2012 guide to higher education in south dakota

60 • South Dakota Magazine

January/February 2012 • 61

SELECTING THE COLLEGE or university that best fits your future plans

is one of life’s most important decisions. Each of South Dakota’s colleges

and universities has its own emphasis — agriculture, the arts, engineering,

computer technology — so there truly is something for every student.

In addition to academic programs, activities, distance from home and cost

are factors that high school seniors and their parents consider when choosing a

school. South Dakota’s schools offer their own advantages for each criterion, but

they have one thing in common: all are committed to protecting the environment.

This year our guide to higher education focuses on ways that our campuses en-

courage eco-friendly lifestyles. Nearly every institution has student clubs, staff,

faculty or programs that emphasize sustainability. Use this guide to help choose

your path to a balanced education, and share it with others making plans.

2012 GUIDE TO

HIGHER EDUCATIONBlack Hills State University

South Dakota’s college campuses are exploring ways to reduce their carbon footprints. At Black

Hills State University in Spearfish, a wind turbine (above) generates power at the student union.


2012 Higher Education Guide

FEEDING THE WORLDBernie Hunhoff

MIGHT THERE COME A DAY when corn and soybeans remain in the f ield because there’s no diesel fuel for the grain truck?

Such potential problems are explored in Hungry for Green: Feeding the World Sustainably, a film produced by Donald Simmons, dean of Dakota Wesleyan University’s College of Leadership and Public Service and Graduate Studies.

The 26-minute documentary short grew from DWU’s annual McGovern Conference. It explores how the worldwide distribution of food is changing as the availability of petroleum-based fuels declines. “The cost of food over the coming years will increase dra-matically if for no other reason than there’s going to be less and less petroleum fuels available,” says Simmons, who also directs the McGovern Center on the univer-sity’s Mitchell campus. “Even though we have enough

food, getting it to the places it needs to be is the prob-lem. We have to come up with some sustainable system for feeding the world.”

Film crews traveled to Mitchell, Chamberlain, Gregory and Marion to interview farmers and vis-it ethanol plants and wind farms. Senator George McGovern, who still maintains a campus office at age 89, is featured prominently. McGovern has combat-ted world hunger for over 50 years, first as director of President John F. Kennedy’s Food for Peace program, and later as the United Nations’ first global ambassa-dor on hunger.

Hungry for Green has aired on public television af-filiates across the country and is shown on campus. South Dakota teachers can obtain a copy of the film for classroom use by contacting the McGovern Center at (605) 995-2937.

Sen. George McGovern lends his voice to a new film that seeks sustainable ways to provide food around the world.


NEARLY PAPERLESS

TAKE ONE OF RICH Braunstein’s politi-cal science classes at

the University of South Dakota in Vermillion and you’ll still get a few pa-per handouts, but not as many as in previous years. Braunstein is chair of the university’s Sustainability Task Force, a group of stu-dents and faculty who moni-tor the school’s consumption and suggest ways to make USD more environmentally friendly. One recommen-dation is to signif icantly reduce the amount of pa-per used on campus. “Even I have a very difficult time not interacting at all with paper in my classroom,” Braunstein says. “But we have a lot of technology that supports electronic commu-nication with the students. Nearly every classroom I teach in has a computer and projector system.”

The group has begun mon-itoring the campus’ paper purchases and hopes to see a decline over the next five years.

Braunstein also encourag-es green living in the com-munity. “A benef it of liv-ing in Vermillion is that you don’t have to get in your car too often,” he says. He regu-larly commutes by bicycle, and encourages students to do the same.


A 2-KILOWATT WIND turbine outside the David B. Miller Yellow Jacket Student Union

in Spearfish helps make it one of the greenest unions in South Dakota. The turbine generates a nominal amount of electricity, and whatever surplus Black Hills State University en-joys is credited when the monthly util-ity bill arrives from Black Hills Power and Light. It’s also a useful teaching tool that shows students how a campus, or even a city, could someday gener-ate enough electricity to be completely sustainable.

The turbine is fully automated. When

its software program recognizes a light wind (around 7 or 8 mph) the blades rotate. It also stops in excessive winds to avoid damage. The turbine creates enough electricity to fully charge the 36-volt battery that powers the campus’ recycling car, which tours BHSU and collects recyclables.

