LAIC Buys into Main Street Program; Madison the New India?

Two noteworthy economic developments are afoot in Madison. First, I hear from my local correspondents that Lake Area Improvement Corporation director Julie Gross has officially endorsed—i.e., spent money!—on making Madison part of the Main Street program. The idea of the LAIC doing exactly what I recommend under previous do-nothing CYA director Dwaine Chapel. But Gross has bought into Main Street and convened a downtown development committee that is open to the public. I hope this isn't a sign that we are going to freeze over hard this winter.

The LAIC also gets to toot its horn about Dakota State University's new partnership with Advantenon, the evil overlord of Gamma Regulus whose robot hordes are invading this sector of the galaxy—oh, oops! Sorry, the cool alien name threw me.

Advantenon develops software for mobile devices. They base their business model on employing college students in rural areas to keep costs down—i.e., to pay less wages than they would hiring experienced talent in spendy urban areas. Advantenon discusses this strategy on a page called "Why Rural?"

Advantenon delivers mobile applications more efficiently, with fewer issues than applications outsourced to offshore teams, at costs up to 50% less than traditional on-site development.

By leveraging technically competent resources in lower cost rural communities, project costs are significantly reduced. By combining staff located outside major metropolitan areas with a limited number of onsite resource Advantenon delivers the benefits of rural and onsite flexibility [Advantenon, "Why Rural?" company website, retrieved November 5, 2012]. 

For years, IT companies have been saving money by offshoring labor to India and other lower-wage countries. The labor cost-savings outweigh the disadvantages of language barriers, time-zone separation, and quality control. As wages in India catch up with the West, the cost advantage erodes. South Dakota wages may still carry a premium over India, but they are 29% lower than in Minnesota, Advantenon's home base. Hire college students, and the premium is even less. For their money, Advantenon gets quality work (you DSU kids do have the storied Midwestern work ethic, don't you?) from folks who sprechen sie Englisch, are smack in the middle of most North American customers' time zone range, and are a short domestic flight away from a snap inspection by the boss.

This can be our niche, South Dakota! Get trained, know your tech, and you can be the next Indians. You won't even have to make up a normal sounding name to answer the phone... until the Chinese become our primary customers.

And when you get done with work, you'll be able to walk downtown and enjoy a wonderfully revitalized commercial and cultural core district.

District 8 Legislative Candidates' Forum: What They Said

I managed to watch the final District 8 Legislative candidates' forum this weekend, courtesy of KJAM's diligent election videography.

Here's what I learned:

