Submit items to Campus Currents - Top

The Campus Currents is distributed every Friday. If you would like to include an item in the newsletter send it to Campus Currents, Unit 9512 or by e-mail to Campus Currents. Deadline is Thursday at 8 a.m.

There will be no Campus Currents next week due to the Thanksgiving Day holiday.

Welcome to BHSU - Top

Welcome to Black Hills State University

• Deborah Larive, custodial worker facilities services

Positions open - Top

• teacher aide, child care center
• secretary with keyboarding, Upward Bound
• cashier, business office

For additional information, check the announcement bulletin or contact the personnel office.

Friday following Thanksgiving is designated as leave time - Top

Dr. Betsy Silva recognized for outstanding work - Top

Silva will now be entered into competition for a district- level honor award from the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD); the district-honor award winner will be announced in February 2002.

A member of SDAHPERD for nine years, Silva has served a four-year term as chair-elect and chair for secondary physical education twice, a two-year term as chair-elect and chair for the aquatics section, and a three-year term as president-elect, president, and past-president of SDAHPERD. She chaired the SDAHPERD writing team for the South Dakota State Physical Education Standards adopted by the state Legislature in March of 2000. Silva organized a grassroots advocacy campaign statewide, co-chaired a membership drive and designed a new brochure, served on a task force for Jump Rope for Heart, organized a Leadership Development Conference, and served as the liaison to both the AAHPERD and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE). She has also served as conference organizer or on the organizing site committee for three state conferences, hosting over 30 speakers and 150 attendees at each meeting. She is a national reader for NASPE, reviewing schools or colleges of physical education for national accreditation.

In the Spearfish community, Silva has been active for the past three years in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life, organizing activities for children.

Recommending Silva for the honor award, cross country and track and field coach Scott Walkinshaw said, "The strength and success of the physical education program

The award recipient is selected based on experience as an officer or on committees in AAHPERD and its state and district organizations, significant achievements in the field of health, physical education, recreation and dance, presentations at workshops or programs, service to the school, community, state,region, or nation, and service as a positive role model in the profession.

The merit award is presented for involvement in the SDAHPERD and for membership recruiting efforts in the organization. The BH department chair received the merit award for her work with students at Black Hills State University (eight of whom attended the SDAHPERD annual meeting in Aberdeen).

Silva was appointed chair of the division of physical education and health in the BHSU College of Education in May of 1997. She supervises and guides 13 full- and part-time instructors and three degree programs (physical education, wellness management, and outdoor education). She is an associate professor in physical education and has served on the university’s promotion and tenure, institutional agreement and management, writing competency, and academic appeals committees. She has also served on the college’s promotion and tenure, professional progress, and field experience committees as well as numerous search and screening committees for faculty, coaches, and deans.

Silva joined the BHSU faculty as an assistant professor in 1992 and was promoted to associate professor in 1997. She earned her doctorate in education and her master of arts degree at the University of Northern Colorado and her bachelor of science degree at the University of Michigan

BH professor returns from Olympic coaching; compares it to teaching - Top

Dan Durben, assistant professor of physics at Black Hills State University, recently returned to the United States from coaching the Olympic rifle shooting team in Sydney, Australia. One of the members of his team, Nancy Johnson, won the first gold medal for the U.S. in this years’ Olympics.

Durben, 41, first became interested in shooting while growing up in St. Paul, Minn. He was involved in shooting clubs through his freshman year in college at the University of Minnesota.

Durben said, "I couldn’t afford to go to school – but there were other schools we were competing against that offered athletic scholarships in shooting. I ended up transferring down to Eastern Kentucky University and basically walked onto their team [where] I ended up getting three-and-a-half years of a full-ride scholarship, which really helped."

He used his skills as a rifle shooter and worked his way up through national championships, national record holding, world championships and a lot of international medals. He competed in the 1988 Olympics where he finished 13^th.

The young shooting champion earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, 1982, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Arizona State University in Tempe, 1993.

Durben began coaching when he was still in college and made good contacts early. He said, "I was able to coach at a high level early. I was able to coach state junior camps up to the national level and junior camps at the state training school even back when I was in school. I’ve been working with the top junior shooters in the country for quite a few years."

He stayed involved, and when he stopped competing, he was named an assistant national team coach. As assistant, he was taking the top juniors in the country to world cups and other competitions. When the opening came up for Olympic coach, Durben was right there, and as in all his other endeavors to date, was successful.

