(light, rock-style music) - hello and welcometo prairie pulse. coming up a littlebit later in the show, we'll look in at an exhibitat the becker county museum of old medical equipment. well, but first, joiningme now is the president of dickinson stateuniversity, dr. thomas mitzel. dr. mitzel, thanks somuch for joining us today. - thank you for having me.

i'm honored. - as we get started,tell the folks a little about yourselfand your background. - okay, well, i'll go all theway back to the beginning. i was born inaberdeen, south dakota, and i was raised inaberdeen, south dakota with a majority of myrelatives, very close occupancy. and, as i was growing up, aberdeen has northernstate university,

a very similar institution todickinson state university, and i spent a lot of timein athletics on the campus and academics on the campus. and, as i grew up, it reallysort of became my institution, which guided a lot of mydecisions after i graduated. and i went to college atnorthern state university. by the time i got there, it seemed like thebest place to be, since it was myuniversity in my city.

i went in as an english major. i came out a chemist. so that's somewhat ofa different pathway. and it happened becausei blew up a reaction. i always tell people,if you're not prepared, just watch what happensand try to explain it. and that reallygot me interested. i met my wife at northern, and she graduatedone year prior to me.

she graduated fromnorthern state college, and i graduated fromnorthern state university. i hold that overher head every day. she's much brighter than am i, so i have to have somethingto hold over her head. after graduation, i reallyhad no idea what to do. i went into college threemonths after high school, and, obviously, at 18you know everything. and then you findout you know nothing.

i have had great mentorsthroughout my life, and one of them suggestedi go to graduate school. and i ended up atboston college, got a degree in theoreticalorganic chemistry. and from there i went toohio state university, did a postdoc, andi knew at that point i wanted to go intohigher education. i did not know which level. northern state was a small,four-year institution,

boston college sortof in the middle, and ohio state was at thetime one of the largest land-grant universitiesin the nation. and i loved workingwith undergraduates. that's what i found. and when i got my first job, it was at trinity collegein hartford, connecticut. started as anassistant professor, did everything academic,

taught courses all theway from beginning courses to graduate courses,beginning graduate courses. did research. i loved doing events,volleyball events, barbecues. mainly barbecues, you can tell. but i would get the studentstogether in the summer and do those kinds of things. just had a great time,really enjoyed myself. and about 2008, istarted in 1996,

in 2008 i was asked tojoin the dean's office as the associate dean. and, as any good faculty member, i laughed and hung up the phone. and they called back. as a faculty member,i always had a mantra that the administration wasthere solely to help faculty have the tools they needto teach their students at the highest possible level.

and now i tell people, becareful what you say in public. it can come back to haunt you, so when it became my opportunityto help in administration, i took that and mymajor concern was whether i'd still be ableto work with students. and i found out if i didmy job correctly, i could. i did that for three years. and i was hired as dean ofschool of natural sciences at saint edward'suniversity in austin.

and there, i also got thechance to be a director of the wild basincreative research center. so i wore several hats there. i did a lot of donor work, a lot of outreach workingwith public entities. and, as i tell thestory, it was in january. i was sitting on theback patio in austin in my shorts, drinking abeer, and the phone rang. and trinity college wasin a period of transition.

and they werelooking for somebody to come back and helpwith that transition. the president wasgetting ready to retire, and the vice presidentfor academic affairs had taken a job elsewhere. so i spoke to thepresident at st. edward's, spoke to the provost. we had done some really,really good things. i was proud of whatwe accomplished there.

but i went back to trinityto help with the transition. and, once there, i thinki did a very nice job of helping with that transition. we have a newpresident in place, and she's doing justa wonderful job. and i'd fulfilled whati needed to fulfill, so when the positionat dickinson stateuniversity arose, i threw my hat in the ring. and, coming from themidwest, this was really

what rhonda, my wife,and i had wanted to do, was to come back tobe at an institution where we both got our start. and i always tellpeople the degree i got, the undergraduate degree i gotat northern state university is as good if not better thanany of the degrees i've seen in any of the public orprivate institutions elsewhere. and that's whatthe midwest offers, and i wanted tobe a part of that.

- well, when you took over indickinson, just in december, so you were relativelynew to the job, how has the transitiongone so far? - interesting, very goodactually, but interesting. i interviewed inseptember, and i had lunch with many of the industrialleaders from the city. and they were saying howsupportive was dickinson to dsu and how supportivewas the region to dickinson state university.

and you're interviewing. you're being courted,wooed so to speak. and so you take everythingwith a bit of a grain of salt. and i arrived, on december21st was when i began. and what i found is thatsupport was actually stronger than what i had believedin the beginning. and it's been amazing,that the city of dickinson really rallies arounddickinson state university to a large extent.

and they expect a lot,which they should. so, it's been a very wild ride for the first six months,but very positive. we have a lot ofprojects going forward. we've made a lot of, ithink, positive changes, and we're gettingready to really movewell into the future. - well, now, your predecessors, they dealt with somecontroversial issues that impacted the university.

