieri explains that Young, a Rugby, N.D., native who attended Jamestown College and graduated from UND in 1919, eventually went on to become the Chief Technical Editor for the Langley Va.,-based National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which today is known by another acronym: NASA.  Young held the position for nearly 30 years, defining the early image of NASA and influencing the way aeronautical engineers throughout the organization communicated their ideas.

Young’s mark on the organization can still be seen today at the NASA Langley Research Center, where there is a theater named in her honor.  The name remains, but even there the memory has faded a bit, said Bieri, w

ho has toured the center.

“It’s like when you go places that have auditoriums and meeting rooms named after people and nobody knows anything about them,” she said.  “Nobody knew anything about Pearl Young when I was there.  It was just so long ago and so much had happened.”

So, to set the record straight, using NASA and University archival sources, UND Discovery will use this space to generate some much-deserved credit for this significant University alumna.

Pearl I. Young was born in 1895 and grew up on a farm just outside of Rugby.

As was common in those days, girls left home early to work as housemaids to earn money.  Pearl was no different.  She left the farm when she was 11 and moved to Rugby to work as a domestic.  She would use the money to pay her way through high school.

After high school, she enrolled at Jamestown College for two years before transferring to UND.

While at UND, she again found ways to pay her own way through school, despite a heavy course load.  She served as an assistant in the UND Physics Department “elementary laboratory,” and also worked for the U.S. Weather Bureau, while triple majoring in physics, mathematics and chemistry.

She graduated from UND with honors as a Phi Beta Kappa.  She forewent a research assistantship at the University of Minnesota in order to take a faculty teaching position in the UND Department of Physics.  The fact that she was offered such a position was significant, as it was a rarity in those days for women to work as university instructors.

Bieri noted that despite her

faculty rank and status, it would not have been unheard of that Young would have been required to “serve” at buffets and receptions put on by the UND administration.

“Even though she was a female faculty member, she would have been treated with less respect than the men were,” Bieri suspects.  “And, certainly, she would have been paid less.”

Her days at UND would not be the last time that Young would be a pioneer for women in education and science.

In 1922, she started working at NACA at Langley Field, Va., as the organization’s first professional female employee.  At the time she was hired, there were only 21 women physicists in the United States, compared to more than 860 who were men.  Most of the women physicists were teachers at women’s colleges.

When Young was hired to work at NACA, there was only one other woman physicist working in the federal government and she was in the National Bureau of Standards.

Young’s first assignment was in the Instrument Research Laboratory.  After a number of years on the job, Young suggested to her bosses that NACA establish a technical editor position to bring some organization and consistency to its many scientific publications.

She made the suggestion and she also got the job: as NACA’s first technical editor — male or female — and head of the organization’s Technical Editing Group.

In 1943, Young published the first Style Manual for Engineering Authors, which served as a reference for all engineers and scientists at Langley and other NACA centers.

Not long after creation of

the new Style Manual, Young left Langley for a job with the brand-new NACA Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory, now known as the NASA Lewis Research Center, in Cleveland.  There she trained the lab’s new technical editing staff.

In 1947, Young decided to return to academe and landed a job as an assistant professor teaching engineering physics at Pennsylvania State University in Pottsville.

She returned briefly to the Cleveland lab to do bibliographical work on the “spectroscopy of plasmas,” before retiring from NASA in 1961.  She then taught physics for a couple of years at Fresno State in California.

Young died in 1968.

In and out of the laboratory and classroom, Young was a go-getter who liked to push herself to the limit.  She often went to places where history was being made, and she was not afraid to try new things.

“She bought a ticket and flew on the first flight of the Hindenburg,” Bieri said, citing just one example of Young’s daring spirit.  “She apparently loved to travel the world and was very adventuresome.”

According to NACA/NASA documents, Young’s contributions to the organization “led the way for professional women at the Langley Research Center.”  And ever since Young, the “Center has been in the forefront of unique high-tech career opportunities for women.”

UND Discovery can’t help but bring that line of thinking a little closer to home, back to UND.  The barriers that Young plowed through and her legacy of achievement paved the way for UND grads like NASA astronaut Kar

en Nyberg, who already has one space flight under her belt and is preparing for another in 2013, and current UND undergrads, such as Korey Southerland, who is a founding member of the University’s new “Women in Science” chapter.