He took a three-year leave of absence from Black Hills State as a science teacher to coach the U.S. Olympic rifle shooting team. This fall he returned to the chemistry classroom. Durben said there are parallels between coaching and teaching.

"They both involve working with people and developing their skills. You get to watch people grow and learn, explore and discover. That’s very much the same," he said.

"One of the frustrations I see is in a lot of cases practice doesn’t count, it’s what you do in the competitions. And in school where you see that, in a lot of cases, it’s really not the homework that counts: but can you produce on the tests? can you produce at the interview for the job? There are certain critical situations where it’s like a competition for an athlete; you have to be able to produce in those situations. That’s a real challenge for some people, both on the athletic side and the 

Members of the U.S. Olympic rifle shooting team at the Minnesota Shooting Sports Education Center in Grand Rapids, Minn., are, left, Ken Johnson, Nancy Johnson (standing, gold medallist), Thrine Kane, Glenn Dubis, Tom Tamas, Mike Anti, Jayme Dickman, Jason Parker, Melissa Mulloy, Jean Foster, and Coach Dan Durben.

academic side. On both sides you see very talented, very skilled people, but can they do it when it really counts. It’s one of the challenges of both teaching and coaching to help the athlete and the student to be able to perform up to their abilities, or to maximize their potential. In both teaching and coaching you see the frustrations that both the students and the athletes go through in the learning process. In both of them I think you have to struggle to learn properly."

Durben commented that struggle is what makes the student and athlete stronger. "When they’re trying to tackle a difficult subject – it’s not like just sitting down to read a book – you have to really work with it and struggle with it; and you’ll have some disappointments along the way. If the student really sticks with that it pays off down the road just like with the athlete."

Durben feels that as a teacher, like being a coach, he individualizes his style of teaching. Some students need more nurturing, or encouragement than others, and there are some who need the toughness to get them going. He said that the goal is to get them to do it without assistance.

"By the time they’re a senior and getting ready for a job or grad school, I’d like to see them developed to where they know how to learn on their own and don’t have to rely on the teacher."

The BH chemistry professor feels that teaching sometimes requires a lot of administrative work, which takes away from time to give to students and research.

"Like in coaching, other things have to be done," Durben said. "It’s not the most fun part of the job, but there are administrative duties."

Durben says his future plans are to help build and improve the physical science program at Black Hills State.

"I think we’ve got the opportunity to be a top-flight science program. [I want to help] give our Black Hills State students an excellent education in the sciences and prepare them to be competitive with anybody in any university in the country as far as getting good jobs or going to good graduate schools, and producing top-flight science educators. One of the exciting things here is excellent faculty and good students coming in."

As far as coaching any more Olympic teams, Durben says he will be satisfied with helping out part-time once in a while, but plans to focus his attention on being science professor at BH.

BHSU undertakes faculty/staff campaign - Top

"The focus of our campaign is to increase employee participation primarily through the payroll deduction plan," according to Steve Meeker, director of institutional advancement. "Giving through the payroll deduction is simple for the employee and also helps create the habit of consistent giving. When someone has a small amount deducted from each paycheck, it really adds up. Most employees find that they can give more when they have a little taken out of each check rather than trying to write one check a year."

The campaign will be upbeat and soft sell, he said. All employees will receive a PayDay candy bar (a reminder to remember the foundations each pay day) and newsletter encouraging them to consider a gift to one of the foundations through payroll deduction. A leader in each department will distribute the candy bars and campaign materials.

"We are looking forward to not only raising additional funds for the two foundations, which ultimately benefits the student and university, but to also increase awareness of the foundations and how they make a difference at Black Hills State University," Meeker said.

BHSU observes disability awareness week - Top

The Black Hills State University student chapters of the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) and Students Organized for Disability Awareness (SODA) sponsored a number of activities this week to help heighten awareness of working with people with disabilities.

President Thomas Flickema kicked off disability awareness week by signing a proclamation recognizing Nov. 13-17 as Disability Awareness Week Nov. 13-17 at BHSU. Participating in the signing ceremony were, left, Daniel Byers, president of the BHSU Students Organized for Disability Awareness, President Flickema, and Dr. Patricia Fallbeck, professor of special education. Standing are Dr. Judith Haislett, vice president for student life, and Alan Demaret, president of the BHSU American Association for Mental Retardation.