can you talk aboutsome of those, and have you had achance to meet with them, with your short time here? - great question. i have met with one ofthem, but let me go back to, d. c. coston came in at a time when dickinson state university was going throughsome academic issues. they had degrees withinternational students,

it was mainly from china, that were not verifiable. i have not gone back tolook at the exact details. i don't want to dredge upmuch of the past on that. but he was brought in to dosome very difficult things. and that was to place the school back onto an academicpath of strength. there was a lot ofissues of accreditation, should the institutionactually be accredited?

these are huge questions aboutwhich you need to answer. plus, dealing withwhat they were calling a diploma mill. and, again, it wasn't quiteas bad as it sounded publicly, but i don't want to gointo much of those details. it became very difficultto recruit students. in 2008, the institutionhad about 2,700 students. and today we'resitting at about 1,300. d.c. coston had to dealwith much of that fall.

so you have budget impacts. you have academic impacts. you have higher learning issues. you are dealingwith a state board when you're not in avery strong position. a lot of the workhe did was internal. i always call it"doing the hvac work". it's behind the scenes. you don't get muchcredit for that,

and he did incredible,incredible work to make sure that dsuremained competitive and with a goodreputation academically. and then you segueinto jim ozbun, who did more in four months than most presidentsdo their entire tenure. he was wonderful. he was a former president atnorth dakota state university. he retired.

luckily for dickinson, he retired in the dickinsonarea, had a ranch. jim is, i believe, 79. he acts like he's 40. and i think his wife wouldrather he slowed down a bit, but he never will. he began a lot ofexternal outreach. where d.c. coston hadto fix the internal, jim ozbun came in andfixed much of the external,

reaching out to thecommunity, again reconnecting. the old foundation hadgone under disillusion. we can talk about that abit more if you'd like. but jim helped starta brand-new foundation for the institution,which was irreplaceable. if you don't have a foundation, you really cannot goforward as an institution. he reconnected much of theindustry back into the campus, and i think gave peoplepride in dsu once again.

so i tell people i'm lucky. i got here at a good time. d.c. coston fixed allthe internal plumbing. jim ozbun reconnectedthat plumbing to the externalworld once again. and my job is to put alittle wind in the sails and make sure itcontinues to go forward. - okay, you mentioned thestudent obviously has gone down for the reasons you gave.

but where primarily doyour students come from? - we have, the majority of ourstudents from north dakota. and many of them from thewestern part of north dakota. but we do draw a tremendousnumber from montana. and we do drawfrom south dakota. i was surprised to findwe get of athletes, academic athletes, fromcalifornia and florida. but when you look into ita little more carefully, it's probably notall that surprising.

these are students whoare faced with going to a very large publicinstitution in their own state, or they can come to north dakota and be part of dickinson stateuniversity at the naia level and really competeat a national level. many of our teams havegone postseason play. our women's team just madepostseason play this weekend. but you have to carry highacademics as well as athletics. and being a scholarathlete at the naia level

is probably one of themore difficult student jobs you're going to have. but i think theyhave come out here knowing that they'regoing to get a degree that's really worth something, and they're going to be ableto compete at a high level. so that's been fun. we hope to increase our outputout of state a little bit. and that's not to say wedon't want in-state students.

we're very strong withour in-state students. and we're reconnecting tosome of the local cities around dickinson. but we also want to becomea little bit more national. what aboutinternational students? - we are right now at about8% international students, which is extremely healthy. at the very top,they're about 17%. and i always hate to playmonday morning quarterback,

because it's easy, right? you already know what happened. we were not ready for 17%international students. we did not havethe infrastructure, either physically or tosupport the students coming in. it's a huge change. when you talk to ourown students who'vegone study abroad, especially to a country that'svery different from the u.s., they have a lot of trouble,

and they have to havea lot of support. and most of the timethey do extremely well, but there's that transition. and i think we were bringingin so many students, we did not have that structureto help with the transition. at 8% of internationalpopulation right now, we are set very wellto bring students in, go through that transition, go through theorientation process,

and connect them notjust to the campus but to thesurrounding community. and to me that's very important. most institutions who have ahealthy international program are somewhere betweeneight and 14%. i'd like to see usgrow to maybe 11. i think we coulddo that quite well. - okay. so is therestill work to be done in order to get dickinsonstate's reputation back,

or is it now just takingactions, moving forward? - negatives always pop upquicker than positives. and so, yes, we still havequite a bit of work to do. we're very strong. if you look at ourfaculty background, and our cv's andour publications, we do amazing work for theinstitution where we are. we have internationally-knownfaculty members. we have a 10 to onestudent/faculty ratio right now.

people pay over $60,000 ayear to get that same ratio. we can offer studentsan education right now that very few publicinstitutions can offer. you're not gonna be lost. if you come in as a student, i'm going to know right awayif you're in my class or not. not only that, but withone quick phone call, i know exactly whereyou are physically. i can come find you.

so i tell students it's great. they can knock on a door, and their professor willbe there immediately. but it's also not great, because there's reallynowhere to hide. so you're going to geta wonderful education. but you're also gonna beforced into a leadership role. right now the campusis fairly small. we have many differentclubs, societies, athletics.

at some point, inyour first year, you're gonna be placedin a leadership role. and you're gonna have tolearn how to deal with those. and we're here to helpyou do that positively. but i always also tell people, when you have the support that we're able togive at dsu now, you're set up to stretchas much as you want. and we want you to stretchfar enough where you may fail.

and that's okay,because if you fail, we get to pick youup, dust you off. you're stronger for it. we put you back inthe right position. and our goal is to get youto walk across that stage. - let's talk aboutthe foundation. you mentioned it a little bit. so, is the foundation technically a part ofthe university or not?

