Northland College Magazine

Northland College MAGAZINE

N O RT H

LAND COLLEG

FALL 2019

E

NORTHLAND

COLLEGE

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT Pg. 3

A COMMON PURPOSE Pg. 11

HOMETOWN FAVORITE Pg. 21

HELPING REFUGEES Pg. 25 FALL 2019

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 1

1

9/30/19 11:25 AM

From the President President Suomi meets with Professor of Geoscience Tom Fitz.

Cover Artist Jerry Lehman, who illustrated and designed Northland Autumn for this issue, has a deep and long connection to Northland College. He worked in the Office of Communications in the 1990s, after his wife, artist April Lehman ’89, finished her degree. He and April returned last fall with their children and he is now Northland’s senior graphic designer. This time around, his daughter Lydia is attending Northland to study art.

This volume of our Northland College magazine fulfills a wish and a promise.

Ever since I joined the College, I have yearned to see faculty showcased for our College alumni and friends. Not only have the many conversations conducted with our center directors, faculty, and students whetted my appetite for inquiry, but also the excitement they generated in me became a promise to myself. That promise laid the groundwork for this issue of the magazine.

Stay Connected @northland_edu facebook.com/northlandEDU @northland_edu JACKIE MOORE ’05 Director of Alumni Relations and Annual Giving alumni@northland.edu 715-682-1811 JULIE BUCKLES Director of Communications jbuckles@northland.edu 715-682-1664

Repeatedly, I have taken time to reflect on the intersection of instruction and research at Northland and wondered at how stimulating it must be for our students to engage in both. They experience the classroom as an opportunity to develop skills and learn the fundamentals of their preferred disciplines. Once they are conversant with the basic tools of inquiry and examination, they transition into the research arena.

The crossover between instruction and research happens naturally at Northland, without impediments or delay, and the diversity of the learning experience is a compelling part of our academic mission and culture.

Let me express thanks to our talented faculty for their prowess as instructors and researchers as well as their sincere devotion to our students—on all levels!

Join with me as we present a small selection of the numerous faculty achievements. I am thrilled to report that the College remains a focus for cutting-edge academic inquiry.

Please relish what follows,

Marvin J. Suomi

Northland College Magazine FALL 2019 Mission

Northland College integrates liberal arts studies with an environmental emphasis, enabling those it serves to address the challenges of the future. © 2019 Northland College Printed with soy ink on 10% postconsumer FSC Certified paper. Elemental chlorine free. Made with 100% certified renewable electricity.

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 2

Here Comes the Class of 2023 Northland College welcomed one of the largest classes of students in celebratory fashion.

Under blue skies and sunshine, Drummer Stevie Matier led more than two-hundred new students across Fenenga bridge to the campus mall.

WATCH THE HIGHLIGHTS northland.edu/convocation

10/7/19 9:48 AM

IN IN BRIEF BRIEF

In the Shadow of Giants

By Jackie Moore, Director of Alumni Relations

Just as January marks the beginning of a new calendar year, for schools and colleges, September is a fresh start to a rigorous nine-month schedule.

At Northland, the campus comes to life after a summer slumber.

Students return and classrooms fill as they have for over a hundred years.

For the Office of Alumni Relations, the focus turns to reuniting all those who came before. For the past six years, September has featured Fall Festival: an all-call reunion for alumni and friends of Northland College. And like the years before, it was a weekend to reminisce, reconnect, and recognize the remarkable achievements of notable Northlanders.

Working with alumni provides a chance to learn about the history of this pioneer region and the community leaders who were ahead of their time.

Those who recognized the possibilities for a little school, in a small town, on a big lake. Small communities like ours depend on leaders who recognize building relationships as the foundation for success.

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 3

Over the years, many have carried the dream of Wheeler, Ellis, and Dodd; the founding fathers of both Ashland and Northland. For decades, dedicated men and women have stood in the shadows of these giants, striving to advance the mission of Northland College and enhance the surrounding community.

Last month, Northland alumni honored Don Chase, a giant in his own right, with our firstever Lifetime Achievement Award. A 1962 graduate, Don’s relationship with Northland began at a young age when his older siblings were students. The Chase family has a long history with Northland with seventeen members having called 1411 Ellis Avenue home.

In addition to being an engaged student, Don was a campus leader who worked in the print shop under the direction of Mike Shea. After graduating, he returned to manage the print shop and teach English. Don later worked in the admissions office where he quickly excelled and advanced.

After years of traversing the country to recruit new students, administrators recognized

Don’s natural ability to connect with people, listen to their needs, find connections, and develop mutually beneficial relationships. These skills were the foundation he needed to work in the development office.

Under the dirction of Dick Mackey, Don continued his career of traveling for Northland—this time to reconnect with alumni and develop relationships with donors. His genuine nature and integrity built a strong advancement office. Together with then-president Bob Parsonage, the College raised over $75 million dollars.

Don retired from Northland in 2005, however, retirement didn’t slow him down. He continued to work with major gifts for five years and currently serves on the board of trustees, providing historic insights to help guide the future of Northland College.

These days you can find Don on the fourth floor of the Center for Science and the Environment where he is a champion for the alumni archives, spending countless volunteer hours identifying people in photos from over six decades of Northland’s history. In the 127 years since

Other Awardees Mark Charles ’80 – Distinguished Alumni Award George & Judy Hayducsko ’82 – Environmental Leadership Award Often away for weeks at a time, Don still managed to raise a family and be engaged in the local community. He has worked with the Habitat for Humanity, Chamber of Commerce, Ashland Historical Society, Chequamegon Bay Arts Council, Ashland Rotary Club, Big Top Chautauqua, Wisconsin Public Radio, and the City of Ashland.

Northland began, many have stood in the shadow of Wheeler Hall, a living testament to the dreams of those long gone. Each year etched in her foundation a promise for the future and reminder of a noble past. In all those years, with all those people, we are so fortunate to have one Don Chase.

FALL 2019

3

9/30/19 11:25 AM

IN BRIEF

HOT TOPICS Binational Commission Hears Concerns About the Great Lakes Wisconsin Public Radio September 26, 2019 Northland hosts International Joint Commission for a day of briefings and an evening public session. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ Why Should Wisconsin Drain Lake Michigan for Foxconn?

Washington Post August 28, 2019 Author Anna Clark argues the Great Lakes should be protected.

She quotes from the Great Lakes Water Wars, a book written by Peter Annin, director of the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ Northwest Wisconsin Copes with the Costs of a Changing Climate Wiscontext August 15, 2019 Local communities find themselves stuck in a cycle of rebuilding infrastructure after repeated floods. Northland is leading the charge to address the region’s vulnerability to climate change. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ High Water Level Weighs on Lake Superior Property Owners Duluth News Tribune August 1, 2019 Meteorological data from NOAA’s Atlas 14 show the chance the Lake Superior region could see such 100-year storms over a twenty-fourhour period has increased by more than a third, said Matt Hudson, associate director of the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ College Degrees in Outdoor Education are ‘Preparing People to be Outside Professionals’

Wisconsin, Upper Midwest Look to Crack into Commercial Hazelnut Production Wisconsin Public Radio July 16, 2019 Researchers tout hazelnuts for economic, environmental benefits. Northland is providing support for hazelnut research and expansion in northern Wisconsin. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ A Crack in the Great Lakes Compact? Diversion Plans Prompts Pushback Great Lakes Echo July 15, 2019 “The idea that massive water bodies can be permanently transformed is not a fanciful one,” said Peter Annin, who directs the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ Fierce Storms, High Water Gobble Up Lake Superior’s South Shore Star Tribune June 23, 2019 “We need to be thinking not about what our water infrastructure needs of the past have been, because they’re quickly becoming obsolete,” Peter Annin told the Star Tribune. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Atlas of a Lost World chronicles the last millennia of the Ice Age, the violent oscillations and retreat of glaciers, and the clues and traces that document the first encounters of early humans.

