Images of Life at UND

The campus of the University of North Dakota, where I've spent oh so many years of my life, is actually quite beautiful (if photographed correctly--ha!). Here are some pics for those of you unfortunate enough never to have seen the campus. (And in the summer, all the flower displays make it a great place for a stroll or picnic or outdoor study session.)

Merrifield Hall, home of the English Department where I did most of my course work for my bachelor's and master's degrees in English

the campus in autumn

the campus in summer

the English Coulee in the foreground, the Chester Fritz Auditorium in the background

the Eternal Flame sculpture between Twamley Hall and Merrifield Hall

a view of Merrifield Hall in the autumn

the Ralph Engelstad Arena at night

another autumn shot

the fountain near the English Coulee and the Hughes Fine Arts Center

Teeth, Pucks, and Chocolate-Covered Strawberries

(Provocative title, no?!)

One reward for having recently acted in a commercial for UND Athletics was free tickets to a couple hockey games. So last night, the fam and I attended the game between the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux and the University of Minnesota Gophers (who ended up winning 4 to 3). It was at the Ralph Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks, and we knew it would be a sold-out event, so we left home 45 minutes early to find a parking spot, enjoy the sight of falling snow in the spotlights scanning the skies over the arena (which looked like glitter in a snowglobe), walk around the arena so the girls could gawk at the extravagance, buy some (outrageously overpriced) snacks, and find our seats.

We shared some popcorn and pop and tried not to get nosebleeds in our mile-high top-level seats. We also tried to ignore the swearing of the boorish (and possibly drunk) oafs a few rows behind us, upon whom the irony was obviously lost of being seated so near the very family featured in the between-periods commercial whose message is NOT to swear while at UND athletic events! Ingress to and egress from our seats was an ordeal, because there is so little room between rows, necessitating that everyone between the exiter and the aisle stand up or leave the row, too, in order for the exiter to get out. Because of that fact, it was not surprising that two of our daughters had the urge to urinate immediately upon our being seated. We delayed attending to that potential emergency, however, because we didn't want to be in the restroom when the commercial played on the scoreboard big-screen. As soon as it did play, however, Susan was out the door with three little pottiers (not me) in tow.

We stayed through the first two periods before leaving. For one, the girls were pretty much over the excitement of UND Fighting Sioux hockey sometime between the opening laser show/introduction of players and the bottom of the popcorn bag. For another, we had been invited to a birthday party for our friend Job, and the girls had made presents for him and were eager to deliver them. That soiree was at his dad Duane's condo, and it was very civilized: wine, hot apple cider, cheesecake, chocolate-covered strawberries, spinach dip on rye, seafood and artichoke dip on toasted Italian bread, chicken legs (not those dinky wings that are all the rage in restaurants, no sirree), chips and dips, cookies, fruit, cheese and crackers . . . and I'll bet there was even more, too. Job was very welcoming of the girls, even though it was definitely an adult party (we had permission to bring the girls, who asked to see the birthday boy). We didn't stay long, but it was fun to see Job, Duane, Mishka, Darin, Sandee, and many other friends and acquaintances who are fast becoming friends after seeing them at so many social events recently.

Before we left for either the hockey game or the party, however, Abigail and I went into the bathroom where we wrapped a string of dental floss around her sole remaining upper central incisor and yanked it out. Yes, now all she wants for Christmas is her two front teeth, the lack of both of which makes her speech distinctly impeded now. With those and other teeth either gone or only slightly grown in, her mouth looks like a jack-o'-lantern. She's cute as can be!

Tonight: our faculty's biennial Christmas party, done as a progressive dinner. The bus leaves at 6:20 P.M. for the first of four stops (appetizers at House #1, then soup/bread/salad at the next, then the dinner course at House #3, followed by dessert at the last home). Fun and laughs guaranteed!

Wonderful Workshop

I spent Wednesday and Thursday of this week in Bemidji, MN with three teachers from our district's middle school: Teri Hammarback, Deb Schantzen, and Randy Galstad. They are so fun to work with and are a lot of the reason that I enjoyed this week's workshop so much. They and I are participants in a three-year grant-supported Teaching American History (and Literature) series of workshops and seminars (we're just beginning the second year of the grant). Twice during the school year, we attend a two-day workshop designed to teach us about Minnesota history and how to teach it using primary sources and innovative teaching techniques. That's followed by a five-day seminar each summer in which we read and discuss primary sources of American history, investigating the national events that parallel what we've learned about Minnesota history. The workshops and seminars feature presentations by scholars in the field, some of whom have given terrific lectures.

The Minnesota Historical Society runs the two-day workshops and has done a great job. They have us read the primary sources and do the activities that we would then use with our own students. This time we learned about the treaties from the mid- to late 1800s that removed much of Minnesotan land from the hands of Native Americans and made it available for the government to give to white settlers. We learned about Minnesota's efforts to advertise itself to prospective immigrants. We learned about George Bonga, an African American/Ojibwe man in Minnesota. We learned about the ox cart trade that made Minnesota an important part of the northern fur trade. We created posters, wrote songs and poems, performed in skits, and discussed a lot.

Undeniably most of what we do is geared toward history teachers more than literature teachers. In fact, many of our activities come from the wonderful sixth-grade Minnesota history textbook Northern Lights: Stories from Minnesota's Past that makes me want to be in sixth grade again! However, we English teachers did meet with a presenter who teaches English in Thief River Falls, MN about his use of historical documents in a themed unit on the American Dream in his literature course and the writing assignment that comes from it. Also, all of the activities can be adapted for use with literature--and I have already used some of them from last year!

Our workshop in the spring will be held in St. Paul, MN. We will be touring several historical sites in the Twin Cities and getting a "backstage peek" in order to be more knowledgeable about the places when/if we take our own students to them in the future. I'm very much looking forward to it. The Historical Society folks have also promised some sessions on Minnesota literature of the period that should be of more specific use to us English teachers, which will be great.