- they are separate entities. and the old foundation wasplaced into receivership before i arrived. there were capitalprojects, buildings. there was also endowment. about $9 million of endowment was within that old foundation, most of that going tostudent scholarships. and if you look atthe rate of return,

you can't spend endowments,you spend the rate of return, that's about $450,000to $500,000 per year we lost on student scholarships. and we needed tohave that replaced prior to the fall of2016 class coming in. jim ozbun was irreplaceablein putting together a new foundation. and we hired ty orton asdirector of that foundation. he started on thesame day as did i.

and he's right down the hallway. i think some days he wisheshe was a little further apart. they've recently,well, since january 1, raised about $1.3 million alltowards student scholarships. so we have now coveredthe next three years, and we're starting to rebuild all the endowmentsthat were lost. and you can't, small schools like dsu,

we do get fundingfrom the legislature. but they also expect thatwe're going to reach out and be self-sufficientto an extent. and that's where thefoundation comes in. so they aren't partof the school legally. but they're part of theschool morally, ethically, and as we go forward. - well that said, what areyour sort of immediate goals and then long-range goals?

- we have, that's not as easy a question, and so let me backup a little bit. before we startedlooking at our goals, we wanted to lookat the principles that would drive our decisions. and if you don't mind, i'll gothrough the three principles and then go through, wehave three major goal areas. so the three principles,

i look at them as thecorners to a triangle. you don't have thetriangle without all three. they're equally important. so, even though igive them in order, they're equally important. but the first oneis, we always say, communication is a platformupon which we must build. that communication isinternal as well as external. i've got six monthlytouchpoints within the campus

to try to get communicationto the campus. and that's taken a littlewhile to build that. knowing what faculty wantfor information coming out, knowing what staff would like, but also giving them acommunication pathway where their voice is heard. we've been workingvery hard on that. but the city of dickinson, and these small citiesand universities,

if they're going forward alone, they're not going forward well. so if they aren'tgoing forward together, if they are goingforward together it's a much stronger pathway. and so we've been tryingvery hard to make sure our outreach to the cityis as strong as it can be. i'm on a foundation, i'mon three city committees, and i've started an advisorycommittee from the community,

just to make sure that dsuis being a good steward for dickinson and forsouthwest north dakota. so that's part of thatcommunication aspect that has to be always atthe forefront of our mind. the second thing is thatstudents are paramount. doesn't matter howgood are your faculty, how good are your facilities. if you don't havestudents in the seats, you're not doing your job.

i say this with two caveats. one is that studentsare not customers. the customer is always right. students aren't alwaysright, and they know this. students don't want to get up in front of a groupand give a talk. when they do surveys ofthe ten greatest fears, number one is generally death. number two is generallypublic speaking.

and i say generally, becausesometimes they flip flop. so, no student is going toget up and spontaneously give a lecture to 100 peoplein an auditorium. these are thingswe make them do. we put them in roles wherethey're going to succeed. we're going tohelp them succeed. but they don't alwaysget what they want. they don't always want to be up at 2:30 in the morning studying.

they don't mind being upat 2:30 in the morning, but not always studying. so these are thingswe have to do. and then the secondpart of that is, education's not a commodity. i get very upset when i hearthat education is a commodity. commodities are traded. they're purchased. if somebody walks in, gives mefour years' worth of tuition

and walks off, theyhaven't gotten anything. they're worse offthan they were. they're just out money. education is somethingon which you have to work extremely hard every day. so, those are my two caveatsto "students are paramount". and the third is thatfaculty and staff are core to the institution. to this, most facultyand staff will spend

20, 30, 40 yearsat one institution. it's more than ajob, it's a family. and they're puttingin more hours than they'll everbe recompensed for. and it really becomes, whenthey get up in the morning, they're not going to work, they're going totheir second family. and we have totake care of them. they always saythat your degree,

at the bachelor leveland the phd level is good for about four years if you quit learningafter obtaining that. so our faculty come in,and we're expecting them to teach our students atthe highest possible level. we have to make sure that they can continuelearning themselves. so they aren't just teachers, but they're also studentstheir entire lives.

and same with our staff. that they're alwaysprogressing in their jobs and that they're happy. so those are ourthree principles. and then our three goals really are, one is to develop. that's the theodoreroosevelt library. we're very happy that'sgoing to be here.

it's going to be aseparate entity from dsu, but it's going to be connected. and then the heritagefoundation to rebuild what we have lost withthe old foundation. and the second one is strength. and that is to strengthenour student enrollments, both through retention and through increasingthe enrollments. and our third goal is to unify.

