Saint Mary's Newsroom / Campus Notes

More than 200 priests from the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis will gather on our Winona Campus, beginning on Monday, June 21, for four days of community-building, prayer, reflection, and discussion. Welcome our guests from the Presbyteral Assembly to our beautiful campus; we pray they leave energized and impassioned to further their important work.

In addition to expanding our Corporate Partner Network, we are happy to share the increasing visibility of Saint Mary’s University among our corporate partner organizations. Just one example is the upcoming corporate promotion campaign with Delta Airlines. Here, Saint Mary’s University’s tuition discount program will be highlighted in emails to Delta’s about 20,000 employees as one of its employee perk programs. Besides the email campaign, Delta will also add Saint Mary’s tuition discount banner ads on their website to highlight for Delta employees the Saint Mary’s partnership throughout the summer. Through this example, Saint Mary’s continues to bolster our brand and reputation among our 39 corporate partners.

Additionally, Saint Mary’s continues to nurture our partnership efforts with renewed agreements with existing partners in the past month, including:

• Eden Prairie Schools
• Rochester Public Schools
• Medica (including an enhanced partnership agreement expanding to employees’ immediate family members)

Through these corporate partnership engagements, Saint Mary’s University students may take advantage of a tuition grant in the amount equal to 10% of the tuition, as well as waiving the application fee.  For more information on the complete list of collegiate partnerships, please refer to Saint Mary’s Corporate Partnership Program.

As we have turned the page to June, I wanted to make sure to make you each aware of a few organizational changes made on the Online Strategy and Programs.

Program for Advanced College Credit (PACC) and Catholic Virtual Alignment (CVA)

With the great progress made in our high school engagement initiatives, including the expansion of high school partnerships and preparations to launch the new Catholic Virtual Academy, we will continue to build on this progress by formally realigning the PACC responsibilities and CVA responsibilities under one position. This creates clarity of responsibility and structural alignment within the global online organization. With this change, Denise Sharrock-Mueller is assuming a new title as the assistant director of Online Operations and she will formally expand her responsibilities to include the leadership of the PACC and CVA. Additionally, her reporting structure will shift reporting to Sarah Dampier as the director of Online Operations. This move will streamline the Global Online team, create clarity in roles and responsibilities, and account for continued strong oversight of the high school engagement initiatives for both the PACC and CVA.

Instructional Technology

In the past year, the Instructional Technology team moved under the umbrella of the Global Online office. The efforts and contributions of the team most notably included providing the leadership and support necessary to navigate COVID, and the continued implementation of the new single LMS Canvas. Additionally, the team worked to streamline the instructional technology help desk functions with an eye toward providing service and support to the entire university. Looking forward, we are further streamlining the organizational structure of the Instructional Technology team. This includes expanding Abram Hedtke’s role as director of Instructional Technology to oversee our institutionwide Instructional Technology teams. We are also broadening the support lent by the Instructional Technology team through the addition of three Instructional Technologist positions.This will allow us to both advance a more centralized model while addressing Instructional Technology matters universitywide.

Please join me in congratulating Denise, Sarah, and Abe on their new responsibilities and for their continued leadership in advancing our Global Online efforts!

We are very excited to share with the Saint Mary’s community the expansion of our badging and micro-credentialing initiative to include the School of Education. 

Building on the overwhelming success of digital badging in the School of Business and Technology, Saint Mary’s is proud to have the School of Education join this initiative by offering 20 distinct micro-credentials beginning at the close of Summer I. 

Each of these micro-credentials will be tied to graduate courses and certificates in four high-demand fields:

• Culturally Responsive Teaching
  • CRT 605, CRT 610, CRT 615, CRT 620, CRT 625
• Mental Health in Education
  • EDM 650, EDM 655, EDM 660, EDM 665, EDM 670
• Critical, Creative and Design Thinking
  • LDT 600, LDT 602, LDT 630, LDT 640, LDT 642
• Teaching, Leading, Learning with Technology
  • LDT 610, LDT 612, LDT 620, LDT 622, LDT 632

Students successfully completing the courses above in Fall 2020 or Spring 2021 will have these badges issued to them automatically.

Browse the complete list of our 61 course badge offerings here.

If you have successfully completed a badged course prior to Fall 2020 and would like to receive the corresponding badge(s),  we ask that you complete this request form. 

