{"id":24101,"date":"2016-07-06T09:30:49","date_gmt":"2016-07-06T14:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/?p=24101"},"modified":"2016-07-06T09:48:49","modified_gmt":"2016-07-06T14:48:49","slug":"donations-make-an-impact-investing-in-students-and-facilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/2016\/07\/06\/donations-make-an-impact-investing-in-students-and-facilities\/","title":{"rendered":"Donations Make an Impact: Investing in Students and Facilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Imagine Tomorrow campaign has more than doubled the scholarships awarded by Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ since 2011, and it also is making possible dramatic advances in the learning environment for students in mass communications.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"v33n01-Impact-Kaslon\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Stacey Kaslon<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n

Major: mass communications
\nHometown: Holdrege, Neb.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stacey Kaslon <\/b>figured she’d go to college in her native Nebraska — or perhaps in Iowa. Either way, it would be on her dime, with help from scholarships.<\/span><\/p>\n

Minnesota wasn’t in the picture before a Bemidji State brochure came in the mail and kept drawing her in, she said. While living at home and working in retail for a year after high school, Kaslon checked out Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ.<\/span><\/p>\n

She discovered the university doesn’t charge out-of-state tuition. Furthermore, its generous merit scholarships would reward her high school success with $2,000 in annual, renewable scholarships.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kaslon’s test scores, GPA and class rank were strong, though not off the charts. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ valued them, and that’s why she’s at Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ today.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I was up there (in rank), but I wasn’t the elite,” she said, “so it was nice to know I could get some benefit from my hard work.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ’s mass communication department suited Kaslon’s demands for well-rounded training. But her two academic scholarships — funded through the Imagine Tomorrow campaign — are what made the difference, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

This summer, Kaslon hopes to publish freelance writing in Nebraska Land magazine and earn money shooting senior photos As a sophomore in the fall, she will be co-editor of the student magazine, Northern Student, and work as a community assistant in Pine Hall.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"v33n01-Impact-Mills\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Davis Mills<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n

Major: nursing
\nHometown: Stephens<\/span><\/p>\n

Nursing was supposed to be a means to an end — medical school — when Davis Mills <\/b>transferred to Bemidji State from Northland Community and Technical College.<\/span><\/p>\n

He graduated in May as planned with a baccalaureate in nursing and a minor in psychology.<\/span><\/p>\n

But instead of seeking a medical degree, Mills is preparing to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner. He was accepted into an online graduate program at St. Scholastica University in Duluth that will include hands-on experience at the Stadter Center in Grand Forks, N.D.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I ended up really falling in love with nursing,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Along the way, in addition to being Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ’s 2015 Homecoming King, Mills has received a Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ alumni scholarship (his dad and an aunt are Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ grads), an academic scholarship, a departmental scholarship in nursing and a David & Kathryn Sorensen Leadership Scholarship.<\/span><\/p>\n

With additional money earned officiating and coaching high school athletics, he said he can pay his own way, as his parents did before him.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I really made it an issue to make sure I paid for my own college just like they did,” Mills said. “I pay everything out of pocket and have no student loans.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Receiving scholarship support “makes you want to cry because of how hard you work,” he said. “It really makes you feel good about yourself.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\"v33n01-Impact-Shoots\"<\/a>
Tammy Shoots (left) and Bill Blackwell, Jr., executive director of Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ’s American Indian Resource Center.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tammy Shoots<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n

Major: indigenous native nations
\nHometown: Keewatin<\/span><\/p>\n

A 44-year-old mother of three who has worked many years providing care to foster children with special needs, Tammy Shoots<\/b> has discovered her future at Bemidji State by exploring her past as an Ojibwe Indian.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shoots plans to complete a minor, as yet undetermined, that complements her degree in indigenous native nations and will seek a job with a tribal nation, possibly out of state.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before coming to Bemidji State, she completed her associate of arts degree at Hibbing Community College. Her grades at Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ have put her on the Dean’s List every semester, and her 4.0 last spring landed her on the President’s List. <\/span><\/p>\n

Even better, the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Financial Aid office informed her last fall that her success as a non-traditional student had earned her a scholarship endowed by Jack and Delphine Jacobsen of Bemidji.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It was a shock they would just call and offer it to me,” Shoots said. “I’ve used the money to pay for my books, which helped me a lot.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In April, she was recognized by the university’s American Indian Resource Center for all the hard work reflected in her cumulative GPA of 3.76.<\/span><\/p>\n

With a year to go, Shoots plans to continue commuting to Keewatin on weekends, working as a care assistant and at McDonald’s and somehow making time for her kids.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I’m ready for a career change,” she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"v33n01-Impact-Deputy\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mass Communications Reinvention<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n

Deputy Hall<\/span><\/p>\n

Infusion of $250,000 from an unrestricted gift to the Imagine Tomorrow campaign is taking new facilities for Bemidji State’s Department of Mass Communications from Chevrolet to Cadillac.<\/span><\/p>\n

Combining those funds with $750,000 from the university will enable creation of a fully integrated multimedia learning environment on the second floor of Deputy Hall, transforming the student experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Work is scheduled for completion this fall on the new space that combines a former student production space with studios vacated last year by Lakeland Public Television, said department chair Dr. Virgil Bakken.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It’s an integrated multimedia space for students in radio, print and TV all in the same area, sharing electronic resources and working together,” Bakken said. “It’s a big deal.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Two new interactive classrooms will greatly expand multimedia learning, and new technology will facilitate broadcast of Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ events from the Sanford Center and campus locations, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Guidance on the project and curriculum came from Dr. Michael Bugeja of Iowa State University’s Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Imagine Tomorrow campaign has more than doubled the scholarships awarded by Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ since 2011, and it also is making possible dramatic advances in the learning environment for students in mass communications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22350,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[872,958,25,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homepage","category-magazine","category-people","category-top-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24101"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24258,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24101\/revisions\/24258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}