1. Charlie Johnson could have become a lawyer. In his introduction, Johnson said he was accepted into USD's law school but turned that down to work as a small-farm advocate.
2. The man Johnson wants to replace, Senator Russell Olson, doesn't understand the disconnect between what he says and what he does on education. He says he's deeply concerned about raising teacher pay. He says he opposes Initiated Measure 15 because it doesn't guarantee that the new revenue goes to teachers. He says he supports Referred Law 16 because it is the first time he and his fellow legislators have made an effort to pay great teachers more. But Russ, if paying teachers more is such a priority for you, why didn't you get around to it until the sixth year of your time in Pierre?
3. Leslie Heinemann isn't a complete GOP tool. Instead of the vague, evidenceless claims that Senator Olson and fellow House candidate Gene Kroger make for Governor Daugaard's education agenda, Heinemann admits his reservations about the bonus program for teachers. He says he can "discriminate" in his small business and pay more to the employees he thinks are working hard. He recognizes, however, that it's difficult to impose the private business model on public schools.
4. Charlie Johnson sums up Referred Law 16's merit pay plank best: "I don't cultivate, fertilize, and harvest only 20% of my acres. I take care of all my acres. That's the way we have to do education, take care of all of education." He says Russ and the Governor are using Referred Law 16 as a "diversion tactic" to keep us from focusing on the real problem if their neglect of K-12 education funding.
5. Amendment M is not going to pass, and even Russ Olson doesn't care. He says the amendment on corporate voting and regulation would create a more business-friendly climate in South Dakota—and when Russ says "business-friendly," he means crony-capitalist. But Russ acknowledges that there hasn't been much effort to educate the public on the merits of M, so he appears to shrug at its prospects, as did most other candidates at the podium.
6. As I expected, Gene Kroger is least equipped to deal with policy issues. On Initiated Measure 15, while the other candidates addressed the regressive nature of the sales tax, the size of the proposed increase (excellent rebuttal from Roy Lindsay, explaining that IM15 is not the largest tax increase in South Dakota history), and the merits of spending the money on K-12 education and Medicaid, Kroger reverted to his Grumpy Old Party talk about inflation and how he has to pay twice as much for his pork and beans. Note to Gene: under President Barack Obama, monthly inflation has averaged 1.6%. Under President George W. Bush, it was 2.8%. From 1914 to 2008, it was 3.4%.
7. Asked about rising student debt, Kroger again shrugged his grumpy old shoulders and said students have to "decide if this is what I want to do and do I want to pay the price to do it." He asserted that South Dakota tuition is lower and students have less debt than in other states, which is GOP code for "Quit your bellyaching." It's also only one-third true. South Dakota graduates have the median student debt in the country, which happens to be less than the national average. But South Dakota has the second-highest percentage (76%) of students graduating with debt. And given that our wages are the second-lowest in the nation, those students have an even harder time paying off their debt.
8. All six candidates expressed their eagerness to use government to create jobs by protecting and expanding Dakota State University. Senator Olson confirmed that he is hoping to arrange for the state to acquire the current Madison Community Hospital property when that organization builds its new facility on the south side of Madison.
9. While Russ Olson thinks getting DSU more land and buildings will help the university, Charlie Johnson says that if we want students to fill those buildings, we need to find more state support to keep tuition affordable. 

On the whole, if you have to pick a Republican in District 8. He at least shows signs of critical thinking that go beyond what Fox News or Governor Daugaard tell him to think. But the joy of living in District 8 is that you do not have to pick a Republican. You have a full slate of Democratic candidates. Charlie Johnson, Scott Parsley, and Roy Lindsay will legislate with more concern for the common good and sensible, evidence-based policy than their Republican counterparts.

South Dakota Has Highest Percentage of College Grads in Debt

The Heidepriem campaign sends out a press release on a bothersome statistic about our higher education system: according to 2009 data from the Project on Student Debt, South Dakota has the highest reported percentage of students graduating from college in debt. 78% of our 2009 grads carried student loan debt. The only other states with more than 70% of their college grads carrying debt are Iowa (74%), Minnesota and West Virginia (73%), New Hampshire and Pennsylvania (72%), and North Dakota (71%).

The states with the most students graduating free and clear are Nevada, Utah, Delaware, Arizona, and New Mexico. Even dreaded California manages to issue just over half of its baccalaureate degrees without letters from the bank stapled to the diplomas.

South Dakota isn't quite so bad off when we count actual average debt. By that metric, we rank 17th out of the reporting states (Hawaii and Idaho aren't talking), with the average student owing $23,581 at graduation. The highest average student debt is in the District of Columbia, $30,033. The lowest average student debt load is in Utah, just $12,860.

Within our borders, a whopping 92% of Dakota State University students graduate with debt. That's the highest percentage of any reporting school in the state, even higher than at South Dakota's private colleges. Consider that at Augustana College, tuition and fees are four times higher than at DSU, but 76% graduate with debt. An Augie grad's average debt in 2009 was $29,531 compared to $21,189 at DSU.

And for you SDSU-USD partisans, note that Jackrabbits have a lower proportion of students in debt than Coyotes and the average Jackrabbit debt is lower.

Why would low-tuition South Dakota have such a high proportion of students going into debt to pay for their undergraduate education? Scott Heidepriem contends that Pierre is saddling our valuable students with debt while cutting higher education and throwing money at tax breaks for TransCanada, state planes, no-bid contracts, and the other fiscal malfeasance of the Rounds-Daugaard administration. TransCanada's $10.5-million handout could have knocked $5000 off 2100 graduates' debt. An extra $5000 in spending power in the hands of 2100 new graduates could translate into a lot of down payments on new cars and houses. It could even keep a few more valuable workers in South Dakota, as more college grads could pay off their student loans on South Dakota wages.