Pearl I. Young truly proved that the sky is no longer the limit.

Pearl Young was a pioneer for UND alumnae who have gone on to achieve great distinction in the science and engineering fields. On May 31, 2008, Karen Nyberg became the first UND graduate to go into space. A native of Vining, Minn., Nyberg graduated summa cum laude in 1994 with a degree in mechanical engineering.

David Dodds | Staff Writer

Graduate student Kristen Benidt (left) worked with Devon Hansen, associate professor of geography, to explore factors in population loss in Grafton. Like many other North Dakota communities, Grafton is looking for ways to attract and keep younger citizens.

Student researchers gather data to help communities understand their problems and potential

Connecting with communities — and students — is what Devon Hansen does best.

“What could be better than getting students and communities involved in research?” she said.  “You develop relationships and everyone benefits.”   The population geographer and associate professor is interested in the outmigration of youth and young families in rural areas, looking at how and why older people choose to stay in their home communities, and in helping refugees integrate.

“Communities often want connections to the University, and students have skills that can benefit the community.” — Devon Hansen

“Research benefits everyone,” Hansen said.  “Communities often want connections to the University, and students have skills that can benefit the community.”

She includes a research component in many of her undergraduate courses.   For example, her students have worked with the Urban Development Office in Grand Forks and with the Mayor’s Urban Neighborhood Initiative.

She links her community development course to town and city needs, and one class worked with the near north neighborhood in Grand Forks.  “The students conducted a door-to-door survey of the residents about their general perceptions of the neighborhood, coded the results, and presented them to the neighborhood.”

“Undergraduates become experts,” Hansen said.  “They like that.  And what can be more exciting than collecting primary data?”  Primary data, she explained, are gathered by students who conduct their own surveys and interviews, unlike secondary data, such as U.S. Census information.

It can be difficult for undergraduates to do extensive research as part of one class.  Hansen’s graduate students become more deeply immersed in the topics.

“I wanted to do more than a paper,” said Kristen Benidt, a Mentor, Minn., native who earned her master’s degree in geography last fall.  “I wanted to do something that people in a community could use.”  Hansen suggested that she work with Todd Burianek, then mayor of Grafton.

“I met with him, we toured the town, and discussed issues facing Grafton,” Benidt said.  The concern?  Young people leaving.  “It struck such a chord with me,” Benidt said.  “I went home that night and knew I wanted to do what I could to help.  Grafton is a nice place.”

Benidt developed a survey for high school juniors and seniors.  “They took it seriously,” she said.  She learned that fewer students than she would have thought wanted to leave.  She was surprised that there was little correlation between the length of time students had lived there and the likelihood that they would move.  She also thought that students who were more involved in school, youth, and service activities would be more tied to Grafton, but that wasn’t the case.  In fact, the more active students planned to go to college.

Her recommendations?   Involve younger students, welcome newcomers, and perhaps develop an arts initiative that draws younger people and couples into the area.  One thing that has revitalized small towns in Iowa, Benidt said, are incentives that invite younger people to headquarter Internet-based businesses in vacant buildings on Main Street.  She also suggests involving youth in city government and developing a youth liaison.  She knows, though, that there are no easy answers.

Benidt and Hansen, along with another UND geography faculty member, Doug Munski, plan to write an article this summer on the topic.  Hansen said the findings are noteworthy because, even though North Dakota has grown in part because of the oil boom, small farming communities are still losing young people.

“We want our young people to go into the world and be educated,” Hansen said.  “But we need to look at what makes them want to come back and be involved in their communities.”

“I have a stake in the future of North Dakota,” the Lisbon, N.D., native continued. “I have a lot of family here, and I want to make it better for them.  One way to do that is to look at policies that can help keep our residents and attract new people.”

Jan Orvik | Staff Writer

Graduate student Ashley Leschyshyn worked with her professor, Curt Stofferahn, to assess the social characteristics — the “community capital” — that helped Northwood, N.D., rebuild following a tornado that devastated the city in August 2007.

UND students measure how human resources power a recovery

UND Professor Curt Stofferahn’s rural sociology class isn’t your typical textbook-driven lecture.  In 2009, two of his classes researched the long-term effects of disasters in rural areas.  They didn’t have to go far to conduct their research.

Northwood, N.D., was hit by an F4 tornado the evening of August 26, 2007. It was five miles long, eight-tenths of a mile wide, and had winds of 120 to 150 miles per hour.