and that goes back tothe communication part in all the different areas. - we're running out of time. if people want moreinformation, where can they go? they can go to thedickinson state university, and in quick links, you cango to the president's office. my ugly mug pops straight up, and you can email medirectly from there. or a phone call.

or if you're oncampus, please stop by. - all right, well thankyou for taking your time. and good luck to you. - thank you verymuch for having me. i'm honored to be here. - stay tuned for more. (light guitar music) there's a fascinatingexhibit currently on display at the becker county museumin detroit lakes, minnesota.

the family of an old-time doctor who practiced in andaround detroit lakes has donated his medicalitems and equipment, which gives museum-goers an idea of what medicine and medicalpractice was like decades ago. (ragtime music) - my father started practicehere in 1938, late 1938, until 1965, when hewas semi-retired, and then practiced alittle bit till 1974.

it was in the basement of ourhouse that i presently own. and like at that time,there were no clinics. all the doctors ordentists had their offices upstairs in apartments up there. and this is allhis equipment here. and we've had it fora number of years. he passed away in 1980. we bought the housefrom my mother. and then we decided,why are we keeping this?

let's donate it to thebecker county museum, 'cause then a lot of peoplewould be able to see it, and it'll be useful that way. - we received a phone callfrom the sprafka family, asking if we'd be interestedin acquiring all of the items from dr. sprafka'smedical office. and so we came overand took a look at it. many of the items were notthings we had in our collection, especially things like theexam table, the iv pole.

we did have some medicalequipment already, but it was smaller items, and so this was really anopportunity to create an exhibit that kind of showcased medicinefrom the past, if you will, and have a morecomplete display. i think the two items thatprobably really stand out for me are the exam table, which isbeautiful wood and leather top that you just of course donot see in today's world. and the glass iv pole.

again, we're used togoing in and having maybe a similar-looking pole, but it's all bags and disposabletubing and what have you. not anything that we wouldhave put any sort of medicine in a glass bottlein today's world. - well, you're not gonna see, to heat the needlesand to give the shots. that's all a thing of the past. yeah, medicine haschanged a whole lot.

and yet, in many ways, there'sa lot of similarities too of what they have,the benches to sit on, to place them up or backin a certain position where the doctor can give youthe physical that you need. it was a whole lot different. he did a lot of house calls. probably, i don'twant to say half, but maybe 40% of the babieswere born in their house rather than the hospital.

it was during the depression and then the earlyyears of the war, so the people were prettyhard up as far as financially during the depression. i remember himsaying many times, some of the farmersmight come in and they didn't have money, and he would takecare of them anyway. he says, "well, youneed medical help."

and they would come back maybea week or two weeks later with a bunch of chickens thathad been killed and cleaned, or a hindquarter of a steer. he was paid that way many times, which he says is perfectly fine, 'cause we have to go to thestore and get the food anyway. sometimes it would beearly in the morning, you might get acall at five or six.

his regular office hours werelike from eight until five, when he'd go to thehospital and deliver babies or take out an appendix forappendicitis and whatever. but yeah, he'd getcalled late night. he'd maybe come back atone o'clock in the morning. that's just the way it was. i think all of thedoctors in town, people had fondmemories of them. the local doctors,people had faith in them.

and you didn't go outof town in those days. you didn't drive to fargo. fargo was a long ways,you know, on the highway. so people went to allthe doctors locally. and, yeah, people hadfond memories of them. - dr. long, dr. rutledge,quite a bit of equipment from, that have beengenerously donated to the museum fromthose families. it's been up now a month,or just a couple months.

and when we first put it up,we had quite a few people in, quite a bit of traffic onlinein the social media world. lots of people come backto the detroit lakes area in the summertime to doresearch, to visit family, to enjoy the lakes. and so quite a fewcomments on looking forward to coming back andseeing the exhibit. not only dr. sprafka's items, but some of the othermedical equipment

that we have on display. so we intend to leave itup through the summer. so we've had peopletalk about remembering going to see dr.sprafka at his house or dr. sprafka coming to visit. and sometimes those stories go along with maybesome financial struggles and how the families wereable to pay for those visits. - we had lots offeedback on facebook,

because it was putthere, so yeah. and then in town here, i'vehad a lot of people say, yeah, they've been inand seen it on facebook and they're reallyimpressed with the exhibit. it is a great museum for the size of thecity of detroit lakes. i think there was more time. unfortunately, inthe clinics now, you're kind of rushed through,

because they're on areal tight schedule. you know, they're in and out, 'cause they've gotanother room down the hall that they've got apatient waiting for 'em. where in those days, the doctor could sit withthem and talk for a while and take more time. - part of our goal atthe becker county museum is to kind of reinforceall of the history

that people are reading. and so, if you'rereading about something that happened back in that timeera and going to the doctor, what a physician maybewould have carried with them on house calls, an exhibit is there toreinforce that information. and so it kind of makes it alittle more real for people. - well, that's all we haveon prairie pulse this week. and as always,thanks for watching.

- [voiceover] funding forminnesota legacy programs are provided a grant from the minnesota arts andcultural heritage fund with money from the voteof the people of minnesota on november 4th, 2008, and by the membersof prairie public.