Northland College student Mya Simon, who is majoring in English and Native American studies, contacted Childs to ask him a few questions about his visit.

Mya: What does receiving the SOWNA award for the third time mean to you?

Ashland Daily Press June 4, 2019

Craig: I believe Sigurd Olson and I have been on similar paths in different times, digging deep into the wild places we know by heart, and speaking for them, writing of their values, twists and turns, beauties, silences. His place was up here in wilderness lake country, mine is in the deserts of the southwest, two powerful presences.

Being honored with this award for the third time tells me that I have a mentor in this man, someone I should be listening more closely to.

In its thirty-third year, the Apostle Islands School is a collaborative program provided by the National Park Service, Friends of the Apostle Islands, the Northland College Outdoor Education program, and the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute.

In this profile, Elizabeth Andre talks about the merits of a degree in outdoor education.

NORTHLAND COLLEGE MAGAZINE

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 4

The Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute awarded author and wilderness traveler Craig Childs his third Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award for his 2018 book Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America, at the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute in September.

Students Disconnect—and Connect—on Camping Trip

Vail Daily July 30, 2019

4

Author Craig Childs on His Connection to Sigurd Olson

Mya: Can you talk about your connection to Northland College in Atlas of a Lost World?

Craig: This award is what first brought me here and I fell for the place. I arrived in January during a white out and walked onto the frozen bay mesmerized. When I returned in later winter, the second time I received the award, it was during a Polar Vortex event. I was researching this Ice Age book at the time and found this to be a perfect opportunity to take a toboggan with gear and walk alone onto the lake where I spent the coldest nights of my life. I had helped students with the construction of a snow shelter days earlier, and I retreated to it for one of the nights. From this vantage, I could write about the evolution of shelters in the late Pleistocene, and how people survived intense cold in the company of mammoths and dire wolves.

9/30/19 11:25 AM

Student Intern Discovers Unconventional Loon Family Loons and mallards have little in common.

In fact, they are rivals. They are not even closely related among birds. Loons’ closest relatives are penguins and pelicans; mallards’ are chickens and grouse.

And yet, a pair of loon parents went viral this past summer for their decision to adopt a mallard duckling as their own.

The non-traditional family was discovered by junior Evelyn Doolittle, a geology and water science major, who was working as a field research intern for The Loon Project.

The Loon Project surveyed one-hundred lakes in the Minocqua region—five per day. At each lake, they observed behaviors and took notes, filling out data sheets with shorthand for various behaviors.

On the day of the discovery, Doolittle headed out onto Long Lake in her canoe on a rainy, windy day. She knew a chick might be hatching because they had noted when eggs were laid. She paddled to a loon nest and found eggshell fragments, meaning a chick was likely out and about.

“I found the pair of loons and I found the ‘chick’ and I recorded in the data sheet that

International Joint Commission Briefed on Region’s Water Quality The Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation partnered with the International Joint Commission to host a public listening session in the Northland College Alvord Theatre in September.

the loon parents had ‘quack-like tremolos,’” she said.

She also recorded the odd coloring of the chick and observed that it rode for an extended time on its parents backs and pecked at the brush. She remarked to her colleagues—including fellow Northland student Tarryn Hanson—“wow, chicks look a lot like ducklings.”

Another researcher returned to Long Lake the next week and confirmed that much to everyone’s shock, loon parents were raising a mallard duckling. Piper says he’s never seen anything like this in his more than twentyfive years of researching loons. Besides being natural enemies, loons and mallards behave differently and eat different things.

The loon team hypothesize the parents must have lost their own chick to a predator and shortly after, came across the duckling, who must have separated from its family.

Doolittle says she still gets reports from the team on the loons and duckling—and it sounds like they are progressing as they should. “This is an all-around happy story,” she said.

Northland Increases Solar Commitment Northland purchased 10kW of solar energy shares from the Xcel Solar Connect Community Garden, recently completed and located less than a mile from campus.

Last year, the Northland College Student Association’s purchased 20kW, paid for by the REFund, a student-administered grant program, designed to enhance sustainability and energy efficiency on campus.

The International Joint Commission (IJC) is a Canadian-United States treaty organization that seeks to prevent and resolve issues facing the two countries’ boundary waters.

The newly-appointed IJC commissioners were seeking the public’s views on the health of Lake Superior and the Great Lakes.

The Burke Center staff and students facilitated a series of briefings for the commissioners on environmental conditions, stormdriven impacts to water quality, and future threats for water quality.

The Burke Center will be producing an executive summary to be released in November. Watch for it at northland.edu/ijc.

FALL 2019

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 5

5

9/30/19 11:25 AM

Sierra Ranks Northland Top Cool School Sierra, a publication of Sierra Club, ranked Northland College a “cool school” in its annual list of eco-savviest colleges and universities.

“For thirteen years, Sierra has been ranking colleges according to which ones offer the best sustainability-focused courses, ecofriendly cafeteria provisions, and carbonneutral land and energy policies, as well as the most opportunities to engage with the environmental movement,” Sierra wrote in its introduction of the September edition.

Of the 282 schools Sierra considered, Northland College ranked 26—up from 55 in 2018. Northland was ranked 6—up from

6

14—among undergraduate colleges and remains first in Wisconsin and the Midwest.

Some highlights of Northland College’s sustainability achievements this past year:

“It means something to receive validation for our sustainability efforts from Sierra Club,” said Kate Ullman, sustainability director.

“We’ve had an environmental mission since the early 1970s—but as the issues become more complex, so do the solutions. This tells us we’re on the right track.”

• Added sustainable agriculture as an academic program.

In addition to the Sierra rankings, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education named Northland College top in the nation for sustainability curriculum. More than eighty percent of faculty incorporate sustainability into the classroom.

• Composted an estimated 170,000 pounds of food waste—a 77 percent increase from the previous academic year.

• Built a high tunnel on campus to extend growing season.

• Completed one-year inventory for Real Food Challenge.

• Northland College and the Northland College Student Association purchased 30kW of solar energy shares from the Xcel Solar Connect Community Garden.

NORTHLAND COLLEGE MAGAZINE

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 6

9/30/19 11:25 AM

ACADEMIC SCHOLARSHIP resources available to them, which includes consulting the primary literature and their more senior peers and faculty mentors.” An ardent proponent of undergraduate teaching and research, Robertson has successfully established an externally funded undergraduate research lab focused on applying catalysis to lessening the environmental impact of plastics.