The turbine was installed four years ago when the union underwent a major expansion and renovation. Plants and a bright white surface on the roof reflect heat, and bio-swales on the ground di-rect rainwater into pools, which flow into an underground aquifer instead of swelling nearby Spearfish Creek.

OUR GREENEST UNION

Black Hills State University


DSU English professor Justin Blessinger estimated students in his composition class

used 3,750 to 7,000 sheets of paper. He now requires electronic submissions.



Laura Bartels

SAM EVENSON was living green long before the term was en vogue. He grew up with a garden in his backyard, and

his parents are tireless recyclers. When he enrolled at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, he looked for a student organization that fit his background in environmentally

friendly living. He found Augie Green, a group of about 50 students devoted to mak-ing campus life green.

The club has 12 bicycles available that are meant to discourage students from driv-ing short distances across campus. Just stop by the campus safety desk inside Morrison Commons and ask for a key. The only re-quirement is to return the bike within 24 hours.

Augie Green also tends an organic gar-den. The 10 by 18-foot patch of land pro-duces tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, yel-low squash, green peppers, broccoli, lettuce, carrots, turnips and peas. In 2010 students donated over 400 pounds of produce to The Banquet, an organization that provides meals to needy families. “It’s a way to get back to the land, and to involve ourselves with the community,” says Evenson, a junior biolo-gy/pre-med major. “And it’s common sense. Sustainability needs to be in the plan for any community.”

GREEN BIKES AND FRESH PRODUCEM

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A new parking lot at Lake Area Technical Institute in Watertown uses pervious concrete,

which allows rainwater to seep through and replenish groundwater supplies.

THE OLDEST STRAW BALE HOUSE in South Dakota was built around 1900 on the Rosebud Reservation. Soon Rosebud will have another when students and teachers at Sinte Gleska University

complete a new straw home on the shore of Antelope Lake.The project is a demonstration in sustainable construction that will double

as the home for the director of Sinte Gleska’s buffalo herd and headquar-ters for the university’s buffalo ranch management program. Laura Bartels, founder of the Colorado consulting firm Green Weaver, helped start the project and taught courses in straw bale construction at SGU. After the 1,000-square-foot structure is complete, Bartels plans to return to campus and teach a course on natural finishes, such as using local clay and sand to create plaster or making paints with lime and pigment or sand. “They are very low cost and easy to maintain,” Bartels says. “They are non-toxic and have additional benefits in indoor air quality, humidity and temperature moderation.”

WEAVING GREEN ON ROSEBUD


YOU WON’T FIND A single sprinkler keeping the grass at Sioux Falls Seminary green. When the school constructed its new building in central Sioux Falls in 2009, landscapers covered its

half-acre with legacy buffalo grass, a hybridized version of the grass that has grown naturally on South Dakota’s prairies for generations.

“It’s more attractive than the native grass,” says Jason Klein, the semi-nary’s chief financial officer, “but it takes on the same characteristics.” That means it is extremely heat and drought resistant, requires infrequent mowing due to its slow growth and needs no herbicides because it bat-tles weeds on its own. The school planted other low maintenance native grasses like big bluestem and little bluestem in its decorative rock beds.

Klein estimates the seminary saves $700 and 50,000 to 80,000 gallons of water every year by not irrigating. That’s hefty savings for a school that fits under one LEED silver-certified roof. But more importantly, the cam-pus family is adhering to scripture.

“In theology, there’s something called creation care, or caring for all of God’s creations,” Klein says. “We thought that was a big part of who we are, and that we needed to take the extra step and build a green building.”

BUFFALO GRASS CAMPUS

Cipher Imaging



Teachers at Presentation

College in Aberdeen encourage students to rent or purchase e-textbooks rather than traditional printed textbooks. And students are required to bring a Tablet PC or laptop computer to class for note-taking instead of using paper and pen.

Sioux Falls Seminary’s low maintenance

buffalo grass saves water and money.