Prairie Pulse 1425 Ashley Sornsin; Greg Carlson; On the Wall, Off the Chain


(light, rock-style music) - hello and welcometo prairie pulse. coming up a littlebit later in the show, we'll look in at an exhibitat the becker county museum of old medical equipment. well, but first, joiningme now is the president of dickinson stateuniversity, dr. thomas mitzel. dr. mitzel, thanks somuch for joining us today. - thank you for having me.

i'm honored. - as we get started,tell the folks a little about yourselfand your background. - okay, well, i'll go all theway back to the beginning. i was born inaberdeen, south dakota, and i was raised inaberdeen, south dakota with a majority of myrelatives, very close occupancy. and, as i was growing up, aberdeen has northernstate university,

a very similar institution todickinson state university, and i spent a lot of timein athletics on the campus and academics on the campus. and, as i grew up, it reallysort of became my institution, which guided a lot of mydecisions after i graduated. and i went to college atnorthern state university. by the time i got there, it seemed like thebest place to be, since it was myuniversity in my city.

i went in as an english major. i came out a chemist. so that's somewhat ofa different pathway. and it happened becausei blew up a reaction. i always tell people,if you're not prepared, just watch what happensand try to explain it. and that reallygot me interested. i met my wife at northern, and she graduatedone year prior to me.

she graduated fromnorthern state college, and i graduated fromnorthern state university. i hold that overher head every day. she's much brighter than am i, so i have to have somethingto hold over her head. after graduation, i reallyhad no idea what to do. i went into college threemonths after high school, and, obviously, at 18you know everything. and then you findout you know nothing.

i have had great mentorsthroughout my life, and one of them suggestedi go to graduate school. and i ended up atboston college, got a degree in theoreticalorganic chemistry. and from there i went toohio state university, did a postdoc, andi knew at that point i wanted to go intohigher education. i did not know which level. northern state was a small,four-year institution,

boston college sortof in the middle, and ohio state was at thetime one of the largest land-grant universitiesin the nation. and i loved workingwith undergraduates. that's what i found. and when i got my first job, it was at trinity collegein hartford, connecticut. started as anassistant professor, did everything academic,

taught courses all theway from beginning courses to graduate courses,beginning graduate courses. did research. i loved doing events,volleyball events, barbecues. mainly barbecues, you can tell. but i would get the studentstogether in the summer and do those kinds of things. just had a great time,really enjoyed myself. and about 2008, istarted in 1996,

in 2008 i was asked tojoin the dean's office as the associate dean. and, as any good faculty member, i laughed and hung up the phone. and they called back. as a faculty member,i always had a mantra that the administration wasthere solely to help faculty have the tools they needto teach their students at the highest possible level.

and now i tell people, becareful what you say in public. it can come back to haunt you, so when it became my opportunityto help in administration, i took that and mymajor concern was whether i'd still be ableto work with students. and i found out if i didmy job correctly, i could. i did that for three years. and i was hired as dean ofschool of natural sciences at saint edward'suniversity in austin.

and there, i also got thechance to be a director of the wild basincreative research center. so i wore several hats there. i did a lot of donor work, a lot of outreach workingwith public entities. and, as i tell thestory, it was in january. i was sitting on theback patio in austin in my shorts, drinking abeer, and the phone rang. and trinity college wasin a period of transition.

and they werelooking for somebody to come back and helpwith that transition. the president wasgetting ready to retire, and the vice presidentfor academic affairs had taken a job elsewhere. so i spoke to thepresident at st. edward's, spoke to the provost. we had done some really,really good things. i was proud of whatwe accomplished there.

but i went back to trinityto help with the transition. and, once there, i thinki did a very nice job of helping with that transition. we have a newpresident in place, and she's doing justa wonderful job. and i'd fulfilled whati needed to fulfill, so when the positionat dickinson stateuniversity arose, i threw my hat in the ring. and, coming from themidwest, this was really

what rhonda, my wife,and i had wanted to do, was to come back tobe at an institution where we both got our start. and i always tellpeople the degree i got, the undergraduate degree i gotat northern state university is as good if not better thanany of the degrees i've seen in any of the public orprivate institutions elsewhere. and that's whatthe midwest offers, and i wanted tobe a part of that.

- well, when you took over indickinson, just in december, so you were relativelynew to the job, how has the transitiongone so far? - interesting, very goodactually, but interesting. i interviewed inseptember, and i had lunch with many of the industrialleaders from the city. and they were saying howsupportive was dickinson to dsu and how supportivewas the region to dickinson state university.

and you're interviewing. you're being courted,wooed so to speak. and so you take everythingwith a bit of a grain of salt. and i arrived, on december21st was when i began. and what i found is thatsupport was actually stronger than what i had believedin the beginning. and it's been amazing,that the city of dickinson really rallies arounddickinson state university to a large extent.

and they expect a lot,which they should. so, it's been a very wild ride for the first six months,but very positive. we have a lot ofprojects going forward. we've made a lot of, ithink, positive changes, and we're gettingready to really movewell into the future. - well, now, your predecessors, they dealt with somecontroversial issues that impacted the university.

