Andrew Haffner
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Andrew Haffner covers higher education and general assignment stories for the Grand Forks Herald. He attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he studied journalism, political science and international studies. He previously worked at the Dickinson Press.
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For Kirstie Syverson, a nurse practitioner of internal medicine in the Altru Health System clinic in Devils Lake, working as a primary care provider has given her role a new meaning. “They see you for just about anything,” Syverson, a recent UND graduate, said of her rural patients. She said long distances between the demand for services and the supply of specialists in Grand Forks means rural health care workers “need to be, within reason, a jack of all trades.”
A bill requiring North Dakota insurance providers to expand coverage for autism services was rejected Tuesday by the state Senate.
As the 20-year anniversary of the Flood of 1997 approaches, UND is preparing to phase out some of its flood insurance to save costs in the face of widespread budget reductions. Eric Plummer, UND police chief and director of public safety, said the insurance was purchased as a FEMA requirement for buildings, which had to be rebuilt after the flood. In the nearly two decades since then, Plummer said, the flood protection system constructed by the city of Grand Forks has protected the campus to the point where most of the university buildings are beyond the flood zone.
A bill to expand the jurisdiction of campus police departments in North Dakota has been amended to include more clearly defined boundaries and stipulations for filing crimes. Senate Bill 2193, which applies to law enforcement officers employed by three institutions under the authority of the State Board of Higher Education, was almost unanimously approved in the Senate last month and received positive testimony in a House committee hearing last week.
A trio of UND leaders presented last Wednesday a general preview of the strategy behind the university's announced $3 million marketing overhaul Sol Jensen, assistant vice president for enrollment services, Jennifer Stoner, an assistant professor of marketing, and Timothy Pasch, chair of the university's Communication Department, delivered the report at a campus budget forum and discussed marketing in the context of student recruitment. Jensen started the presentation with a statistic.
Call it a facelift—or maybe a new beginning—but months after the UND Fighting Hawks nickname and logo were first unveiled, the hawk is now fully taking its place as the symbol of the school's athletics. Since its June 22 reveal, the hawk has been taking the place of the interlocking ND logo, which served as a stand-in symbol after the university stopped using the Fighting Sioux image. Much of the remaining changeover included, most visibly, the replacement of signage on the UND Athletics High Performance Center practice field and the Alerus Center.
The longtime leader of the UND Center for Innovation will retire April 30, he announced Tuesday. Bruce Gjovig, the center's CEO and entrepreneur coach, is leaving after 33 years with the facility. "I am in great health and have lots of energy so retirement presents an opportunity to do new things that are innovative, entrepreneurial and interesting," Gjovig said. "I have been living the entrepreneur life working 60 to 80 hours per week for years, so this may also offer me the chance to do other interesting work as well as travel and socialize more."
UND has released draft proposals submitted by the heads of campus units to reduce budgets by 12 percent across the board. Much of the reduction planning submitted by the academic colleges highlights decreases in personnel costs brought on by the recent round of voluntary separations and the suggested closures of vacant tenure-track faculty lines.
The first of four candidates vying for the chancellorship of the University of Minnesota-Crookston visited campus Tuesday in a series of local interviews. The first applicant scheduled to come to UMC over March 7-10 was Mary Holz-Clause, who currently serves as the dean of the college of agriculture at Cal-Poly Pomona and who met with student government representatives before presenting at a public forum.
UND will be announcing on Friday a series of draft proposals for budget cuts for academic colleges and support units, said university President Mark Kennedy in a Tuesday interview. Kennedy said the proposed reductions will be made public through the university's blog, UND Today, at the end of this week after impacted employees are informed in less public channels.