In tandem with Robertson’s contribution, the other articles presented here are prime examples of Northland’s dedication to excellence, showcasing the work of Native American studies professors, Emily Macgillivray and Kyle Bladow, the passionate outdoor education profile provided by Elizabeth Andre, Cynthia Belmont’s enchanting literary essay, and a transcription of Paula Spaeth Anich’s highly personal and poignant 2019 Honor’s Day celebration address.

Macgillivray and Bladow lead us into the interdisciplinary diversity of Native American studies, kicking off with a lucid description of their discipline: “Native American and Indigenous studies centers on the cultures, politics, histories, and experiences of Indigenous peoples past and present as it investigates legacies of colonialism and Indigenous persistence.“

Since my arrival on campus in the summer of 2018, I have been propelled into a fascinating world of innovation and discovery.

Whether in traditional fields, such as the life sciences, climate change studies, and outdoor education, or in innovative disciplines, such as cultural memory, social justice, and eco-feminist literary criticism, Northland has distinguished itself as an undergraduate research hub in the Upper Midwest.

On the one hand, many are aware that our dedicated centers of excellence—the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation, the Center for Rural Communities, the Hulings Rice Food Center, and the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute—have transformed the research landscape in the north woods. Few know that an increasing number of our faculty members have solicited and been awarded prestigious research grants. Taken together, the scope of scholarly inquiry at the College merits national recognition and there is still bandwidth for growth and development.

At the core of our research community are our Northland students, who, though young and firmly rooted in their undergraduate liberal arts curricula, perform in a wide variety of research functions and assume scholarly responsibilities on multiple levels.

As Nick Robertson suggests, “students are tasked with complex challenges that require them to stretch their thinking to solve problems. They must use the

By the same token, diversity forms the crux of Andre’s article, when she proclaims: “Northland students are often the ones raising their hands to argue that we must move beyond simply thinking about how to recruit diverse people to our same old programs and instead commit to working with diverse communities to design new types of outdoor programs where the underlying philosophies honor diverse ways of experiencing and relating to the natural world and to each other.“ Hear, hear!

Belmont and Anich’s contributions reveal more intimate and subjective approaches to scholarship at Northland College. The former is a brilliant literary essay, fashioned with a stunning command of the language medium, expressive of how animal and plant life are indelibly intertwined, at once fiercely creative, virtuosic, bold, and edgy.

The latter is a heartfelt tribute to Northland, a small community of scholars and learners, infused with the common aspiration to comprehend how culture and nature seek and maintain a sustainable balance. Sitting among the audience when the speech was given, I could, at the time, think of nothing more to add to Anich’s unpretentious credo, and my then-reaction prevails even more strongly today: “I believe we have a nice little community up here and we have academic mettle. In fact, I think the strength of our community makes our scholarship more meaningful. Our common purpose is strengthened by our individual voices and talents, and our common purpose sharpens our individual voices and talents.”

It is an honor to be a servant leader to this diverse community of faculty and students, and it is my sincere pleasure to present five valuable contributions from among our distinguished faculty. All of them embody what makes Northland College research and scholarship eminently accessible and altogether distinctive.

Please enjoy!

PG

PG

PG

PG

PG

Dr. Karl Ivan Solibakke is chief operating officer and dean of faculty.

FALL 2019

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 7

7

9/30/19 11:25 AM

The student campus garden crew harvest fresh vegetables for outdoor orientation trips.

8

NORTHLAND COLLEGE MAGAZINE

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 8

9/30/19 11:26 AM

The presenters were clearly uncomfortable at being upstaged by an undergraduate.

Outdoor Ed Then and Now My first year at Northland, I attended a professional conference with a group of Northland students. We were listening to a session on how to “green” your college’s outdoor program, and I could tell the Northland students were underwhelmed by the suggestions, which amounted to reducing pre-trip paperwork, recycling, having “meatless Mondays,” and a few other window-dressings.

Over the intervening ten years, I’ve continued to have similar experiences that fill me with pride to be associated with outdoor education at Northland.

For example, the outdoor profession is currently grappling with how to become more equitable, inclusive, and diverse. Many current conference sessions on the topic are as superficial as the ones on environmental stewardship were ten years ago.

Finally one of the Northland students raised her hand and described how Northland outdoor programs grow a lot of their own food, support local farmers, keep driving to a minimum by doing trips in local areas, consider global supply chains and product lifecycles when purchasing, repair and repurpose gear rather than buying new, reject the false dualism of the human-nature divide, and design programs meant to foster a sense of place, promote environmental sensitivity, and develop stewardship behaviors.

Northland students are often the ones raising their hands to argue that we must move beyond simply thinking about how to recruit diverse people to our same old programs and instead commit to working with diverse communities to design new types of outdoor programs where the underlying philosophies honor diverse ways of experiencing and relating to the natural world and to each other. At conferences, when conversations in the hallways turn to Northland, the other professionals almost always express surprise when I tell them how small of a college we are. “Really? I feel like I see Northland outdoor education everywhere!”

The presenters were clearly uncomfortable at being upstaged by an undergraduate.

And I couldn’t have been prouder of my new institution. The student’s comments opened the door for further discussions in the hallways between sessions that ended up with me being elected to serve on the association’s board of directors with a promise to help the outdoor profession think more substantively about environmental stewardship.

A few years ago, I started an alumni photo album on our program’s Facebook page.

It’s affirming to see our graduates in positions of leadership and influence in the outdoor profession as park rangers, naturalists, program directors, business owners, expedition leaders, teachers, and school principals. I know they’re bringing their critical lens and their understanding

of the potential for outdoor education to help build a society that is socially-just and environmentally-sound. I know they’re pushing their coworkers and students to think more expansively and more inclusively.

Most recently, our students have started thinking about how to use outdoor experiences to help address the nationwide campus mental-health epidemic. The students, under the guidance of Professor Evan Coulson, are launching a series of outdoor wellness programs to explore the ability of time spent in nature to decrease stress, improve cognition and restore attention, increase empathy, and develop feelings of social belonging and selfacceptance. By promoting holistic wellness and intrapersonal development, programs like these can augment Northland’s student support and counseling services. Once again, I find myself wanting to brag about Northland’s outdoor education program being in the vanguard.

My mother earned her master’s degree in outdoor education in 1972, which was about at the beginning of when it was possible to get a graduate degree in this field. As I tell her about what Northland outdoor education is doing, she marvels at how far the profession has come. Founded in 1976, Northland’s outdoor education program has been influencing the profession for nearly its entire span. There’s nowhere else I’d rather invest my career.

FALL 2019

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 9

9

9/30/19 11:26 AM

10

NORTHLAND COLLEGE MAGAZINE

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 10

Prestige can be bought; but a community like Northland’s can only be built.

9/30/19 11:26 AM

Confronting Twenty-first Century Problems with Old-fashioned Collaboration The Marshall Address, Delivered on Honors Day, April 4, 2019 I don’t generally walk up to people and say “I am an Ivy League graduate.” Yet, strangely, that is what I’m going to lead off with today: I am an Ivy League graduate.

It took me eight years to make the journey from the Ivy League to Northland College. My last stop in college was receiving my diploma in a colonial building that’s a national historic landmark; and my first stop at Northland was spending the night before my job interview at the bait shop on Highway 2. Then last fall, I went back to visit my alma mater. On top of the eight years it took to get here, I’ve spent a decade teaching at Northland; but it only took ten hours to go back to where I started.