Let me venture that our low wages may also contribute to our bad student debt numbers. Even with our relatively low in-state tuition, students have a hard time finding part-time or summer jobs that pay enough to cover their college bills. Thus, more students have to turn to loans and start their careers in the red.

The Project for Student Debt does a good job of explaining how they get their data and the limitations of their study. The information they use is voluntarily reported by the colleges surveyed, so there is a chance that colleges underreport the amount of student debt. But PSD's numbers are the only ones on the table, and they indicate South Dakota's policies are leaving college graduates in a financial lurch that drags down our economy and makes it harder to keep high-value graduates.

40% of DSU Students Need Remedial Classes

I mentioned Tuesday the increase in students requiring remedial coursework at South Dakota's state universities. Reviewing the Board of Regents 2009 High School to College Transition report, I am pleased to find the percentages on remedial needs were up in 2009 but do not represent a long-term trend. Current remedial rates at our universities are lower this year than they were in 2004, 2005, and 2006.

Locally, we can find some mixed news. The chart at right (from page 15 of the BOR report) shows the percentage of students requiring remedial courses at each of our six state schools. 40% of the freshman at Dakota State University needed some sort of do-over on math or English they should have learned in high school. Only BHSU was worse, at 46%. Hit those grammar books, kids.

On the arguable good side, Lake County had one of the highest percentages of 2009 high school graduates advancing to South Dakota Regental institutions to further their education. 50% of our 2009 grads went to South Dakota unviersities. Only Potter (54%) and Sully (52%) sent more of their grads to South Dakota universities in 2009.

There's also a breakdown of results by high school. I'll review those numbers and discuss them later. In the meantime, check on your high school's results, see if your kids are getting their recommended daily allowance of math and grammar!

How Many Norwegians Does It Take Screw in a Lightbulb?

...at least as many as it takes to fix a power outage at Dakota State University. ;-)

Power was out all over campus when I biked through 15 minutes ago. I'm betting too many kids brought fridges to the dorms.

But hey! You kids weren't going to study this fine summer afternoon, were you? Head for the beach, then enjoy a nice air-conditioned sandwich at Mochavino! I hear they have student specials on Monday....

Earth Day at DSU: Carter Johnson on Climate Change Tonight!

DSU's College of Arts and Sciences celebrates Earth Day by bringing some serious science to town tonight. Speaking tonight at 7 p.m. in the Tunheim auditorium is Dr. W. Carter Johnson, SDSU scientist and expert on the impacts of climate change on prairie wetlands. The South Dakota native and outdoorsman has spent nearly 40 years studying the prairie potholes and their rich flora and fauna.

You can read a bunch of his published research here. But there's no required reading for tonight's lecture... and the only quiz will be a multiple-choice test given on November 2, when you pick leaders who might or might not do the right thing to protect our wetlands from further harm.

DSU Wins $5.7 Million Stimulus Grant for Health IT

So, R. Blake Curd, how much of this federal money should South Dakota send back?

Health and Human Services Secretary Katherine Sebelius just announced $267 million in grants to establish Health Information Technology Regional Extension Centers. These centers will help hospitals everywhere adopt I.T. innovations like electronic health records, the technology that helps the Veterans Health Administration deliver "the highest-quality medical care in America."

Bringing home $5,687,168 of that bacon: Dakota State University.

This grant brought to you by university academics and all those darned leftists who voted for President Obama's stimulus package last year.

DSU Gives Big Plaques to Janklow, Prostollo

Front-pager on tonight's Madison Daily Leader: the reason we shall not speak ill of the greatest governor since Peter Norbeck (says my friend Nicole), William John Janklow:


We're such a forgiving people. Good for us.

Minor media critique: did Jon Hunter really think it was a good idea to refer to the new inductees as people who blaze trails?

Heidelberger Promotes Globalist Agenda at DSU Model UN!