We continue to be energized by the enthusiasm and interest our community has shown for our innovative approach to badging and micro-credentials. With that in mind, we look forward to continuing the work to identify and recognize skills-based achievement across the university, helping to ensure that our students are among the most well-prepared to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

To learn more about digital badges and micro-credentials at Saint Mary’s University, please visit smumn.edu/badges.

Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota encountered an unprecedented year with the global health crisis caused by COVID-19. Throughout the 2020-21 academic year, we have worked together and by association under pandemic conditions. Despite the challenges caused by the crisis, we were guided by a solid strategic plan, approved by the board in October 2019. We also pledged as a community to remain “steadfast and resilient” throughout these difficult times. Because we stayed true to our plan and remained animated by our Lasallian spirit, we made significant progress and delivered the quality education for which our university is known. As an academic team, we accomplished much. Read more in our 2020-21 Provost’s Annual Report.

Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota is proud to announce the following full-time Schools of Graduate and Professional Programs (SGPP) faculty members who were promoted in 2020-21.

John Ebert, professor and director of Data Intelligence and GeoAnalytics program

Education
Ed.D. in Leadership, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota
M.S. in Resource Analysis, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota
B.S. in Geoscience, Winona State University

Dr. Ebert has been an associate professor and director of the M.S. in Data Intelligence and GeoAnalytics program, the Geographic Information Science (GIS) certificate, and the Data Engineering certificate since 2002. In addition to maintaining nearly a full-time teaching load, Dr. Ebert also serves other programs including the marketing undergraduate program and the business intelligence and data analytics graduate program where needed. Dr. Ebert is passionate about the use of geoanalytics in problem solving and enjoys advising and working with graduate students on their research projects. He has presented research at Google headquarters, Minnesota GIS/LIS Consortium, State of Minnesota, Upper Midwest GEOCON, and the Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota Business Intelligence Summit.

Sue Hines, core professor in the Doctor of Education in Leadership program

Education
Ed.D. in Leadership, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota
M.A. in Education, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota
B.A. in Educational Psychology, Metropolitan State University
Certificate in Veterinary Technology, Argosy University

Dr. Hines’ research interest is faculty development evaluation. Her work has resulted in several publications in peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Faculty Development, To Improve the Academy, AXIS: Journal of Lasallian Higher Education, and Magna Publications. She has presented her research at numerous national conferences and has received research grants to support her studies. She recently completed and published a nationwide field-testing project to validate her faculty development program evaluation model and intends to co-author a book on the topic.

She provides presentations, workshops, and webinars on topics of adult learning at regional colleges, has served on an advisory board for a local private college, is a past editorial board member for the Journal of International Students, is currently on the editorial board for the Journal of Faculty Development and To Improve the Academy, and is an active member and organizational contributor for the Professional Organizational Development (POD) Network.

Paul Kotz, core professor in the Doctor of Education in Leadership program

Education
Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education, University of Minnesota
M.Ed. in Work/Community/Family Education, University of Minnesota
B.A. in Mathematics/Quantitative Methods, University of St. Thomas

Dr. Kotz is a career educator with education and business expertise. This includes working with high school, undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students in the areas of management, leadership, operations, strategy, statistical analysis, and doctoral research preparation. Prior to his teaching career, he was a reinsurance actuary in both life and property casualty insurance. He also served as a manager for customer service at North American Life and Casualty prior to his education pursuits, and department chair for General Education at Anoka Hennepin Technical College.

Dr. Kotz’s teaching philosophy is unique in that many students in his ethics, organizational effectiveness, and statistics courses would say, “I think I’m in a philosophy course,” as he takes a broader view of the mechanics of these disciplines and how it enables value-based decision-making. Currently, he teaches doctoral courses in preparation of literature review, methodology, results, conclusions, and recommendations for business, education, and health care in the Doctor of Education in Leadership program. Dr. Kotz also assists students in preparing research and in the defense of and presentation of dissertations/theses and performance results studies in education, business, national security, leadership, social justice and health care management. This involves working with students over a 3-4 year period to complete their life’s work. Dr. Kotz enjoys writing and has published the following books:

• Kotz, P. E. (2020). Profiles in Kindness: Stories of Inspiration & Everyday Leadership (2nd ed., Vol. 1). Outskirts Press.
• Kotz, P. E. (2018). Something Happened Today: A Collection of the Unexpected (2nd ed., Vol. 1). Outskirts Press.
• Kotz, P. E. (2014). Personality, Gender & Learning Styles: Teaching to Student Aptitudes (1st ed., Vol. 1). Scholars’ Press.