Going back east felt surreal. The campus was as impressive as ever (in a language that is meant to be deliberately impressive but is effective nonetheless): buildings that withstood shelling during the American Revolution, marble, wrought iron, stained glass, an equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius… the whole bit. It was vibrant, crowded, exciting, and overwhelming. The tension was palpable and caught me completely off-guard. I wondered “What is this tension?”

It took me a while to recognize what had once been a familiar feeling and a big part of my own history. I felt the tension of constant, ferocious competition and ambition—the feeling of hundreds of people striving to succeed as individuals. At one point in my life, that striving shaped me. But I found out last fall that it isn’t enough for me anymore. The presence of that tension and exhilaration couldn’t hide the absence of something much more important…

Community—a place where individuals are united towards a greater purpose. I looked around my alma mater and wondered: Where were the people striving together and the people striving to help others? Where was that common purpose that pulled everyone together? Where were “How’s it going?” and “Hey.” where the paths met on the quad? Why weren’t they at least growing food on one of these gigantic greens?

For all of the lofty credentials, I thought my old school might be missing something fundamental: that deep sense of community. I began to consider how over-rated prestige is and how under-valued community is. Prestige can be bought; but a community like Northland’s can only be built.

The students, staff, and faculty who founded, farmed, and shaped our campus after the cutover made Northland a community. We are the caretakers of the community right now. And as such, we have some very important work

to do: we must strive together to ensure the community outlasts us and we must support each other to reach our full potential.

We are a strong community because of the things we take for granted every day. From my perspective as a teacher, our strength comes from the fact that I get to wander around in the woods with you, my students. We model populations; discuss teeth and lactation; consider neutral evolution; and spend twenty-four hours counting birds at the head of Chequamegon Bay—in the rain. After all that: I know you, students. We all know you. We have read hundreds of pages of your writing and it is much improved since that first assignment. We get to see the great distances you travel in the four years you share with us. We know you have dug deeper than before to produce the work you are presenting today and it is so impressive. Our community is built around relationships like these that take years to develop and cannot be commodified.

Our community is also built on collaboration. When we confront twenty-first century challenges, faculty, staff, and students sit shoulder-toshoulder at the table to chart our course. We are not a perfect community, but we strive to be. We are creative and we are skeptical. We are tenacious.

And we have to be, because we don’t have to go far to hear someone say that the best education can only be found at a few, elite institutions with dazzling resources. Having lived in both of these worlds, I know that isn’t true. I reject the notion that important research and inspired art can only happen at prestigious universities. I believe we have a nice little community up here and we have academic mettle. In fact, I think the strength of our community makes our scholarship more meaningful.

Our common purpose is strengthened by our individual voices and talents, and our common purpose sharpens our individual voices and talents.

The evidence can be found in the work presented at today’s Honors Day. Our mission to search for solutions to environmental problems pushes us to work synthetically.

Our commitment to sustainability requires us to get our hands dirty. And our dedication to social justice and diversity means our work is never over.

I love walking up to people and saying “I teach at Northland College.” This community is profoundly important to me.

And so it is an honor to say: Congratulations to today’s award recipients. We are delighted to share in your success.

Paula Spaeth Anich is the associate professor of natural resources. She is part of the team of researchers at Northland College who discovered flying squirrels fluoresce pink.

[This speech has been edited and shortened for inclusion in this magazine]

FALL 2019

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 11

11

9/30/19 11:26 AM

Benefits of Student-Faculty Collaborative Research Student-faculty collaborative research is an incredibly powerful experience for undergraduate students. It enables them to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to real world problems, while providing an opportunity for them to test drive a potential career or field of interest. Regardless of the discipline and where the work is occurring, students are learning new skills and honing their critical thinking abilities at extremely high levels. It can also open their eyes to careers they had never considered. In fact, my student-faculty collaborative research experience as an undergraduate at UW-Eau Claire prepared and motivated me to pursue a career in undergraduate academics and research and development, two fields I never planned to pursue.

The hook that grabbed me came as I was starting research the summer after my freshman year. We were working on synthesizing new transition metal catalysts and I asked my research adviser what that compound would do. His response was, “I’m not sure, to the best of my knowledge, no one has made it before.” I was taken aback. We spend most of our time in school focused on learning and applying existing knowledge, yet I was doing something completely novel.

The realization that we were working to discover something unknown is what piqued my interest in research and sent me down the path of graduate school to ultimately land at Northland College.

Upon arriving, and with Northland’s support, I set up an undergraduate research lab focused on applying catalysis to lessening the environmental impact of plastics. It was a topic that I was interested in and one that I was confident would be engaging for students as well. I was excited about the potential for what we could achieve scientifically, but designing the projects so that the work could be performed by undergraduate students was my main goal because the best student outcomes occur when they are an integral part of a research team.

In these environments, students are tasked with complex challenges that require them to stretch their thinking to solve problems. They must use the resources available to them, which includes consulting the primary literature and consulting their more senior peers and faculty mentor. Senior students in the group gain tremendous experience by training in new students because the mentoring process requires them to think more deeply about the processes and content. Having worked with almost thirty research students, I have witnessed significant growth in students’ self-confidence, communication skills, and abilities to work and think independently, as well as collaboratively. Additionally, undergraduate research involves many failures along the way. Learning how to handle these setbacks, persevere, and find solutions is one of the most valuable student, and life, experiences, because with failure comes learning and growth.

The list of skills that are developed by students in an undergraduate research environment is long and far more important than learning a particular set of research techniques; their abilities enable them to be adaptable, innovative, and team players. Students who participate in research projects commonly find them to be extremely valuable components of their liberal educations.

Given these benefits, Northland faculty and staff work hard to provide these opportunities for our students, as is evidenced by the fact that more than fifty percent of our graduates participate in a student-faculty collaborative research project. Being privileged to work closely with motivated students on research projects and then watch their future successes in their careers and lives is one of the many reasons that being a professor at a small liberal arts college is so rewarding.

Nick Robertson is an associate professor of chemistry. Working with UW-Eau Claire, Robertson received $364,361 from the National Science Foundation in 2017 to fund student-intensive research on the synthesis and chemical recycling of plastics.

Regardless of the discipline and where the work is occurring, students are learning new skills and honing their critical thinking abilities at extremely high levels.

12

NORTHLAND COLLEGE MAGAZINE

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 12

9/30/19 11:26 AM

FALL 2019

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 13

13

9/30/19 11:26 AM

Beyond Nick’s Lab Chemistry Alumni

“It’s no secret that the polymer industry is not the most environmentally friendly, but my work as an undergrad influenced me to help make it better. I think it’s safe to say that my undergraduate research experience at Northland was the foundation for the career path that I am on now.”

Eric Krall ’13 received his PhD from North Dakota State University in coatings and polymeric materials and now works as a senior scientist at Axalta Coatings Systems. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

“I had no prior ambition to continue studies past my bachelor’s degree when I first started at Northland. It wasn’t until Nick and I authored our first publication together that my interest to continue on to graduate school started. It was his motivation, mentorship, and friendship that got me to where I am today.”