Understand, gentle readers, that this blog post should really be just a simple, happy note about a fun event taking place on the Dakota State University campus today, Model United Nations. Over a hundred students will be at the Dakota Prairie Playhouse today from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. debating global issues and learning a bit about geopolitics, diplomacy, and best of all, rhetoric and parliamentary procedure! That last part's where I come in: I get to serve as parliamentarian during the General Assembly. Whee!

We also have the honor of hosting Kent Thompson as our luncheon speaker. He's a bank president over in Howard, but he also has a degree in nursing and makes annual medical mission trips to Tanzania. Mr. Thompson will surely add to an enlightening and enriching event.

But I'm sure that certain elements of the South Dakota blogosphere will in all seriousness take this educational activity as evidence that I and other humble university folk are a depraved cabal of secular globalists, determined to destroy America and your offspring with this insidious indoctrination into the United Nations agenda.

You can watch our corruption of your youth live on a webcast planned for the DSU homepage. The event is also open to the public.

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Update: I'll also provide Twitter coverage of the destruction of Bob Ellis's ideals: #dsumun!

Little Wound HS Wins Team Championship at DSU Interp

Several days ago, Dr. Newquist's post on Aaron Huey's Pine Ridge photo essay in the New York Times sparked a fair amount of discussion (review also here, here, and here) in the South Dakota blogosphere about the state of our Indian reservations.

More than tangential to that discussion, this good news: the Little Wound High School oral interp team won the Class A team championship at last weekend's Karl E. Mundt Dakota Invitational here at Dakota State University.


Mundt Dakota Invitational Class A Team Champs, 2009: Little Wound High School Mustangs. Pictured, left to right:

• Back: Coach Dan Snethen, Joe Bear Heels, Kyle Clifford, Wiyaka His Horse Is Thunder, Tressa Featherman, Elizabeth Charging Crow, Tyler One Horn, Chuck Good Voice Elk; DSU Foundation Development Officer for Endowments and Scholarships Beth Knuths.
• Middle: Melissa Hernandez, Harley Ferguson, Shyla White Lance, Tara Dull Knife, Fern Chase Alone, asst coach Crystal Apple, Tara One Horn, Kayla Hernandez
• Front: Liandra Young Bear, Halana Richards, Helene Stilson, Elaina Pourier

[Photo credit: Toby Uecker]

The Little Wound team distinguishes itself just by making it to the contest: their six-hour drive is usually the longest trip made by any of our contestants. For ten years, coach Dan Snethen has been rounding up busloads of speakers and student assistants to make the long trip to DSU. When he first brought kids to the contest, Snethen's interpers struggled just to place higher than fifth in preliminary rounds. In recent years, the team has gotten stronger, placing individuals and readers theater teams in finals against traditional interp powers like Sioux Falls Lincoln and Sioux Valley.

And this year, for the first time, they won the Class A team championship. Nice work, kids. And kudos to coach Dan Snethen for the time and effort he devotes to giving these kids some great opportunities.

SD Higher Ed: Look for Savings on Software

Of course, if we can't get South Dakota voters to pony up tax dollars to pay for their investment in higher education, we'll have to find ways to spend less. One area where we might realize more savings: software that doesn't cosst an arm and a leg. This morning's examples:

Bibliography managers. These are programs that help researchers and students keep track journal articles, research notes, and citations, the kind of thing you did on note cards when you wrote your senior term paper for Mr. Dockendorf at MHS. Dakota State University has spent money to make one popular proprietary bib manager, EndNote, available to students and faculty. Before DSU got licenses for the software, I balked at the $120 the company was asking as a student price and turned to an open-source solution, Zotero. I love it! It does everything I need as a grad student. It can also do everything the National Science Foundation needs: NSF has worked the software hard and now likes it so much they've hired the Zotero team to build a custom version for their in-house use.