can you talk aboutsome of those, and have you had achance to meet with them, with your short time here? - great question. i have met with one ofthem, but let me go back to, d. c. coston came in at a time when dickinson state university was going throughsome academic issues. they had degrees withinternational students,

it was mainly from china, that were not verifiable. i have not gone back tolook at the exact details. i don't want to dredge upmuch of the past on that. but he was brought in to dosome very difficult things. and that was to place the school back onto an academicpath of strength. there was a lot ofissues of accreditation, should the institutionactually be accredited?

these are huge questions aboutwhich you need to answer. plus, dealing withwhat they were calling a diploma mill. and, again, it wasn't quiteas bad as it sounded publicly, but i don't want to gointo much of those details. it became very difficultto recruit students. in 2008, the institutionhad about 2,700 students. and today we'resitting at about 1,300. d.c. coston had to dealwith much of that fall.

so you have budget impacts. you have academic impacts. you have higher learning issues. you are dealingwith a state board when you're not in avery strong position. a lot of the workhe did was internal. i always call it"doing the hvac work". it's behind the scenes. you don't get muchcredit for that,

and he did incredible,incredible work to make sure that dsuremained competitive and with a goodreputation academically. and then you segueinto jim ozbun, who did more in four months than most presidentsdo their entire tenure. he was wonderful. he was a former president atnorth dakota state university. he retired.

luckily for dickinson, he retired in the dickinsonarea, had a ranch. jim is, i believe, 79. he acts like he's 40. and i think his wife wouldrather he slowed down a bit, but he never will. he began a lot ofexternal outreach. where d.c. coston hadto fix the internal, jim ozbun came in andfixed much of the external,

reaching out to thecommunity, again reconnecting. the old foundation hadgone under disillusion. we can talk about that abit more if you'd like. but jim helped starta brand-new foundation for the institution,which was irreplaceable. if you don't have a foundation, you really cannot goforward as an institution. he reconnected much of theindustry back into the campus, and i think gave peoplepride in dsu once again.

so i tell people i'm lucky. i got here at a good time. d.c. coston fixed allthe internal plumbing. jim ozbun reconnectedthat plumbing to the externalworld once again. and my job is to put alittle wind in the sails and make sure itcontinues to go forward. - okay, you mentioned thestudent obviously has gone down for the reasons you gave.

but where primarily doyour students come from? - we have, the majority of ourstudents from north dakota. and many of them from thewestern part of north dakota. but we do draw a tremendousnumber from montana. and we do drawfrom south dakota. i was surprised to findwe get of athletes, academic athletes, fromcalifornia and florida. but when you look into ita little more carefully, it's probably notall that surprising.

these are students whoare faced with going to a very large publicinstitution in their own state, or they can come to north dakota and be part of dickinson stateuniversity at the naia level and really competeat a national level. many of our teams havegone postseason play. our women's team just madepostseason play this weekend. but you have to carry highacademics as well as athletics. and being a scholarathlete at the naia level

is probably one of themore difficult student jobs you're going to have. but i think theyhave come out here knowing that they'regoing to get a degree that's really worth something, and they're going to be ableto compete at a high level. so that's been fun. we hope to increase our outputout of state a little bit. and that's not to say wedon't want in-state students.

we're very strong withour in-state students. and we're reconnecting tosome of the local cities around dickinson. but we also want to becomea little bit more national. what aboutinternational students? - we are right now at about8% international students, which is extremely healthy. at the very top,they're about 17%. and i always hate to playmonday morning quarterback,

because it's easy, right? you already know what happened. we were not ready for 17%international students. we did not havethe infrastructure, either physically or tosupport the students coming in. it's a huge change. when you talk to ourown students who'vegone study abroad, especially to a country that'svery different from the u.s., they have a lot of trouble,

and they have to havea lot of support. and most of the timethey do extremely well, but there's that transition. and i think we were bringingin so many students, we did not have that structureto help with the transition. at 8% of internationalpopulation right now, we are set very wellto bring students in, go through that transition, go through theorientation process,

and connect them notjust to the campus but to thesurrounding community. and to me that's very important. most institutions who have ahealthy international program are somewhere betweeneight and 14%. i'd like to see usgrow to maybe 11. i think we coulddo that quite well. - okay. so is therestill work to be done in order to get dickinsonstate's reputation back,

or is it now just takingactions, moving forward? - negatives always pop upquicker than positives. and so, yes, we still havequite a bit of work to do. we're very strong. if you look at ourfaculty background, and our cv's andour publications, we do amazing work for theinstitution where we are. we have internationally-knownfaculty members. we have a 10 to onestudent/faculty ratio right now.

people pay over $60,000 ayear to get that same ratio. we can offer studentsan education right now that very few publicinstitutions can offer. you're not gonna be lost. if you come in as a student, i'm going to know right awayif you're in my class or not. not only that, but withone quick phone call, i know exactly whereyou are physically. i can come find you.

so i tell students it's great. they can knock on a door, and their professor willbe there immediately. but it's also not great, because there's reallynowhere to hide. so you're going to geta wonderful education. but you're also gonna beforced into a leadership role. right now the campusis fairly small. we have many differentclubs, societies, athletics.

at some point, inyour first year, you're gonna be placedin a leadership role. and you're gonna have tolearn how to deal with those. and we're here to helpyou do that positively. but i always also tell people, when you have the support that we're able togive at dsu now, you're set up to stretchas much as you want. and we want you to stretchfar enough where you may fail.

and that's okay,because if you fail, we get to pick youup, dust you off. you're stronger for it. we put you back inthe right position. and our goal is to get youto walk across that stage. - let's talk aboutthe foundation. you mentioned it a little bit. so, is the foundation technically a part ofthe university or not?

