by Joe Tougas ’86
Humble. Quiet. Modest. It’s as though Minnesota State University, Mankato is just a little too "Minnesotan" when it comes to bragging about the international reach of research that takes place on campus.
That’s the lighthearted theory offered by Dr. Fernando Delgado, MSU’s dean of Graduate Studies and Research. MSU, he says, has too long been perceived as a local resource, its research accessible and applicable mostly to those in the same area code. That image contrasts sharply with the reality Delgado oversees: MSU faculty, in all disciplines, whose work is published or demonstrated internationally.
For example, Drs. Richard Roiger and David Haglin of the Computer and Information Sciences department, whose work on gamma-ray burst research was recently published in the Chinese Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics. And Drs. Larry Pearson and Mezbahur Rahman, mathematics and statistics professors whose work was published by the Korean Data and Information Service. Or Branko Colakovic, professor of geography, who was published recently in Yugoslavia and who’s also published a book in Belgrade.
There’s more. Two mass communication professors, Ellen Mrja and Jane McConnell, traveled to Oxford University to present analyses of dwindling press and individual freedoms in the United States. Art professor Todd Shanafelt’s ceramics work was included in exhibitions in Australia and Taipei. Research in MSU's Law Enforcement department, through the Force Science Research Center (see feature on page six), is gaining international attention for its novel ways of determining what takes place in armed encounters between police and suspects.
Some of MSU’s strongest international connections are also being made through its colleges of Business; Arts and Humanities; Science, Engineering and Technology; and Social Sciences.
Delgado is determined to help MSU escape the image as that nice, quiet institution on the hill. "It’s been taken for granted," he says. "This university is not very good at telling its story."
The story, Delgado says, is that MSU faculty are increasingly seeing the need for research that has more than a regional impact -- and not just for the sake of prestige. Scott Johnson, the dean of MSU’s College of Business says that research with an international emphasis directly benefits the students.
"Business is becoming the discipline of global topics and international interests," Johnson says.
Outsourcing jobs and pursuing cheap labor overseas have a direct effect on American businesses, as do the international proposals, such as global currency, that are being debated. All of that makes it imperative for faculty to immerse themselves in the factors taking place beyond Minnesota. In the College of Business, for example, ten exchange partnerships have been established with overseas universities.
Johnson said the benefits to students go beyond the academic arena. Students with instructors who spend time abroad tend to be more informed and less likely to surrender to surface stereotypes, such as the anti-French sentiment that flooded the media in 2003.
Last spring, the College of Business took students on business tours to China, Greece and Austria; five students were living and studying in France during the spring 2005 semester.
About 30 percent of the business college’s faculty do research with an international dimension, Johnson says. "I think it will increase as time goes on," he adds. "Business is one of the disciplines expected to be out front. It’s always been the nature of business."
The significance of international study and research is evident in MSU’s own back yard, at businesses such as Katolight, which sells generators overseas and requires its employees to have an understanding of and ability to function effectively in other cultures.
"Even a smaller company has a greater, global outreach," Johnson says.
Increased media exposure and some public-relations pushes at MSU will likely bring more attention to this shy, sleeping giant stretching across the globe, but the real attention will come as MSU’s prominence in research grows globally.
"Many of our teaching and learning opportunities grow out of our faculty, whose work takes them way outside of these borders,"Delgado says.
The sleeping giant, Delgado adds, has slept long enough. "I’d call it an awakening giant," he says.