Sean Mc Ilrath ’12 received his master’s in organic chemistry with an emphasis in bio-renewable synthesis and superacid chemistry from Northern Illinois University and now runs the analytical laboratory for the Quality Assurance Department at Guy & O’Neill. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

“I was able to learn to use many different instruments and techniques vital to landing my first job out of college and they will continue to serve me well as I move forward with my career. I was also fortunate enough to be able to attend the annual American Chemistry Society conference with Nick and my teammates, where we presented our research to fellow scientists from around the globe.”

Sam Paulson ’18 is an assistant scientist at Pharmaceutical Product Development.

14

“Most importantly, I learned—and now teach my own students—that failed attempts and making mistakes is an inevitable part of the learning process; true growth cannot occur without it!”

Leah Jaynes ’16 is a high school chemistry teacher at Elmira City School District in Elmira, New York. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

“Being able to gain applied, first-hand experience in advanced lab techniques, including using sophisticated instrumentation, helped me prepare for what I do every day at my career at Corning.”

Tyler Klein ’16 is a research technician in the department of chemical analysis at Corning Incorporated in Corning, New York. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ “At Northland, I learned many of the techniques I use today in graduate school. This has given me an advantage while starting my own research and made me more confident as a chemist. Nick taught us how to design, set up, and run multiple experiments at the same time, which has been extremely useful in graduate research.”

John Aguirre ’18, biochemistry graduate student at Marquette University in Marquette, Michigan. He plans to go into the field of green chemistry or education.

NORTHLAND COLLEGE MAGAZINE

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 14

9/30/19 11:26 AM

Connecting Home to College and Back Again Native American Studies Graduates

Liandra Skenandore

Lauren Schluter

Liandra Skenandore ’19 has always known the power and complexity of language. She grew up in DePere, Wisconsin, listening to family and friends tell stories around her kitchen table. She is a member of the Oneida Nation and is also Prairie Band Potawatomi, Seminole, and Creek.

Lauren Schluter ’19 took in an abundance of opportunities during her four years as a humanities and nature studies and biology student with a minor in Native American studies. Not only did she excel academically, she crushed the internships.

She transferred to Northland College in 2017 to study English and Native American studies.

“I wanted to attend a school where interdisciplinary thinking and scholarship were encouraged since my mind naturally considers all the relations between things and beings,” she said.

“I wanted to attend a school where interdisciplinary thinking and scholarship were encouraged since my mind naturally considers all the relations between things and beings.”

Liandra Skenandore ’19

Skenandore distinguished herself on campus as a leader and an achiever.

At Honors Day in April, she received the Native American Studies Award for Academic Excellence and the Sandy & Regina Scott Memorial Award for outstanding participation in Native American and campus activities—notably the Native American Student Association and annual spring powwow.

In the last two years, she participated in the McNair Scholars Program, presented alongside eminent Kiowa author N. Scott Momaday at the centennial commemoration of the closing of Carlisle Indian Industrial School, helped as an intern with publicizing a short documentary of Yup’ik hunting and food sovereignty, and presented at the Native American Literary Symposium. “Without sounding hyperbolic, Northland has positively changed my life,” she said.

During her college years, she returned home to intern with the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation on a community-based collaborative field school. There she trained with tribal members in archaeological methods like shovel testing, excavation, and object identification, and learned about directions in the field of archaeology that promote Indigenous communities, decolonization, and social justice.

In addition to her regular coursework, Schluter audited additional classes in Global Indigenous Politics and weaving black ash baskets in Native American Arts & Cultures, a course taught by esteemed local artist April Stone.

She volunteered at the Northland College Native American Museum and the Northland College Archives. In her senior year, after interning at the Madeline Island Museum, she completed a capstone project, “Decolonizing the Historical Narrative: The Ethics of Native American Representation at the Madeline Island Museum.”

After graduation, Schluter participated in the Red Cliff Archaeology summer program and was the Manoomin archive and outreach intern at Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission.

FALL 2019

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 15

15

9/30/19 11:27 AM

16

NORTHLAND COLLEGE MAGAZINE

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 16

9/30/19 11:27 AM

A Modern Look at Native American Studies Native American and Indigenous studies contextualizes the cultures, politics, histories, and experiences of Indigenous peoples past and present as it investigates legacies of colonialism and Indigenous persistence. As an interdisciplinary field, it includes a number of different academic specializations and approaches. Northland College remains one of the few institutions in Wisconsin to offer a four-year baccalaureate degree in Native American studies. Current faculty in the program, Professors Emily Macgillivray and Kyle Bladow, have academic backgrounds in history and literary studies; they contribute to scholarship in the field through conference presentations, publications, and archival work.

Emily Macgillivray, Assistant Professor of Native American Studies Native American history begins from the premise that understanding the experience of Native peoples is necessary to understanding the history of North America. When studying the Lake Superior region, Anishinaabe peoples have shaped the politics, economics, and cultures of the region for centuries.

I grew up on Lake Superior in Thunder Bay, Ontario, but in K-12 public school, I mainly learned about the history from a Euro-American perspective. When taking gender studies courses during my undergraduate degree, I realized the inadequacies of my previous education. During graduate school, I focused on the role of Native American women in the history of the Great Lakes, and I consider this research part of my ongoing re-education on the history of the region.

I am currently working on a book about the role of Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee women in the politics and economics of the eighteenth and nineteenth century Great Lakes on both the American and British sides of the border. While Native women produce few documents themselves, they appear in a variety of archival documents, including fur trade ledgers, correspondence, travel narratives, land petitions, and estates housed in both large and small archives throughout the United States and Canada.

Examining these sources illustrates the strategies Native women used to navigate the political turbulence of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These strategies included drawing on a variety of knowledge and skills, including ecological expertise to produce valuable products like maple sugar and cider, and influencing treaty councils. Understanding the role of Native women in politics and economics is integral to understanding how land cessions, settlement, and negotiations over the border influenced the region into the shape we know it today.

Kyle Bladow, Assistant Professor of Native American Studies My interest in literary studies coincided with an interest in how stories of place encourage people to care for land and water; my focus on environmental justice literature includes narratives by Native American writers.

Indigenous literature continues to flourish, with scores of new works published annually in all genres.

Indigenous writers pursue diverse literary goals, including asserting the continuity of literary traditions across generations and refashioning artistic categories that fail to convey Indigenous perspectives.

Take, for example, comics and nature poetry. In “Framing Storytelling: Indigenous Graphic Narratives,” an article for The Journal of Popular Culture, I examined recent comics in both mainstream and independent presses. Given the unique ways that comics combine text and image to address audiences, Indigenous-authored comics work with their visual components to encourage audience engagement in ways akin to oral storytelling, while simultaneously demonstrating the continuing resurgence of narratives within Indigenous visual cultures.

Meanwhile, Kumeyaay poet Tommy Pico recalibrates expectations audiences might have about Indigenous views on nature in his book Nature Poem. In a presentation at the 2018 Native American and Indigenous Studies Association annual conference, I argued that Pico’s ambivalent stance toward representing nature ensures that, in Pico’s poetry, nature cannot become a convenient way for audiences to overlook colonization; instead, Pico’s poem foregrounds the environments that poetry exists within rather than represents.

Together, these examples from comics and poetry help demonstrate the exciting vitality of contemporary Indigenous literatures.