Course content management systems. These are secure web-based systems we use to (among other things) post course content, deliver assignments and quizzes, conduct online class discussions, and post grades. The Board of Regents spent big money last year to switch from WebCT to Desire2Learn, a Canadian product. As a student and especially as a teacher, I have found I can do more work more flexibly and effectively with a patchwork of freely available blogs and other online tools than I can with this expensive proprietary software. I have built free Wordpress course blogs allow me much more flexibility in delivering content and engaging students. I've built a dissertation website with Drupal (you know the stuff the White House digs) that would be impossible in the confines of Desire2Learn. A team of creative DSU undergrads could use the same Drupal platform to build a course management system that would run circles around Desire2Learn. Plus, they'd build great job skills and save us money to boot.

These are just a couple examples of savings we could make on software. We may also want to watch whether Los Angeles gets savings by moving their e-mail to Google's cloud.

Higher ed shouldn't have to prove itself to win back the 58% state funding it used to get just ten years ago. But we'll keep trying anyway. Let's pare down that software bill!

[Friendly reminder: yes, I'm an employee of the Board of Regents. I'm also a student. But I'm speaking here as a taxpayer and voter. The thoughts expressed here belong to me, me, me, not my boss, not my profs, not my neighbor and regent Randy Schaefer.]

University Mission: Seek Niche... or Explore Universe?

..wherein I disagree with the boss...

Dr. Douglas Knowlton, president of the fine university at which I work and study, addresses the seemingly inevitable legislative discussion of closing a university campus. He tells my neighbor and MDL reporter Elisa Sand that such talk is "absurd" and that closing any one of our campuses would be a net loss for the state.

Dr. Knowlton offers this bit of advice to our friends at Northern State on how to strengthen their case against the budget ax:

If the NSU campus has a weakness, Knowlton said, it's the fact that it lacks an identifying program, but the campus in Aberdeen is making efforts to market the new programs that have recently been created.

"Any school needs to find more of a niche," he said [Elisa Sand, "Knowlton Calls Discussion to Close One S.D. College Campus Narrow-Sighted," Madison Daily Leader, 2009.10.09].

I appreciate my boss's expertise in business and marketing. I recognize the practical value of distinguishing one's product or brand by doing something no one else does.

But for all my understanding of the market and political realities of higher education, I question whether niche marketing is the proper paradigm for our university system. Consider Northern specifically: what Dr. Knowlton identifies as a weakness, others might deem Northern's strength. Might not a university want to argue that it's "identifying program" is a broad liberal arts education? Might not a university distinguish itself by offering lots of diverse majors and minors?

The university should address the universe (yes, the words are related) of ideas and possibilities. They should assemble a universe of scholars—both professors and students, seekers of all kinds of knowledge—who will interact in the lively brew of diverse views and interests that spur creativity and strengthen society. My SDSU education in my math and history majors was enriched by the opportunity to take Russian and philosophy. My SDSU experience was enriched by rooming with a range and wildlife science major and living with the cowboys in Hansen Hall. So was my appreciation for the work of our conservation officers and our farmers.

Even MIT, with its "niche" as the mad scientist capital of the world, makes room for majors (majors!) in foreign languages, philosophy, and theater. Granted, neither NSU nor DSU is MIT... but does it hurt to measure ourselves against the biggest and best?

My conception of the university is perhaps out of step with the prevailing business needs of society. We can't just sit back and think grand thoughts; the university needs to be relevant to business and society, needs to give communities bang for their buck. But it is possible that a university can deliver that bang as effectively by reaching for more of the universe, not less.

Teaching in South Dakota: Financial Suicide for Young Grads

I happened upon this job placement data from Dakota State University's Career Services office—you know, the folks who help make sure we don't just sit around and think big thoughts after we get our degrees. Among the numbers of note for the 2008 grads DSU was able to track down:

• We kept 80% of them in South Dakota, at least for the first year. Not a bad return on investment.
• Average entry salary for all 2008 grads: $33,189. Not bad: by my calculations from state wage data, that puts these fresh faces just above the 25th percentile for South Dakota wages, not to mention making a bigger first-year paycheck than I've ever received from a single South Dakota job. (50th percentile is $38,406—keep working up the ladder, kids!)
• The 125 four-year degree holders who chose not to become teachers averaged $35,205 for their first annual salary.
• The 40 noble souls who did become teachers averaged $31,642. Three-quarters stayed in state (thank you!) and averaged $24,874. One quarter jumped the border and averaged $31,642.
  
