News & Announcements
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Minnesota State University, Mankato is on the road recruiting graduate students this fall. Our scheduled visits are posted on the recruiting calendar. For more information about our graduate programs email grad@mnsu.edu or use our online request for information form. We hope to visit with you during the fall.
Twenty-six Minnesota State University, Mankato students comprise the first cohort to complete the university’s new Master of Social Work program.
The program, started in 2007, prepares students for advanced social work practice and administration in rural and small communities. The new graduates will be honored Saturday, July 25, from 4-6 p.m. at a celebration in Centennial Student Union 253-55.
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Scott Olson and Anne Blackhurst, dean of the College of Graduate Studies & Research, will speak at the recognition event.
Four Minnesota State University, Mankato master of fine arts students recently won 2009 Robert Wright Awards for imaginative writing, including fiction, nonfiction and poetry.
Amanda Schumacher, Lesley Arimah, Heather Elliott and Seth Calvert won the awards, announced recently.
Schumacher, of Amery, Wis., won the first–place award of $800 for creative nonfiction/fiction. Judge Leigh Allison Wilson described Schumacher as an author who "investigates the mysterious interstices between life and death, mystery and manners…with a fine intelligence and originality (that) makes her prose a memorable experience for her readers."
Marcy Koch of Mankato, a Professional School Counseling graduate student at Minnesota State University, Mankato, has been selected by the Minnesota School Counselors Association as the 2009 Potential School Counselor of the Year.
Koch is the fourth Minnesota State Mankato Professional School Counseling graduate student to win the award in the last six years. She was honored and received a scholarship at the Minnesota School Counselor Association's spring conference in Brainerd May 4.
Now, there's nothing unusual about a couple of college students going out on a Friday night.
Nor would it be out of the ordinary if they took a keen interest in the sorts of courting rituals that ultimately might attract a mate.
So one might have assumed that Minnesota State University graduate students Lucas Wandrie and Zack Bateson might be headed to popular night spots when the biology majors headed out last Friday evening.
But the kind of night spots they were checking out were of the dark and damp kind.
As volunteers for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Frog and Toad Survey, armed with a Global Positioning System device, a thermometer, headlamps and a clip board, they drove off into the darkness to count the mating calls of male frogs and toads along a predetermined route that would take them to 10 different wetlands in and around Mankato.
A Japanese student at Minnesota State University will attend Barack Obama's inauguration as part of group of national honor society students from around the country.
Takehito Kamata, a 31–year–old graduate student studying public administration, leaves today to join his fellow inauguration attendees from the University Presidential Inaugural Conference.
Kamata applied for the program in May. He was eligible because he was a member of Golden Key International, a national honor society. Eight months after joining, Golden Key informed all members of an opportunity to attend the inauguration.
The first annual Graduate Research Conference will be held April 7, 2009. Information about the conference is available at http://grad.mnsu.edu/research/grc/.
At 49 million birds a year, Minnesota's domestic turkey industry is the largest in the nation.
But what about another turkey with even deeper roots in the state? Well, that one's doing pretty well, too.
By any measure, the wild turkey has made a remarkable comeback in Minnesota, scratching its way back from being killed off here a century ago to becoming a common sight across the southern two–thirds of the state. Drive any highway there, and you might see a flock of wild turkeys along a tree line or pecking for food in an open field.
Domestic turkeys, popular table fare across the state Thanksgiving Day, are raised mostly indoors and out of sight.
Minnesota's wild turkey renaissance began in 1973, when the state traded Missouri 85 ruffed grouse for 29 wild turkeys and set them loose. Now, an estimated 70,000 wild turkeys are spread across the state. Almost 11,000 were killed by hunters last spring.
The College of Graduate Studies and Research is pleased to announce the appointment of Ms. Laura Bartolo as Director of the McNair Achievement Program. Laura earned her master's degree in counseling and student personnel from Minnesota State University, Mankato and has worked with undergraduate students in a variety of educational settings. She has served as Career Services Advisor at Rasmussen College and as adjunct instructor at both Rasmussen and Minnesota State Mankato. She has also worked in counseling and education settings with at–risk families and children. For the past two years, Laura served as Interim Director of the McNair Achievement Program, which is a federally funded TRIO Program for undergraduates who aspire to graduate school. Located in Wiecking Center 302, the program serves 30 undergraduate students and was recently refunded by the US Department of Education for five years. Laura began her new appointment on October 1, 2008.
Minnesota State University, Mankato's MBA program is listed as one of the nation's best in Princeton Review's just–published 2009 business school guidebook.
The New York–based education services company — known for its rankings of how college students rate their schools — lists the Minnesota State Mankato College of Business MBA among the nation's "Best 296 Business Schools." The listing — third in as many years — is based on surveys of 19,000 students attending the 290 schools, and on school–reported data.
"We select schools for this book based on our high regard for their academic programs and offerings, institutional data we collect from the schools, and the candid opinions of students attending them who rate and report on their campus experiences at the schools," said Robert Franek, Princeton Review's vice president for publishing.
"Yes We Can: Decreasing the Disparity of Blacks in Academia" is the theme of the National Black Graduate Student Association North Central Regional Conference at Minnesota State Mankato Sept. 26–28.
The conference will address the advancement of black graduate and professional students, and will highlight issues in the black community. Graduate and undergraduate attendees from Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin are expected to attend.
Conference workshops, social events and speakers are designed to enrich students academically, professionally and socially. The theme "Yes We Can" acknowledges the accomplishments of blacks in academia, and will help the group identify challenges and strategize for the future.