Indigenous-authored comics work with their visual components to encourage audience engagement in ways akin to oral storytelling.

FALL 2019

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 17

17

9/30/19 11:27 AM

18

NORTHLAND COLLEGE MAGAZINE

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 18

9/30/19 11:27 AM

Aloe vera

Aloe, it is not from here. Nowhere I have lived is where it lives. Vera is a woman’s name meaning true. Vera is dutiful, reserved, and has a sleek chiffon lap, low-heeled pumps, a soothing palm.

My skin is not the same skin as when I was a child, and yet it burns and burns: remember, it says, that night of summer vacation at age nine, lying in the little bedroom in Laguna Beach after a long day of salt sun salt sun salt sun, the air so hot it was white, everything seemed white in the froth at the shore, how it flamed, my body stabbing red and sleepless under the scratchy sheet next to the window, oleander breathing fruity silk in the dark outside, my whole self hurt and it was a throbbing fever, an exquisite ache of pleasure at being scorched by life, to which I awoke in that moment ecstatic.

The first time. I listened to the ocean rustling, surging at the crag, and felt such a comfort in the soreness of my skin which is everything, for without it we would just be open.

So that was the 1970s. Emphatically tan shoulders shredding to naïve pink. Now we know about Prevention First and Healthy Choices, and Aloe. Now Aloe vera is everywhere because in the 21st century so many of the old ways are for sale.

Clean cool slime dripping from the green Aloe-shaped bottle, straight from the plastic leaf, slick as lube smearing where you want it wet, squish it in, rub the lectins around on you so they can recognize your dermal need, soft as a dog’s tongue licking, crooning to the world’s biggest organ, okay, it’s okay.

If, on the other hand, you have an actual Aloe, you can slice a rubbery arm off and its wound will heal because Aloe is a witch doctor—a genuine stranger, its odor musky as a field animal or a bit of rot, velvety pointed and specially marked with regular teeth, touch me touch me not like a sexy prickly teen.

Professor of English Cynthia Belmont wrote Aloe Vera for a long-term project aiming to investigate and re-imagine the human/plant relationship with a view towards a sustainable future. Aloe Vera was included in Becoming-Botanical: a post-modern liber herbalis, a new publication featuring contributions from over fifty international artists, researchers, and practitioners passionate about rekindling our human relationship with plants.

I saw a film of a man using an Aloe vera leaf to masturbate, riding the jelly up the pale tube, and what was invisible were the Aloe’s proteins seeking out the glycoproteins of the man’s cell membranes, to bind with them. What is and is not medicine?

Let me pour some sugar on you, says the potted Aloe to my tender chest flecked with Wisconsin lake sand. Broken to pulp, gaping and oozing its sticky insides like some saint. Let me pour it down.

FALL 2019

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 19

19

9/30/19 11:27 AM

ART

Designer, sculptor, theatermaker, and community educator Chris Lutter-Gardella ’93 created a kaleidoscope of butterflies displayed at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, this past summer.

“We, along with the hundreds who have collaborated to create this installation, have taken what is considered ‘waste’ in our society and made a thing of beauty,” Chris wrote in his blog at christopherlutter.com.

20

NORTHLAND COLLEGE MAGAZINE

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 20

9/30/19 11:27 AM

ATHLETICS

Hometown Favorite Chooses Home Ashland hometown favorite Jordan Brennan is a star on the basketball court and off. He’s unassuming, humble—and he delivers. Kids look up to him. Teachers love him. Players want to play with him. Coaches want to coach him. Even when he one-ups someone, they can’t help but say nice things about him.

Last winter, when he surpassed Eric Sundberg’s 1979 all-time scoring record of 1,079 points for Ashland High School, Sundberg told the Ashland Daily Press: “From my standpoint, there really isn’t anybody that would have been better to break it.”

Northland College Basketball Coach Scott Sorenson recognized Jordan’s potential six years ago, when he watched Jordan play middle school ball. Since then, Scott’s become a part of the Brennan family—watching Jordan play in the Ashland High School gymnasium, greeting the family at the Northland games, and attending Jordan’s graduation party.

“One of the biggest reasons I chose Northland is because of Coach Sorenson,” Jordan said. “He’s someone who has your back and wants what is best for you, not just in basketball, but in life.”

Jordan follows in his parents’ and his big brother’s footsteps with his decision to attend Northland—to play ball, pursue education, and coach. Jordan’s brother Joey ’11 played ball at Northland where he earned his teaching degree. He’s now a high school physical education teacher and the head girl’s basketball coach in Hayward, Wisconsin.

RT H L A

Jordan will take the court in Kendrigan Center wearing number 21—the same number as his dad—for the first time November 16.

COLLEGE L E T I CS

NO

D

While Jordan’s decision to attend Northland and play ball might have seem preordained, he considered all his options—and there were plenty. In the end, he chose Northland for its academics, location, and basketball program.

“I wanted the sense of family,” he said.

H AT

N

Jordan’s mom and dad met at Northland, married, and settled in a house two blocks from campus where they raised their family.

Brenda (Baron) ’83 is a kindergarten school teacher at Lake Superior Primary; Joe ’84 works at C.G. Bretting Manufacturing Co.,

Inc. and has been a beloved basketball coach for both Northland and Ashland High School.

The Northland College Athletics Hall of Fame gives lasting recognition to those who have brought distinction to themselves and Northland through their achievement, commitment, sportsmanship, and leadership in athletics.

northland.edu/hall-of-fame

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 21

“He’s a fantastic kid, a great leader, and one of the best players to ever come out of Ashland High School,” Sorenson said. “We got very lucky.”

MAKE YOUR NOMINATION TODAY! SAVE THE DATE

Hall of Fame Dinner and Induction Ceremony Fall Festival • Friday, September 25, 2020 FALL 2019

21

9/30/19 11:27 AM

THE NOWN

ON THE MOVE

Floydian Slip Turns Twenty For the past twenty years, Northland’s homegrown band—Floydian Slip—has played a myriad of concerts at clubs, theaters, and festivals in the Chequamegon Bay area and throughout the upper

Midwest. But, it’s this place, where Andy Noyes ’84 and Jeff Kriner ’93 decided to settle after college, and where Olaf Kirsten ’85 and Scott McCafferty returned after years of living elsewhere, that has provided

inspiration for their music and provided a home for the band to thrive and grow. Alumni return to hear their shows and they continue to entrance new classes of students year after year. They will be performing

for two nights at StageNorth in Washburn November 15 and 16. Tickets can be reserved at stagenorth.com or at floydianslip.org.

A Lesson in Lawyering Alec Drachenberg Mora ’19 interned with Blake Gross ’96 and Craig Haukaas ’84 at Craig’s law office in Ashland this past semester and summer.

Dr. Sue Haig ’79, who got her start birding in the Chequamegon Bay with Northland College Emeritus Professor Dr. Dick Verch, was awarded a Distinguished Service Award by the Secretary of the Interior in Washington DC for her work in avian conservation. This is the highest honor that a government scientist can earn. Her sister, via Facebook, reports that “Dr. Haig’s peers have labeled her the most important scientist in the nation in the field of avian conservation genetics.”

