Saint Mary's Newsroom
Campus ConnectionAn update from the president to alumni and parents
Two fun ways to give back this Christmas
There are two easy ways to give to others this holiday season, and we hope you’ll support our neighbors in need.
Saint Mary’s is again running the Groceries for Seniors program. We are continuing to help area seniors in need with their holiday grocery needs. Donations of money or grocery gift cards can be made to Saint Mary’s University and sent to Campus Box 8. Please designate Saint Mary’s Holiday Groceries for Seniors. Grocery gift cards can also be purchased at HyVee or Midtown and then left there for our volunteers. Donations are needed by Dec. 13.
Toys for Kids has dropped four barrels at Saint Mary’s, two in Saint Mary’s Hall (near the stairwell) and two in the athletics area of the Toner Student Center. There are two ways to support this organization. Financial contributions are always appreciated and can be made out to Toys for Kids and sent to the Winona Community Foundation at 51 E. 4th St., Suite 314, Winona, MN 55987. If you’d rather purchase a fun gift, new toy donations are always encouraged; let’s fill our barrels and let them know Saint Mary’s cares. Toys are distributed to as many as 900 local children, and all toys are given out locally. Donations are needed by Dec. 7, when barrels will be picked up.
Tune in to hear Brother Francis Carr on MPR
Our very own Brother Francis (Frank) Carr, FSC, assistant to the vice president for Mission, was featured on the Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) News show All Things Considered on Nov. 20. Brother Frank was interviewed to talk about the canonization of Brother James Miller, FSC, which was approved by Pope Francis on Nov. 8.
You can listen to the segment at mprnews.org.
What a blessing to have Brother Frank as a witness to the life and legacy of Brother James.
Dr. Christine Beech selected for seminar on Teaching Vocational Exploration
Dr. Christine Beech, director of the Kabara Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies and assistant professor of Business, has been selected to participate in the 2019 seminar on Teaching Vocational Exploration offered by the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC).
The annual multidisciplinary seminar is for full-time faculty members in all fields at colleges and universities that are members of the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE). According to the CIC website, the seminar aims to “strengthen the teaching of vocational exploration by probing a variety of understandings of vocation and their importance in educating undergraduates, by developing new courses or course materials or redesigning existing courses, and by establishing a broader network of faculty members committed to teaching vocational exploration.”
The 2019 seminar will be held at Techny Towers Conference and Retreat Center just north of Chicago, Ill., June 17-21, 2019. Housing, seminar materials, meals, and a travel stipend will be covered by CIC thanks to the generous support of Lilly Endowment Inc.
Sympathy to Ellinghuysen family
Lorrie Rinn, mother of Conner Ellinghuysen (Admission Department), died Nov. 9. Other family at Saint Mary’s includes Conner’s wife, Christine (Development and Alumni Relations Department). Notes of condolence for the Ellinghuysen family can be dropped by the Admission Office.
Saint Mary’s University students participate in MinneAnalytics event
WINONA, Minn. — On Nov. 3, four Saint Mary’s University students competed in MinneAnalytics’ third annual analytics event, which is designed to allow students to explore real-world data while enhancing and showcasing their skills.
This year’s competition focused on predicting voter turnout for the midterm elections in Minnesota. Students had multiple weeks to analyze data before presenting their findings to judges from the analytics community at the main event.
Student participants had a series of six elevator-pitch-style presentations about their analysis and were graded on different categories, including creativity, accuracy of the model, and presentation skills. Cash prizes were awarded to top teams in each division.
Saint Mary’s team consisted of business intelligence and analytics majors Nicholas Marshall, Jacob Petraitis, and Emily Seykora and physics major Toan Tran. The group presented a model in which they asked a voter a series of 20 questions relating to topics like healthcare. From their responses, the students predicted the likelihood that the respondent would vote in the most recent election.
Although they did not win the competition, the Saint Mary’s team scored highest in creativity of their model and earned prize money. About 30 schools in total participated in the event.
Seykora, a junior at Saint Mary’s, said the experience was valuable because it provided a way to showcase what students have learned in class, while also getting constructive feedback. “We saw how valuable having a business perspective can be to the overall success of a project,” she said.
Michael Ratajczyk, assistant professor of business, agreed. “It was a great experience for the students to engage with peers and to bond with each other. The students did a great job building a very functional model, and the event really showcased our students’ creativity in model design and their quick-and-to-the-point business approach to data.”
Aside from the competition, MinneAnalytics has funded a second $1,000 scholarship for a business intelligence and analytics major at Saint Mary’s.
MinneAnalytics, located in Eden Prairie, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving the data science and analytics community in Minnesota, the Upper Midwest, and beyond by providing accessible, authentic, and engaging events.
Jazz at Saint Mary’s presents ‘Christmas in New Orleans’
WINONA, Minn. — Jazz students at Saint Mary’s University will swing into the holidays with their Red Bird Club show “Christmas in New Orleans” on Friday, Dec. 7, at 7:30 p.m. at the Valéncia Arts Center, 1164 W. Howard St.
The Red Bird Club opened its doors in 2014 at the Valéncia Arts Center. If you have never heard of it, it may be because the doors only open once every two years. Every other December, the Academy Theater is transformed into an American Jazz Cabaret, showcasing the talents of Saint Mary’s University student musicians.