The tornado devastated the comunity, damaging the grocery store, churches, fire station and school.  Ninety percent of the city’s homes were impacted. Tragically, one person was killed and 18 were injured.

“I’ve always tried to make my classes grounded in some real-life experience,” Stofferahn said.  “When trying to come up with a way to apply their studies to an actual situation, Northwood was the perfect example.  It’s close to UND and relatively accessible.”

Stofferahn knew the real-life situation would help students “focus not so much on content, but on content application to a rural experience.”  Stofferahn and his students set out to study not just the physical cost of the damage and destruction, but also the emotional and psychological toll on Northwood’s inhabitants.

The classes worked with a variety of data.  Stofferahn sent out a 19-question Web-based anonymous survey to 22 community members who had knowledge about the city and its recovery.  Included were the city administrator, a Lutheran minister, the mayor, school board members, and prominent business owners.

The students analyzed the results of the survey, as well as clippings from the Grand Forks Herald and official documents obtained from the city and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  Marcy Douglas, Northwood city administrator, was Stofferahn’s principal contact for the study.  She was extremely helpful in aiding with the research, and excited about an opportunity of learning more from the disaster.

“I thought it was a great project,” she explained.  “When you have a disaster of this magnitude, especially in rural communities, you want to take in all the resources that you can to evaluate what you have done and what you’re doing, so that not only can you learn from those, but also so that you can help other communities prepare better.”

The focus of the “Northwood” course was to pinpoint the most crucial “community capital” for recovery, Stofferahn said.

“These are assets of communities that make community life possible,” he said.

The class focused on “human capital,” which includes population, age, skills, and experience; and “cultural capital,” which is how the community views itself through areas like faith, ethnicity and history.  Other capitals they defined and applied to Northwood recovery were “social, political, financial, natural, and built.”

One of the goals of the research was to discover which community capital is most relevant to successful recovery.  Stofferahn said that while they all can be interdependent, “cultural capital is a major driving force that facilitates other capitals.”

Cultural capital is certainly not in short supply in Northwood.

“When the community defines itself as being tightly knit, cohesive and believing in the nature of self-help and that they should all help each other, those beliefs actually drive how they implement their recovery,” Stofferahn said.

He added that the Northwood residents “were really resilient and took great pride in being stubborn, hard working and persistent.  Not even a tornado was going to get them down.”  This is very evident within the community.  Residents came up with the slogan, “It takes more than an F4.”

Two years after the tornado, Northwood residents celebrated their 125th-year anniversary, along with an almost complete physical recovery of their town.

Ashley Leschyshyn, a first-year graduate student in sociology, was enrolled in Stofferahn’s class during the spring of 2009 as an undergrad.  She explained, “It was easier to apply concepts to a community that was within our area instead of studying rural sociology with a broad, more abstract approach.”

She agreed the project was helpful in her understanding of rural sociology and smaller communities.

Both of Stofferahn’s classes wrote a research paper on findings.  Stofferahn combined many of the students’ analyses to form one final paper.

Currently, he is preparing to submit the paper to the Journal of Community Development Society, which is featuring a special edition on rural communities and disaster recovery.

Stofferahn also has presented the class findings at a Rural Sociology Society meeting and for the UND Center for Community Engagement.

The Northwood Tornado

Rated at EF-4 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, the tornado struck Northwood at about 8:45 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 26, 2007.  It was one of 11 tornadoes occurring between central North Dakota and northern Minnesota that evening.  The Northwood tornado reached a width of eight-tenths of a mile and was on the ground for about five miles.  Peak winds were 120 to 150 miles per hour, with the highest recorded winds at more than 170 miles per hour.  One person was killed and 18 were injured.  There was widespread EF-3 and EF-4 damage to the main residential and business areas.  About 90 percent of the community’s 362 single-family homes, 80 percent of 110 multi-family homes and all 20 mobile homes were damaged or destroyed.  About 89 percent of municipal buildings were damaged, and the fire station and school were destroyed.  Cars and trucks were carried up to a half-mile into surrounding agricultural fields.  In the year following the disaster, significant residential and business rebuilding was achieved.  New facilities included a fire station, school, and airport hangar, and more than 1,000 trees were planted.

Caitlin Slator | Student Intern in UND’s Office of University Relations.