• The 37 who took the associates degree route (respiratory care, health IT, network admin programs) all stayed in state (thank you!) and averaged $30,532.

Consider: a student who chooses a DSU associates program can make almost $6000 more in year one of work than a student who decides to teach in South Dakota will earn in year one.

Or look at it this way: suppose you and a friend just started at DSU this year. You both are taking student loans of $4000 a year. You take the associates route, finish in 2011 with $8000 in student debt, go straight to work. Your friend takes the bachelor of education route, finishes in 2013 with $16,000 in student debt, goes straight to work. Ignore possible raises, inflation, side jobs, layoffs, etc. All things being equal, by summer 2014, you will have earned $91,596. Your teacher friend will have earned $24,874. Subtract your student debts, and you are $83,596 to the good. Your friend is $8,874 to the good. Assume a really frugal $10,000 a year in living expenses: you're ready to walk into the bank and drop a 20% down payment on a nice house. Your friend has bupkis.

But don't worry, aspiring educators: you can still marry rich.

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Math Update 17:40 CDT: If you tinker the state's wage figures, you may come up with different averages and percentile breaks for the statewide workforce. I took straight averages of the given percentile figures; I did not weight my averages based on the number of workers in each occupation. Thus, my percentile figures are skewed high by the handfuls of really high-paying jobs, like doctors, psychiatrists, and advertising managers. Feel free to recalculate your own numbers (spreadsheets are such fun!)

Hunter Calls for More MHS-DSU Cooperation; What About Competition?

Madison Daily Leader master and commander Jon Hunter looks at Madison High School's part-time contract for technical services with Dakota State University instructor Rob Honomichl and sees a template for more MHS-DSU cooperation.

Quick review: MHS has lost both of its computer tech dudes at once, with tech coordinator Todd Beutler moving to Sioux Falls after 11 years of thankless toil and Honomichl taking the DSU instructor's position just a year and a half after assuming the new director of technology position at MHS. So suddenly left with no dedicated computer tech staff at the beginning of the school year, MHS swings a part-time deal with Honomichl to keep providing tech services on the side. Remarkably, rather than declaring this to be a purely temporary arrangement until we can find someone permanent (which shouldn't be hard in this recession), Superintendent Vince Schaefer appears to suggest in the print MDL that Honomichl's provisional, part-time position might become the norm, as the school sees how it goes.

I agree with Hunter that Madison is lucky to have a university with lots of tech-savvy staff and students available to freelance for our school district and other organizations. And I don't question Rob's ability to get the jobs done.

However, to think that our schools and businesses can meet their major tech needs on the cheap by coaxing full-time university staff to spend their evenings and weekends digging through the guts of other people's networks is a recipe for degraded quality in both workplaces. University staff have enough demands on their time with teaching, research, and service commitments on campus without an expectation in the community that they will make themselves available for side employment that warrants full-time staff. Provisional and part-time are not the proper adjectives for a technology services director at a facility like MHS with hundreds of machines and underage users to manage.

One can also wonder, if MHS thinks it can get the service it needs for $15,000 a year from a part-time employee, why it created the full-time technology services director position in 2008.

Of course, our man Hunter does get me thinking (as he always does): maybe DSU could play a bigger role in K-12 education in Madison. Remember good old General Beadle Campus School? We used to have a whole separate school educating 350 students right here in Madison, until that august old building burned down in 1963. We actually had school choice right here in town, two complete school systems, just a few blocks apart.

Perhaps DSU could promote K-12 education even more by competing again with the Madison Central School District. Let's rebuild the Campus Training School. Let's give our education majors a chance to work daily in a functioning elementary and high school right on their own campus. Let's give parents two options right here in town, two strong schools with competing science and math and athletics and and music and debate programs!

Good capitalist Jon Hunter should know that cooperation is for socialists. What Madison needs is some good old competition!

