Tom Isern, NDSU

Graduate students continue to represent the NDSU History Department with honor and credit. This weekend past the State Historical Society of North Dakota held the 18th Annual Governor's Conference on North Dakota History, on the theme, "North Dakota and the Cold War." A featured presenter was NDSU PhD student David Mills, who spoke under the title, "A Global Contest Between Superpowers." Meanwhile, fellow PhD students Jessica Clark and Suzzanne Kelley were at the annual meeting of the Oral History Association in Little Rock. Clark presented a paper on German-Russian immigrant grandparents, work deriving from the Dakota Memories Oral History Project, while Kelley presented a paper on the Tarras Church kneelers and historical memory, work deriving from her field work in the New Zealand high country.

Coming up on Friday 17 November: "The Transformation of the New Zealand Grasslands," a seminar by Professor Tom Brooking, University of Otago. More later on this splendid event.

This morning I opened up the new number of North Dakota History to find a review by one Miles D. Lewis, "doctoral student in history at North Dakota State University." From now on, we are going to see this sort of byline a lot. That little review--one nicely done, by the way--led me to contemplate how far we have come in the elevation of mission and expansion of graduate programs in History at NDSU. A couple of weeks ago I traveled to Sioux Falls for the Northern Great Plains History conference, where another "doctoral student in history at North Dakota State University," Dave Mills, presented a paper based on the early research for his dissertation about the Cold War on the northern plains. He acquitted himself remarkably well, after which he hauled me back to Chadron, Nebraska, to give some lectures at Chadron State College, where he is teaching this year. We were joined there by another "doctoral student in history at North Dakota State University," Jessica Clark, who gave the first lecture in CSC's Phi Alpha Theta series this year, presenting her research on childhood among the Germans from Russia. She, too, presented wonderfully well, representing NDSU in the best possible manner. Finally, just last night I drove out to the old Ladbury Church in Barnes County, where Jen Wilkie, master's student at NDSU, presented with me to a full house of interested citizens. Our subject was Growing Up on Bald Hill Creek, Harvey Sletten's memoir of growing up in Hannaford, and the place was packed with people from that community. Jen is just a natural for this sort of thing, knowledgeable and comfortable in a public forum. What all this goes to show is that, of course, the ratcheting up of graduate programs has been advantageous for the department and for the university, but it also is a positive force in the region, helping to invest the land with a constructive history. This is a good thing.

It was a pleasure visiting last week at Chadron State University, where NDSU History PhD student Dave Mills is teaching. The CSU Eagles are undefeated, the campus is pleasantly studded with historic buildings, and the Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center is impressive. It holds wonderful manuscript collections, its galleries offer fine mixes of image and sound, and its atrium, where I was privileged to present a concert, is gorgeous. I also enjoyed visiting Catherine Lockwood's Great Plains Geography class. Dave's fellow PhD student Jessica Clark met us at Chadron to give a Phi Alpha Theta lecture on German-Russian childhood on the the plains. We found, too, that Dave actually does meet classes at CSU. Thanks, Dave & CSU, for the invitation and hospitality.

I'm on the road right now, but when I checked www.gobison.com, I learned that the Bison volleyball team is on a roll, and that a mainstay of the win streak is Chloe Quirk--senior History major. Chloe had 15 kills in last night's win over IUPUI. For the season she ranks second on the team for kills and third for digs. Looks like a great year in the making.

It was a pleasant afternoon today to spend with Professor Harvey's Intro to Public History class at Probstfield Living HIstory Farm, on the north side of Moorhead. We walked about the site, discussing the significance of the various farm buildings and talking about the potential of the place for doing living history. Here's a snap of the class gathered in the farmyard.