Signe Nestingen, core professor in the Doctor of Psychology in Counseling Psychology program

Education
Psy.D. in Counseling Psychology, University of St. Thomas
M.A. in Counseling Psychology, Adler Institute, Chicago, Ill.
B.A. Major, Sociology; Minor, Communications, Augsburg College

Dr. Nestingen began teaching at Saint Mary’s in 2007 and began teaching in the doctoral counseling psychology program in 2010. She serves as the director of clinical training, is a core faculty member, and is the mentorship coordinator. Dr. Nestingen teaches doctoral students each semester with a rotating number of classes and must stay current to teach these classes. She also attends community and academic training seminars and presents in both community and academic settings. She has a small clinical practice that she has maintained for more than 30 years, and she sees both individuals and couples in that practice. She has provided consultation for individuals and groups for issues related to the science of human behavior in college counseling centers, educational programs, health care centers, and for small group practices. Dr. Nestingen is active in the Minnesota Psychological Association (MPA) and serves on both the ethics and diversity committees.

Matt Nowakowski, core professor and director of the Doctor of Business Administration program

Education
B.S.E. (Biology and History), University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
MBA, Edgewood College, Madison, Wis.
Doctor of Education in Leadership, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota

Dr. Nowakowski writes and presents on individual resilience and community resilience and was named a Distinguished Lasallian Educator at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota in 2020. He has presented work at the Academy of Management, Midwest Academy of Management, Southwest Academy of Management, Management and Organizational Behavior Teaching Society, CAEL Conference, International Symposium on Lasallian Research, International Conference on Catholic Social Thought and Business Education, and the Huether Conference. He has published works in MBA Innovation, The Digital Journal of Lasallian Research, and AXIS: Journal of Lasallian Higher Education. Dr. Nowakowski is currently a member of the editorial board of AXIS: Journal of Lasallian Higher Education and is a reviewer for the Academy of Management. He also worked in corporate and customer training at Nicolet Instruments/Thermo Electron Corporation with international assignments in Japan, Sweden, Finland, and Saudi Arabia.

Jerome Shih, core associate professor in the Doctor of Psychology in Counseling Psychology program

Education
Ph.D., Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota
M.A., Counseling Psychology, University of St. Thomas
Information Systems Analysis and Design Certificate, University of Minnesota
B.A., East Asian Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Prior to joining the faculty in the Psy.D. program, Dr. Shih was employed for more than 10 years as assistant director of University of Minnesota Student Counseling Services. In addition to college counseling, he has worked as a counseling psychologist in community mental health and corporate settings. Dr. Shih has taught for many years as course-contracted faculty in the master’s in counseling and psychological services program at Saint Mary’s, as well as in the counseling and student personnel psychology program at the University of Minnesota.

Zak Mayo, Department of Business and Communication at the College, promoted to associate professor

Education
Ph.D. Sport Management, Troy University
M.B.A., College of Business Administration, The College of St. Joseph, Rutland, Vt.
B.S. Sport Administration, School of Health, Human Movement, and Sport, Castleton University, Castleton, Vt.

Dr. Mayo has been a valued colleague and leader, always willing to work for the good of his students and colleagues. He recently joined the Strategic Planning Committee of COSMA (Commission on Sports Management Accreditation), which helps direct and guide the future of the study of sports management. His consulting roles with ESPN, Elite Dribble, and Ensign Athletics allowed him to bring experiences directly to the classroom to benefit students. One of the highlights of his career thus far with Saint Mary’s is his efforts to form a unique partnership with the ESPN X Games. He formalized the agreement with the X Games to bring this experiential opportunity to Saint Mary’s students. He actively recruits, screens, and prepares students for this opportunity. Dr. Mayo was instrumental as a member of the Strategic Initiative No. 3 team as the university built and piloted new pathway programs in business.

Congratulations to these outstanding faculty colleagues.

Saint Mary’s University Master of Science in Accounting students Brent Jambor and Sydney Tribbett have each been awarded a $500 Stay the Course Grant from Wiley Education Services, a strategic partner of Saint Mary’s University. 

Wiley’s Stay the Course Grants are designed to provide assistance to students during the COVID-19 pandemic so they may “stay the course” by continuing their college careers. Through the strategic partnership with Wiley, Saint Mary’s continues to pursue opportunities that provide access and flexibility to support our students’ needs. The Stay the Course Grant reinforces this commitment.

Join us in congratulating these graduate students on their continued academic pursuits.