- they are separate entities. and the old foundation wasplaced into receivership before i arrived. there were capitalprojects, buildings. there was also endowment. about $9 million of endowment was within that old foundation, most of that going tostudent scholarships. and if you look atthe rate of return,

you can't spend endowments,you spend the rate of return, that's about $450,000to $500,000 per year we lost on student scholarships. and we needed tohave that replaced prior to the fall of2016 class coming in. jim ozbun was irreplaceablein putting together a new foundation. and we hired ty orton asdirector of that foundation. he started on thesame day as did i.

and he's right down the hallway. i think some days he wisheshe was a little further apart. they've recently,well, since january 1, raised about $1.3 million alltowards student scholarships. so we have now coveredthe next three years, and we're starting to rebuild all the endowmentsthat were lost. and you can't, small schools like dsu,

we do get fundingfrom the legislature. but they also expect thatwe're going to reach out and be self-sufficientto an extent. and that's where thefoundation comes in. so they aren't partof the school legally. but they're part of theschool morally, ethically, and as we go forward. - well that said, what areyour sort of immediate goals and then long-range goals?

- we have, that's not as easy a question, and so let me backup a little bit. before we startedlooking at our goals, we wanted to lookat the principles that would drive our decisions. and if you don't mind, i'll gothrough the three principles and then go through, wehave three major goal areas. so the three principles,

i look at them as thecorners to a triangle. you don't have thetriangle without all three. they're equally important. so, even though igive them in order, they're equally important. but the first oneis, we always say, communication is a platformupon which we must build. that communication isinternal as well as external. i've got six monthlytouchpoints within the campus

to try to get communicationto the campus. and that's taken a littlewhile to build that. knowing what faculty wantfor information coming out, knowing what staff would like, but also giving them acommunication pathway where their voice is heard. we've been workingvery hard on that. but the city of dickinson, and these small citiesand universities,

if they're going forward alone, they're not going forward well. so if they aren'tgoing forward together, if they are goingforward together it's a much stronger pathway. and so we've been tryingvery hard to make sure our outreach to the cityis as strong as it can be. i'm on a foundation, i'mon three city committees, and i've started an advisorycommittee from the community,

just to make sure that dsuis being a good steward for dickinson and forsouthwest north dakota. so that's part of thatcommunication aspect that has to be always atthe forefront of our mind. the second thing is thatstudents are paramount. doesn't matter howgood are your faculty, how good are your facilities. if you don't havestudents in the seats, you're not doing your job.

i say this with two caveats. one is that studentsare not customers. the customer is always right. students aren't alwaysright, and they know this. students don't want to get up in front of a groupand give a talk. when they do surveys ofthe ten greatest fears, number one is generally death. number two is generallypublic speaking.

and i say generally, becausesometimes they flip flop. so, no student is going toget up and spontaneously give a lecture to 100 peoplein an auditorium. these are thingswe make them do. we put them in roles wherethey're going to succeed. we're going tohelp them succeed. but they don't alwaysget what they want. they don't always want to be up at 2:30 in the morning studying.

they don't mind being upat 2:30 in the morning, but not always studying. so these are thingswe have to do. and then the secondpart of that is, education's not a commodity. i get very upset when i hearthat education is a commodity. commodities are traded. they're purchased. if somebody walks in, gives mefour years' worth of tuition

and walks off, theyhaven't gotten anything. they're worse offthan they were. they're just out money. education is somethingon which you have to work extremely hard every day. so, those are my two caveatsto "students are paramount". and the third is thatfaculty and staff are core to the institution. to this, most facultyand staff will spend

20, 30, 40 yearsat one institution. it's more than ajob, it's a family. and they're puttingin more hours than they'll everbe recompensed for. and it really becomes, whenthey get up in the morning, they're not going to work, they're going totheir second family. and we have totake care of them. they always saythat your degree,

at the bachelor leveland the phd level is good for about four years if you quit learningafter obtaining that. so our faculty come in,and we're expecting them to teach our students atthe highest possible level. we have to make sure that they can continuelearning themselves. so they aren't just teachers, but they're also studentstheir entire lives.

and same with our staff. that they're alwaysprogressing in their jobs and that they're happy. so those are ourthree principles. and then our three goals really are, one is to develop. that's the theodoreroosevelt library. we're very happy that'sgoing to be here.

it's going to be aseparate entity from dsu, but it's going to be connected. and then the heritagefoundation to rebuild what we have lost withthe old foundation. and the second one is strength. and that is to strengthenour student enrollments, both through retention and through increasingthe enrollments. and our third goal is to unify.

