TO: Board of Regents

FROM: Alex Capdeville, Chancellor

DATE: May 17, 2001

SUBJECT: Campus Reports for the May 2001 Board of Regents Meeting

         VICA -Montana State University-Northern hosted the three-day Skills-USA VICA Conference and Competition on April 9, 10, 11, 2001. Four hundred secondary and post secondary students from thirty schools around the state were in Havre to compete in thirty-seven different contests. Competitions were held in areas such as architectural drafting, welding, diesel technology, automotive technology, public speaking, and technical computing. VICA is a national organization with 250,000 members across the country promoting leadership abilities in high school and college students through educational, vocational, civic, and social activities. State competition winners from Montana received scholarships and are eligible to compete at the National VICA Competition held in Kansas City, MO this June.

         Founders Day - Founders' Day at Montana State University-Northern is a special graduation week tradition that honors and recognizes individuals who promote the ideals of service and excellence. This year's event was held on May 4th and recognized the extra efforts and achievements of: Dr. Gus Korb, Industrial Arts teacher and administrator; Dr. Harold E. Kleinert, World-renowned hand surgeon and researcher; Dr. Donald L. Stainsby, neurosurgeon and consultant; Turk Lords, 4-time NAIA national wrestling champion.

         Student Excellence - The Student Excellence Awards were presented at a luncheon on April 27th. These awards were established in 1982 to honor outstanding students who have demonstrated a commitment to educational goals through academic achievement and extracurricular participation. The fourteen students receiving awards this year are: Lloyd Brumbaugh, Kelsey Burgmaier, Angela Childs, Brianne Dunn, Michael Hryszko, Hilary Krass, Quincie Lords, Kevin Mathweg, Benjamin Melcher, Andy Morris, Katherine Nagengast, Bruce Patera, Abel Valdez and Donna Young.

         SME Winners - Montana State University - Northern's Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Club won first place in the nation's largest machining and manufacturing expo competition. Held March 26 at the Western Tool and Exposition Conference in the Los Angeles Convention Center. Their winning product was a "Revo-Driver" which is a bent shaft screwdriver with an interchangeable end that spins in the handle for quick operation and has an "s" shaped adapter that fits any 1/4-inch hex shank screwdriver handle. A total of twelve schools competed against Northern, including Arizona State, Brigham Young and San Diego State Universities. The club returned home with a trophy, certificate and career-enhancing technical software.

        Commencement and Alumni Reunions- At our recent commencement ceremony, 369 degrees were conferred on 327 people. 189 were women and 138 were men, of those individuals 118 received associates degrees, 203 received bachelors degrees and 48 received masters degrees.

In conjunction, fifteen graduates from the class of 1951 returned to campus as "Golden Grads" to celebrate their Golden Anniversary reunion and take part in a re-enactment of their graduation from Northern 50 years ago. Many festivities were held in their honor throughout the weekend including awarding of pins at the Friday night banquet. They told me that they had such a great time that they planned to return in ten years to do it again.

We also had fifteen alumni from the class of 1941 return to campus to celebrate their 60-year reunion from Northern. They were joined by twelve alums from the Classes of 1938-43 who have remained close to them over the years. I had the opportunity to visit with all of these alumni and found they are very loyal to Northern and have many fond memories of Havre and the campus. Many of them also said they would return soon for a visit.

         Bus Tour We conducted a scaled down version of our first bus tour. Three faculty members and two administrators visited Shelby, Great Falls High and Fort Benton. The faculty visited the classrooms and the school principals and superintendents met with Alex and Jim. We made many valuable contacts and we were impressed by how strongly Shelby wants Northern to bring its nursing program to their community.