This year the Red Bird Club will take a trip to New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. “Christmas in New Orleans” will feature a quartet of crooners, an emcee, beer and wine service, and new this year — a dance floor. Make your reservations today or you’ll have to wait until their next performance in 2020.
For more information, contact Director of Jazz Studies A. Eric Heukeshoven at 507-457-7292 or eheukesh@smumn.edu. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for students and seniors and are available at pagetheatre.org or by calling the Page Theatre Box Office at 507-457-1715.
Saint Mary’s ‘Lessons and Carols’ Christmas service is Dec. 8
WINONA, Minn. — The joyous and uplifting Christmas service of “Lessons and Carols” will be presented by the Saint Mary’s University Department of Music at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 8.
The beautiful service, held in the majestic Chapel of Saint Mary of the Angels, features the Saint Mary’s Concert Choir and Chamber Singers, directed by Dr. Patrick O’Shea.
“Lessons and Carols” reflects on the Christmas story through several short readings, hymns, and Christmas carols sung by the choirs and audience. Music includes familiar carols and selections by composers from the Renaissance to the present.
The Chapel of Saint Mary of the Angels is located at Wabasha and Vila streets in Winona.
Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students and seniors and are available by calling the Page Theatre Box Office, 507-457-1715, from noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, or online at pagetheatre.org. Tickets at the door are available by cash or check only.
Students see classroom learning come to life in field experiences
As Josh Balsiger ’20 is quick to point out, there are benefits to being an environmental biology major at Saint Mary’s University, where the classroom extends into the surrounding bluffs, the local stream, and the nearby Mississippi River.
Earlier this fall, 26 students enrolled in Plant Communities and Taxonomy or Introduction to Mammalian Ecology and Diversity got a chance to visit, learn about, and experience an entire new ecosystem far from campus.
This multi-day field experience took students to North-Central Minnesota to experience Itasca State Park and the headwaters of the Mississippi River, as well as to the Deep Portage Learning Center near Hackensack.
As the experience combined both mammalogy and plant ecology, Dr. Moni Berg-Binder and Dr. Ben Pauli were able to teach lessons about bat ecology, lead hikes in which students did plant and mammal identification, cross the headwaters of the Mississippi River, experience old-growth forests in Itasca State Park, and visit two different bogs.
Students majoring in environmental biology who are exploring both the terrestrial and aquatic ecology of the Mississippi River watershed were able to see their classroom learning come alive.
Samantha Chaffee ’21, a psychology major, calls herself an outdoorsy person and says she enjoys learning about animals whenever she can. One of her favorite parts of the trip included the bat surveys. “We went out at night and used these bat detectors to hear bats feeding around us,” she said. “We couldn’t see them but we could hear them and identify them based on the calls we were hearing.”
Dr. Berg-Binder said they wanted to develop a field experience that allowed students to spend a few days together exploring a natural area. “As faculty, when we look back at influential, key experiences in our educational journey, field experiences like the one we planned for our students rise to the top,” she said. “This sort of immersive, experiential learning allows students to engage with the ecology of an area in a way that can’t be done in a three-hour lab class period. We were fortunate to pair with Deep Portage Learning Center for the experience.”
Deep Portage is situated on nearly 10 square miles of natural area on the shores of Big Deep Lake.
“Our students were able to gain perspective on career and internship opportunities in environmental education, interacting with Deep Portage staff on numerous occasions,” Dr. Berg-Binder said. “Additionally, Deep Portage provided some terrific outdoor recreation opportunities to us, including canoeing, hiking, fishing, and indoor rock climbing.”
Balsiger said the trip was a valuable one — not only because the fishing was great. “It put you in the mindset of a biologist,” he said. We learned options of what we can do after college. For example, surveying bat populations is something that falls under the category of field biology and is a research field that I would be interested in.”
He also said that he gained a greater appreciation for Minnesota’s state parks. “Seeing something so perfect and pristine and well-kept only inspires you to be more ecologically minded,” he said. “It just inspires you to want to protect those kinds of things, so that your children and your children’s children can have the same awe that you experienced.”
Getting outside gives students like Balsiger the opportunity to practice the concepts they’ve learned in the classroom. Field experiences have the added bonus of fostering strong relationships between students, and between faculty and students.
Chaffee can attest this statement.
“You get to know the professors at a whole different level when you spend six hours in a van with them,” she said. “It’s helpful for building that faculty-student relationship and the student-student relationship. It was great to be able to work with my peers in a different setting, and being outside working with a partner on identifying plants is very different than working in class.”
Balsiger especially enjoyed watching Drs. Berg-Binder and Pauli in their element. “Learning how to be a biologist in the ‘off’ time as well as the ‘on’ time is also important he said. “Conscious living, which we learned about at Deep Portage, is incredibly important, and it was a cool concept to experience and live out.”
Saint Mary’s University’s online M.S. in Project Management degree ranked among the best
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota has been ranked in the 30 Best Online Master’s in Project Management Degrees by Online Schools Report.
The ranking is based on program quality, potential earnings, tuition price, acceptance rates, student and alumni satisfaction, and more. Find more information about the ranking methodology at onlineschoolsreport.com/methodology.
Saint Mary’s offers a Master of Science in Project Management in a face-to-face, blended, or fully online program. To learn more about the program, visit smumn.edu/mspm.
The Rev. James P. Burns, IVD, Ph.D.
President
Saint Mary's University of Minnesota
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