While there, Alec applied for admission to the Red Cliff Tribal Court as a non-lawyer advocate, which means taking and passing the same bar exam required of attorneys seeking admission.

Long story short, he studied and prepared after hours with Blake and Craig and in early August, he passed and was admitted to practice.

Alec intends to apply to law school and serve as a lawyer in the United States Marine Corps’ Judge Advocate Division upon graduation. “Working at Haukaas Law Office solidified my interest in the practice of law,” Alec said. Working with Craig and Blake gave me a much better understanding of what lawyering is all about.”

22

Jarred Stone September  at :PM

•••

So I was at work yesterday in Kotzebue Alaska and we had a small meeting prior to the Ambler Road meeting. Three people sitting around a table, all three from Northland College. #smallworld You, Charly Ray, Gina Kirsten and  others Like

 Comments Comment

NORTHLAND COLLEGE MAGAZINE

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 22

9/30/19 11:27 AM

The Future of Food is Right Here

By Danny Simpson ’18, Assistant Manager at the Hulings Rice Food Center

of power in the hands of already powerful food corporations.

engaged in the very trial and error necessary to meet the challenges of climate change.

In her new book The Fate of Food: What We’ll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World, environmental journalist Amanda Little details the difficult decisions we in the food world are grappling with regarding food access and sustainability in the face of climate change.

Call me idealistic or optimistic, but I place my trust in the many, although decreasing, number of farmers capable of meeting the challenges of climate change if given the chance and support to engage in regenerative farming practices that support soil health.

Hazelnuts, composting, season extension, food preservation, and pasture-based meats are only a handful of examples of the region working to develop a localized and resilient food system model worthy of celebration.

Little travelled the world meeting people at every level of the food system working to reinvent the way food is grown and arrives on our plates. Some proposed solutions were old-school like diverse permaculture and organic systems, edible insects, and ancient, indigenous crops. Others such as lab-grown meat, 3-D printed food, and vertical farms without soil or sunlight left me feeling uneasy.

These solutions are offered as a means to withstand the climate-caused disruptions to the global food system. Climate will ultimately test the resiliency of our food systems and determine who eats what.

As a proponent of regionalized food systems, it’s difficult for me to reconcile with ground beef grown in a distant lab as a food option and potential solution to climate change and I remain skeptical of greater concentration

Amidst all of the solutions in Little’s book, an idea that stayed with me was perhaps the most obvious. She posits that, “The most effective solutions will emerge locally, region by region, built from the ground up by institutions…and by farmers…, engaging in trial and error.”

Growing Connections students toured Chris Duke’s ’99 Great Oak Farm to learn about regenerative farming practices.

One of the many things I love about our home on Chequamegon Bay is the community of farmers and eaters

Superior Greens From Seeds to Shoots

By Meghan (Wilson) Van Beest ’97 Tucked in a large room at a home on Old County C outside Washburn (just past the giant chicken sculpture), there are racks and racks of tiny seedlings of all sorts. This is the grow room of Superior Greens, a microgreen business owned by Jake Williams ’14 and Brigid Reina ’15.

Before starting Superior Greens, Jake and Brigid were Northland College students. After graduation, the couple embarked on a cross-country road trip to find somewhere to settle in.

After travelling all over the country, they realized every one of their favorite places reminded them of the Chequamegon Bay area. So, they came back with the intention of starting a farm.

Superior Greens began in January 2018 when Jake and Brigid grew a few microgreens in a repurposed venison cooler in their garage. That spring the couple offered their first micro-CSA to help fund the creation of a larger grow room. The support from those first CSA customers provided the seed money necessary for Superior Greens to grow even more during their first summer.

The couple is committed to running as sustainable a business as possible. To that end, Superior Greens packaging is plant based and biodegradable. You can return the clamshells directly to Superior Greens or bring your containers to the Northland College Hulings Rice Food Center composting facility instead of throwing them in the trash.

There are lots of plans on the horizon for Superior Greens in the coming years. Besides expanding their growing capacity, the biggest thing the couple wants to do is add solar power to their farm. “We are very proud of our sustainability,” Jake says, “but until we are using renewable energy, we won’t be satisfied.”

Until that day comes, Superior Greens will continue to grow fresh microgreens and share their love of these little powerhouse plants. When asked why someone should add microgreens to their shopping list, Jake replies, “What’s not to love! They are tender and delicious, and it doesn’t really get much more nutritious. They go great on everything. We eat them all the time. Every single day.”

FALL 2019

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 23

23

9/30/19 11:27 AM

PHILANTHROPY

From Grief, Comes Joy Eight years after twenty-three-year-old Bjorn Norgaard ’10 was killed in a hit-andrun vehicle accident, Bjorn’s parents Brett and Karin continue to work at living their best lives, connecting and communicating with a large network of people who have become their friends, and even finding joy.

“In The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran talks about how grief carves you out and increases your capacity for joy,” Brett Norgaard said.

“I would not have believed it [after Bjorn died], but I do now.”

Brett remembers the first time he and Karin visited their son on campus. It was Parent’s Weekend which also happened to be Bjorn’s birthday, September 15. Bjorn had played a campus-wide capture-the-flag the day before, so even though it was only two weeks into his first semester of college, students shouted out his name and wished him happy birthday as he walked on the mall. Brett and Karin stood at the fire ring and listened to Bjorn’s recounting of his orientation-week trip to the Boundary Waters.

Some of you say, ‘Joy is greater than sorrow,’ and others say, ‘Nay, sorrow is the greater.’

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

-Kahlil Gibran

24

NORTHLAND COLLEGE MAGAZINE

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 24

coordinator of applied learning. “The stipend to support both students and the organization has been significant.”

The internship teaches nonprofit organizing and provides opportunities to assist elderly community members to stay independent and living at home.

Beyond funding, the Norgaards participate in some experiences in their own unique way. For the Birkie races, they host the skiers at their Cable cabin, dig out a twohundred-yard luge run—Bjorn was always instrumental in building the luge, Brett says—build an ice bar, and light the night with ice lanterns and tiki torches. Their niece Anna created Bjorndanas, given to the skiers, and sold to friends to support the Brother Bear Fund.

Karin commented, “He’s found his people.”

Their neighbors, the Olsens, whose kids are beekeepers, decided to donate their honey sales—$250-to-$300—to the Brother Bear skiers, giving them a stipend to cover their expenses. For this next year, four skiers applied—two are covered by the Brother Bear Fund, and Northland College staff and faculty chipped in to cover the other two.

Bjorn thrived at Northland College, so much so that his instructors referred to him as Mr. Northland. He was smart, social, altruistic, outdoorsy, and fun. He traveled to India, interned at Faith in Action, skied the Birkebeiner ski race, and fished and hung out at the family cabin in Cable, Wisconsin, forty miles south of campus.

Lily Springs internships are the latest addition. Brett met Nina Utne at her Lily Springs Farm because of an expanding family gathering. He and his family camped at Interstate Park each summer and couldn’t find big enough campsites, so he looked into camping at her one-hundred-acre farm, devoted to social design plants.

After Bjorn died, Brett and Karin stayed connected to Northland through Bjorn’s friends still in school. “But we knew that in three years we wouldn’t know any Northland students unless we did something,” Brett said.

He saw a kindred spirit in Nina and knew Bjorn would have been intrigued as well.