Other events planned for the week included a raffle ticket sale, adopt-a-disability day, a panel discussion, and a tour of city accommodations. 

Minutes of the Oct. 4 faculty senate meeting - Top

Members present were Curtis Card, John Glover, Dan Durben, Rob Schurrer, Rena Faye Norby, Margaret Lewis, Fred Heidrich, Steve Babbitt, Vincent King, Colleen Kirby (Absent: Don Chastain)

President Card opened the meeting. The agenda was approved. The minutes of the Oct. 4, 2000, meeting were approved.

Old Issues: The honors program issue was tabled. The faculty senate findings will be passed on to Vice President Cook and the honors program committee.

The senate unanimously approved Darlene Schwartz, Roger Ochse, Dan Peterson, and Betsy Silva as faculty marshals for December graduation.

The senate unanimously approved the appointment of Dick Carter to the multicultural/gender issues committee.

The senate unanimously approved the request for $300 for the Global Awareness Committee.

1. Change in course number for lab courses.

No action was taken. The proposal to change lab courses to an "L" designation was passed on to the university curriculum committee.

2. Academic credit for student technology fellows.

The senate unanimously approved a motion to send a memo from the faculty senate to Vice President Cook and the faculty senate presidents of the other state universities strongly objecting to the procedure being used to establish the new policy that would grant academic credit to student technology fellows, and requesting that this change go through the proper established curriculum process to ensure faculty input and control over curriculum changes and to alleviate any other potential problems associated with the new policy.

Meeting closed: the meeting was adjourned at 4:10 p.m.

After informal discussions with faculty, the faculty senate has collated the following concerns regarding the proposed Honors Program:

• Generally, faculty did not believe that the existing proposal provided enough details about implementation of an Honors Program.
• Will there be adequate compensation for additional faculty workloads?
• What impact will funding of an Honors Program have on the existing programs?
• Will class sizes be limited?
• Who’s eligible? How will students be removed from the program?
• How will "rigor" be assured across disciplines? There are no assurances as to the quality of the honors requirements from one discipline to another.
• What constitutes "honors work"?
• How would courses be identified as honors courses?
• Who will teach these honors courses?
• How is an honors course graded?
• Who and how will it be run?
• In the past, an honors program was initiated but when students discovered that they would be expected to do more work and possibly receive a lower grade than in non-honors course they lost interest and the program was abandoned. Past BHSU Honors programs have failed as students realized that they were performing additional work and, on occasion, receiving lower grades. Their interest in the overall GPA outweighed their desire to participate in an honors program.
• Dr. Cook has indicated that initially $10,000 would be available for the program. The proposed funding of $10,000 is insufficient to cover the necessary faculty compensation and resources needs of this honors program.
• There is a lack of interest in serving on a committee that would address these issues.
• Concerns about creation of an "elitist" group and how this impacts other students. A separate honors program would promote elitism. (Such elitism would have a negative impact on a small campus such as ours.)
• Concerns that the honors program would be "in name only because faculty wouldn’t have the time or energy to devote to the students they served".
• Lack of explanation as to how proposed start- up funding of $10,000 is to be utilized.
• No faculty members have stepped forward to further design and administrate this program.
• Separate Honors sections would take contributing students out of other classes.
• There is a concern that such additional responsibilities would simply be forced on to new faculty without necessary release time or compensation.
• Other honors programs are presently in place in individual programs where they can be better managed.
• The GPA and the honors categories at graduation are sufficient indicators of honors performance.

Grants opportunities announced - Top

Below are the program materials received Nov. 9-15 in the grants office in Woodburn 218. For copies of the information, contact our office at 642-6627 or e-mail requests to us at grants@bhsu.edu. Fellowship information will also be posted on the Student Union bulletin board near the information desk.

• American Association for the Advancement of Science. Science and technology policy fellowships. Program designed to provide fellows with a unique public policy learning experience; to bring technical backgrounds and external perspectives to decision making in the U.S. government; and to demonstrate the value of science and technology in solving important societal problems. Applicants must be U.S. citizens and have a Ph.D. in any physical, biological, or social science, any field of engineering, or any relevant interdisciplinary field. Deadline Jan. 1, 2001.