and that goes back tothe communication part in all the different areas. - we're running out of time. if people want moreinformation, where can they go? they can go to thedickinson state university, and in quick links, you cango to the president's office. my ugly mug pops straight up, and you can email medirectly from there. or a phone call.

or if you're oncampus, please stop by. - all right, well thankyou for taking your time. and good luck to you. - thank you verymuch for having me. i'm honored to be here. - stay tuned for more. (light guitar music) there's a fascinatingexhibit currently on display at the becker county museumin detroit lakes, minnesota.

the family of an old-time doctor who practiced in andaround detroit lakes has donated his medicalitems and equipment, which gives museum-goers an idea of what medicine and medicalpractice was like decades ago. (ragtime music) - my father started practicehere in 1938, late 1938, until 1965, when hewas semi-retired, and then practiced alittle bit till 1974.

it was in the basement of ourhouse that i presently own. and like at that time,there were no clinics. all the doctors ordentists had their offices upstairs in apartments up there. and this is allhis equipment here. and we've had it fora number of years. he passed away in 1980. we bought the housefrom my mother. and then we decided,why are we keeping this?

let's donate it to thebecker county museum, 'cause then a lot of peoplewould be able to see it, and it'll be useful that way. - we received a phone callfrom the sprafka family, asking if we'd be interestedin acquiring all of the items from dr. sprafka'smedical office. and so we came overand took a look at it. many of the items were notthings we had in our collection, especially things like theexam table, the iv pole.

we did have some medicalequipment already, but it was smaller items, and so this was really anopportunity to create an exhibit that kind of showcased medicinefrom the past, if you will, and have a morecomplete display. i think the two items thatprobably really stand out for me are the exam table, which isbeautiful wood and leather top that you just of course donot see in today's world. and the glass iv pole.

again, we're used togoing in and having maybe a similar-looking pole, but it's all bags and disposabletubing and what have you. not anything that we wouldhave put any sort of medicine in a glass bottlein today's world. - well, you're not gonna see, to heat the needlesand to give the shots. that's all a thing of the past. yeah, medicine haschanged a whole lot.

and yet, in many ways, there'sa lot of similarities too of what they have,the benches to sit on, to place them up or backin a certain position where the doctor can give youthe physical that you need. it was a whole lot different. he did a lot of house calls. probably, i don'twant to say half, but maybe 40% of the babieswere born in their house rather than the hospital.

it was during the depression and then the earlyyears of the war, so the people were prettyhard up as far as financially during the depression. i remember himsaying many times, some of the farmersmight come in and they didn't have money, and he would takecare of them anyway. he says, "well, youneed medical help."

and they would come back maybea week or two weeks later with a bunch of chickens thathad been killed and cleaned, or a hindquarter of a steer. he was paid that way many times, which he says is perfectly fine, 'cause we have to go to thestore and get the food anyway. sometimes it would beearly in the morning, you might get acall at five or six.

his regular office hours werelike from eight until five, when he'd go to thehospital and deliver babies or take out an appendix forappendicitis and whatever. but yeah, he'd getcalled late night. he'd maybe come back atone o'clock in the morning. that's just the way it was. i think all of thedoctors in town, people had fondmemories of them. the local doctors,people had faith in them.

and you didn't go outof town in those days. you didn't drive to fargo. fargo was a long ways,you know, on the highway. so people went to allthe doctors locally. and, yeah, people hadfond memories of them. - dr. long, dr. rutledge,quite a bit of equipment from, that have beengenerously donated to the museum fromthose families. it's been up now a month,or just a couple months.

and when we first put it up,we had quite a few people in, quite a bit of traffic onlinein the social media world. lots of people come backto the detroit lakes area in the summertime to doresearch, to visit family, to enjoy the lakes. and so quite a fewcomments on looking forward to coming back andseeing the exhibit. not only dr. sprafka's items, but some of the othermedical equipment

that we have on display. so we intend to leave itup through the summer. so we've had peopletalk about remembering going to see dr.sprafka at his house or dr. sprafka coming to visit. and sometimes those stories go along with maybesome financial struggles and how the families wereable to pay for those visits. - we had lots offeedback on facebook,

because it was putthere, so yeah. and then in town here, i'vehad a lot of people say, yeah, they've been inand seen it on facebook and they're reallyimpressed with the exhibit. it is a great museum for the size of thecity of detroit lakes. i think there was more time. unfortunately, inthe clinics now, you're kind of rushed through,

because they're on areal tight schedule. you know, they're in and out, 'cause they've gotanother room down the hall that they've got apatient waiting for 'em. where in those days, the doctor could sit withthem and talk for a while and take more time. - part of our goal atthe becker county museum is to kind of reinforceall of the history

that people are reading. and so, if you'rereading about something that happened back in that timeera and going to the doctor, what a physician maybewould have carried with them on house calls, an exhibit is there toreinforce that information. and so it kind of makes it alittle more real for people. - well, that's all we haveon prairie pulse this week. and as always,thanks for watching.

- [voiceover] funding forminnesota legacy programs are provided a grant from the minnesota arts andcultural heritage fund with money from the voteof the people of minnesota on november 4th, 2008, and by the membersof prairie public.

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