They explored setting up their own foundation, but the Birkie, the family cabin in Cable, and Northland College pulled them here.

They established the Brother Bear Fund as a way to merge Bjorn’s passions and interests. (Bjorn means “bear” in Norwegian, and his sisters Sonja and Ingrid affectionately called him Brother Bear.)

Now five years old, the Brother Bear Fund has provided stipends to ten students to intern with Faith in Action, for eight international travel grants, paid for fifteen students to ski the Birkie, for dozens of free cross-country ski rentals at the Outpost and day-passes to local ski trails, and this past May, it paid for two students to intern at Lily Springs, a regenerative farm in Osceola, Wisconsin.

“Bjorn was the first Faith in Action intern—not just a volunteer—and he did this as an unpaid intern,” said Stacy Craig,

With a focus on sustainability and social justice, the farm uses goats to promote an oak savannah landscape, and they grow restorative perennials like hazelnuts, elderberries, black currants, stone fruits, and raspberries for restaurants. They work with educational institutions and have an avian ecologist on board.

This past May, Northland students Jaclynn Findlay and Anna Marhefke interned at the farm for a month.

In a note to the Norgaards, Findlay reflected: My time at Northland has been profoundly enriched by practicing what I’ve been learning. Being able to work on a regenerative farm while learning about sustainable agriculture in the classroom worked in total synergy. I am so inspired by how full of life and love your family is. I hope I can embody the creative and adventurous spirit of Bjorn during my time at Northland College and beyond.

9/30/19 11:27 AM

Student Devotes Semester to Helping Refugees National Geographic posted a photo in June of a seven-year-old Syrian refugee named Rama, who lives with her family in a camp in Athens.

The photo was posted as part of a series for World Refugee Day as a way to raise awareness about the plight of refugees around the world.

Student Tara Padovan, who just spent the last semester working in refugee camps, immediately recognized Rama. “This girl actually lived in the camp where I was working, and I had her in the dance class I helped with, as well as art and gardening projects,” she said.

Since the Syrian civil war officially began March 15, 2011, about 6.7 million Syrians are now refugees, and another 6.2 million are displaced within Syria. Half of those people affected are children.

Tara grew up in King George, Virginia, the daughter of folk musicians.

At fifteen, she discovered Joelle Alexander’s memoir, Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid, in which Alexander tells the story of leaving her job to pursue more meaningful career in humanitarian aid. “I love travel, I love helping people,” Tara said. “For the first time, I had a name for what I felt I wanted to do.”

Tara attended a high school semester at Conserve School, which grounded her in environmental stewardship and leadership, and then went on to do a semester at Woolman Farm School, where she focused on social justice.

Coming to Northland was a natural next step, she said.

WATCH THE INTERVIEW northland.edu/padovan Majoring in gender and women studies and sociology and social justice, Tara learned about the refugee camps and opportunities to volunteer in a Human Rights and Social Justice course.

She and classmates were so inspired that for May term 2018 the five of them flew to Greece to work for Project Elea, a non-profit, volunteermanaged group that specializes in creative facilitation, culturally sensitive activities, and community-building workshops.

Tara returned and immediately began planning to go back. She spent last fall applying for grants from Northland’s Brother Bear Fund and McLean Travel Grant, figuring out housing, and working out the details. In December, she returned to the same camp in Athens.

“It was amazing to have people remember me because there are so many volunteers that cycle through,” Tara said. “My first day back the kids were ‘Tara, Tara, how’s it going? How are you?’ and it was really, really beautiful and overwhelming—and I was able to jump back from where I was in May.”

SYMPATHY TO THE FAMILIES OF: David J. Helge ’54, Mundelein, IL, 2/25/2018

Martin B. Cantrell ’69, Maynard, MA, 4/27/2019

Marilyn (Nicholson) Hansley ’52, Iron Mountain, MI, 12/13/2018

Dr. W. Scott Jellish ’76, Chicago, IL, 4/29/2019

Brian C. Dauphinais ’12, Mason, WI, 2/3/2019

David K. Good ’51, Bayfield, WI, 5/1/2019

Gary P. Midwood ’84, Des Plaines, IL, 3/3/2019

Stephen S. Williams ’69, Middle Granville, NY, 5/23/2019

Sandra (Sorenson) Fletcher ’88, Deerwood, MN, 3/5/2019

John M. Urling ’71, Ashland, WI, 5/30/2019

Kenneth E. Maki ’62, Iron River, WI, 3/10/2019

Sally Ann Keyes ’66, Duluth, MN, 6/1/2019

Leslie W. Howard ’52, West Bend, WI, 3/16/2019

Bruce A. Frommader ’65, Shell Lake, WI, 6/9/2019

Lois (Freeman) Smith ’54, Ashland, WI, 3/17/2019

Earl D. Morrison ’57, Ashland, WI, 6/11/2019

Judith (Blahnik) Harms ’72, Fond du Lac, WI, 3/18/2019

Jeanine (Moore) Tregay ’60, Durham, NC, 6/14/2019

Sam A. Moore ’62, Cable, WI, 3/19/2019

Joy-Anne (Carberry) Chesnik ’74, Kearny, NJ, 6/19/2019

Arne V. Ruha ’66, Stratford, WI, 3/19/2019

Gerald M. Bertheaume ’79, Ashland, WI, 6/21/2019

John M. Hall ’57, Hamel, MN, 3/21/2019

Robert K. Olson ’50, Hayward, WI, 6/22/2019

Louis E. Wise ’85, Sawyer, MN, 3/21/2019

Pamela (Kaeding) Peters ’82, Ashland, WI, 7/12/2019

Paul A. Guthrie ’59, Green Bay, WI, 3/24/2019

Kent E. Kuhlman ’00, Bayfield, WI, 8/12/2019

Charles W. Petters, Jr. ’89, King, WI, 3/30/2019

Kenneth B. Baskin ’75, Atlanta, GA, 8/13/2019

Mary Jean (Burich) LeTendre ’58, Charlottesville, VA, 4/6/2019

Dennis E. Schultz ’47, South Milwaukee, WI, 8/27/2019

Dr. Royal F. Shepard, Jr., West Caldwell, NJ, 4/9/2019, Former Trustee, 1972-1981

Rev. June (Larson) Bro ’43, Massachusetts, 8/19/2019

FALL 2019

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 25

25

9/30/19 11:27 AM

CAMPUS SHOT

26

NORTHLAND COLLEGE MAGAZINE

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 26

9/30/19 11:27 AM

OTS

“It was magical to witness everyone dancing, singing, and having so much fun together under the tent, under the stars on a perfect late summer night.”

— Instructor in Environmental Science, Jodi Supanich.

FALL 2019

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 27

27

9/30/19 11:28 AM

®

1411 Ellis Avenue Ashland, WI 54806-3999

NONPROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE PAID DULUTH, MN PERMIT NO. 1944

CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

GIVING IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF GRATITUDE As the year draws to a close, show future students how much Northland means to you with a year-end gift.

northland.edu/give

VARSITY CLUB

JOIN THE VARSITY CLUB

$50 membership gets you a season pass to all games, all year.

nor thland.edu/varsityclub

NCMagazine_FALL_19.indd 28

9/30/19 11:28 AM