Lake Herman Sanitary District Dodges Bullet on Constituent Info Sales

The Sioux Falls School District has gotten itself into hot water over selling the addresses of its constituents. And indeed, I must agree with Sioux Falls parent Shannon Barnes:

They tell them, you know, 'Don't post your personal information on Facebook. Don't post your personal information on MySpace. Don't give out your address. Don't even give out what school you go to,' And yet, they are selling these names and addresses [Shannon Barnes, quoted in "Complaint Alleges Names Could Fall into Wrong Hands," KSFY.com, 2009.08.25].

As Lake Herman Sanitary District president, I received a call earlier this summer from a salesman for a local retailer who asked if we would give him our address list so they could do some direct mail advertising. As noted in our minutes from last week's meeting, I declined to hand out that list. (At least Lawrence and I can agree on something! ;-) )

Of course, I hear the Lake Madison Sanitary District will sell you a copy of their address list for a reasonable fee. Porbably a good deal. Besides, Lake Madison folks spend more money, anyway—much better targets for an ad campaign.

I'm also happy to note that my current employer, Dakota State University, does not sell its student lists to commercial interests or anyone else. Heck, we aren't even printing a paper directory this year.

DSU Axes Concert and Jazz Band, Replaces with Pay-for-Play Pep Band

The arts suffer another blow in Madison. I noticed Monday that DSU is canceling five sections of music classes. The same day, citing declining enrollment in the band program, DSU president Douglas Knowlton announced that DSU is eliminating its concert and jazz band programs. Students will still get to play their horns and drums... in the pep band. President Knowlton says focusing on the pep band will give musicians a chance to play before larger audiences—i.e., the assembled crowds at football and basketball games. The university even plans to shake some money loose for students who play at games. (Curious: will we start paying athletes who play at games, too?)

Band member Kris Back finds the plan, well, ludicrous:

Perfect way to kill a program that has up to 35 active members. Students want to play in a concert setting, not pep band. Believe me, we have tried to get more involved in athletic events such as homecoming but honestly I would rather watch a game (football, basketball, vollyball) then have a horn stuck to my face. Why should we become cheerleaders for the athletic department? [Kris Beck, "DSU Changes Focus of Instrumental Band Program," Kris' Blog, 2009.06.16]

Beck posts open letters to both Dr. Knowlton and DSU music leaders Barb and Dennis Hegg. Whoops—better make that former leader for Dennis: he tells MDL that he is "no longer affiliated with the program" and declines to offer any comment to support his former students.

I recognize the practical realities DSU faces in offering any kind of music program. With our narrow focus on information systems and education, we have no music major and few spare resources to direct toward such activities. The choir students (who haven't been axed down to a pep choir yet) don't even have a dedicated rehearsal space; too often they end up practicing in the lobby of the Dakota Prairie Playhouse, with lots of cross-traffic distractions.

But the promises of "larger audiences" and pay-for-play seem misguided. Playing your horn at a basketball game doesn't give you a bigger audience; it makes you subservient to another organization. People come to see the game, not to hear your music. A pep band's performance has only instrumental value; a concert or jazz band performing its own show has intrinsic value. Students who play for that intrinsic value are the real music lovers, the devotés who form the heart of a good music program. Music lovers don't need pay (though if the university offers money and they take it, I can't blame them); they would benefit more from the university diverting any stipend to normal funding of the music program to pay, as Beck suggests, for instrument repair, sheet music, and other operating expenses.

Alas, the liberal arts have faced hard times at DSU since the mission change to computers back in the 1980s. It's not enough to just play good music or think big thoughts: any humanities program here must prove its instrumental value to other institutional priorities.

Cutting the concert and jazz bands may be a practical reality. Offering musicians a pep band may be the best DSU can do. But this move also reduces the opportunities DSU students have to make themselves well-rounded university graduates.

MWAIS 2009 Conference Comes to DSU: Local Boys Present Paper

Egghead alert! Experts from all over the Midwest are coming to Madison for the Midwest Association for Informations Systems (MWAIS) 2009 conference right here at Dakota State University. Conferences are a big deal for us academics: it's where we prove how smart and deserving of tenure (for profs) or doctorates (for us lowly grad students) we are. We get good ideas from other researchers. There's also that networking thing that my profs tell me is really important but which I still just don't get into very eagerly.

But hey! I get to read a paper! My good friend and fellow Bulldog debate alumnus Toby Uecker and I co-authored a paper on using storytelling as a way to research (formal title: "Scholarly Personal Narrative as Information Systems Research Methodology"). Toby had to go to Europe this week, so he's missing out on the fun here. I'll have to present our paper solo on Saturday morning.

I'm just a little nervous: information systems researchers tend to be pretty numbers-oriented. Storytelling might be outside their methodological comfort zone, and they might bring some stiff questions. But hey, it's no worse than debate round I ever competed in. Bring on those questions!

DSU Takes Over Mundt Debate Tournament

It's official: MHS wimps out, DSU picks up slack. Hot off the press, straight from DSU's Media Relations office:

For immediate release:
March 23, 2009

Mundt Debate Tourney to Continue

The annual Mundt Debate tournament held in Madison during February each year will continue. Dakota State University, Madison Public Schools, and the Mundt Foundation will work together to continue the tournament. Dakota State and the Mundt Foundation with provide the organizational and financial arrangements for the tournament as well as space on the campus. The Madison Public Schools will also provide space.

The annual debate tournament, named after former DSU professor and United States Senator Karl Mundt, brings over 400 high school students to Madison each year for the competition. The organizational structure for both the Mundt Oral Interp Tournament and the Mundt Debate Tournament will now be managed by DSU and the Mundt Foundation.

Hmm... funny that DSU, which doesn't even have a debate team, doesn't find running two speech tournaments overwhelming.

Darwin Day at DSU Feb 12

Oh, those darn secular humanist academics!

In an interesting historical coincidence, Charles Darwin was born on the same day as Abraham Lincoln, February 12, 1809. Much interesting discussion of history and science may be had there.

If Dr. Droge can't make it, I can probably fill in as Darwin... after a nice icy bike ride!

To mark that momentous bicentennial, the great Darwin himself will make an appearance (in the person of Dr. Dale Droge) at the Ruth Habeger Science Center here at DSU in Madison on Thursday, February 12, at 7 p.m. Mr. Darwin's press team e-mails to inform me that he will "discuss his life, the times he lived in, and his scientific contributions." I suspect he will also enjoy taking questions from all three (?) members of the local creationist propaganda club.

State Budget Cuts: How About Me?

When commenters get unnecessarily personal here on the blog, I like to remind them that I'm not the story; the story is universal health coverage or local housing policy or usurpation of legislative power by the governor or whatever other important issue the original post covers.

But with Governor Rounds saying we might need $71 million of additional budget cuts to balance the state books, it occurs to me it might be useful to put a face on possible reductions in state spending.

So how about me?

I'm a state employee, a doctoral research and teaching assistant at Dakota State University. Each month the Board of Regents sends me (and several other doctoral students at DSU, SDSU, USD, and Mines) a nice check for about $2600. The Regents and the state—i.e., you—also subsidize my tuition (I get a 2/3 discount). In return, DSU receives 20 to 22 hours a week of teaching and information systems research, as well as my continued work on my dissertation and full-time enrollment in graduate classes spring, summer, and fall.

Now I'm sure there's an accounting discussion to be had about how much of my pay comes straight from you, the taxpayers, and how much comes from students paying tuition. So maybe cutting my position would not save as much money as cutting a regular state employee making $31,827 a year. Parse that as you will.

I'm more interested in a simpler question: am I worth it? If the state is broke, and the day still isn't rainy enough to crack open those rainy-day reserves, is it worth paying me (as well as a couple dozen of my fellow eggheads) $31,827 for another year of research and teaching? Or should I be polishing my résumé and selling more ads on the Madville Times?

I'd really rather not be part of the state budget news... but in this case, I am. The floor is open. Your comments on priorities for state spending and investment in higher education are welcome.