Kilian Community College partnered with the Sioux Falls Green Project to cre-ate the state’s first program in sustainabili-

ty. Students take an introductory course that includes field trips to see how Sioux Falls businesses are in-tegrating sustainability in their projects. They study legal issues and finally create a capstone project that incorporates sustainability. Dan Bergland, a South

Dakota high school science teacher for 25 years, over-sees the program. “We often think sustainability is a new term, but science teachers have always said, ‘Don’t take it and leave nothing behind.’ More and more corporations are thinking of adding a sustain-ability component in their projects,” Bergland says. “Someone with certification in that field could in-crease their chances of getting hired.”

STUDYING SUSTAINABILITY


Chefs at Black Hills State University don’t travel far to find fresh ingredients.A campus garden started in 2009 produces cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans, peppers and squash that are used in the school’s cafeterias. A small herb garden planted near the base of the school’s wind turbine outside the student union keeps the kitchen stocked with fresh spices. Science professor Andy Johnson says it’s been more than 80 years since the school grew any of its own food. “Fresh, locally grown food is safer and more nutritious than grocery store food and it doesn’t cause as many environmental problems,” Johnson says. “Plus, it can be deeply satisfying to know that what you are eating came from a five-minute walk away.”



FEW WIND TURBINES in America are devoted to teaching students about their mechanics. One stands near White Lake, and it’s where students at

Mitchell Technical Institute learn how the giant windmills churn out electricity.

The 262-foot tall, 1.6 megawatt turbine is a functioning part of the Crow Lake Wind Project about 40 miles west of campus, but MTI bought it to offer students in its wind tur-bine technology program hands-on experience. “Nobody ever wants to shut their turbine down for training,” says Julie Brookbank, MTI’s director of marketing and public information. “It’s easy for us to do that and let students climb to the hub, and work on things they’ve learned in the lab throughout the week.”

MTI’s program includes one or two-year options. During the first year, students learn about turbine mechanics, hy-draulics and electronics and how to safely ascend the struc-ture. Students can then either enter the job market as a windsmith or take another year of classes that cover pow-er generation and delivery and the turbine’s sophisticated computer system.

Students have found jobs around the world. “There are hundreds of companies out there looking for people with these skills,” Brookbank says.

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LEARNING TURBINE TECHNOLOGY

MTI students learn atop the school’s 262-foot tall turbine.

STUDENTS AT THE South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City are taking the green movement seriously by making

Mines one of the nation’s top recycling schools. They participate in Recyclemania, an eight-week competi-tion among over 600 colleges and universities world-wide to see who can recycle the most.

In the spring of 2011, students around the world re-cycled 91 million pounds of waste. Mines students col-lected 17.71 pounds of recyclables for every person on campus, good for 80th place among 363 similarly sized

schools. Students amassed 10.65 pounds per person of cardboard, 8.92 pounds of food service organics, 4.73 pounds of paper and 2.34 pounds of aluminum, plastic, steel and glass.

Mines also hosts Sustainability Day every October. It includes tours of the campus’ LEED certified build-ings and presentations on green energy and alternative transportation. Students can also walk a two-mile hik-ing trail that passes the school’s two wind turbines, used for instruction.

ENGINEERS ARE RECYCLE MANIACS

The SDSU women’s hockey team collected and recycled 123 pounds of aluminum cans

from tailgaters at the 2011 Dakota Marker football game against North Dakota State.



PRAIRIE REBIRTH Pam Wynia

EARLY PLAINS INDIANS had a use for nearly every native plant that grew on the prairie. Today, students at Sisseton

Wahpeton College learn of them thanks to a major prairie restoration project under way since 2008.

Corn and soybeans once grew on portions of the college’s 100 acres around Agency Village, but today they support big bluestem, echinacea, col-umbines, chokecherries, wild plums and prairie turnips. Five outdoor classrooms are devoted to teaching students about the native plants that grow around them.

The college has focused on sustainability since 2004, when the first of its three geothermal build-ings was constructed. Later the school added two small wind turbines that generate a portion of the campus’ electricity. But rehabilitating land is a much more time-consuming process.

“It helps to have a long-term vision,” says Pam Wynia, SWC’s development director. “It takes a while for the native grass to drive out all the this-tles. One year we had a guy whose job was just to go around and cut the heads off all the thistles. It doesn’t happen in a year.”

Sisseton Wahpeton College’s vocational ed building (top) is one of three geothermal buildings on campus. A

Dakota mural adorns the auditorium (left), and traditional plant uses are taught in outdoor classrooms (right).



BALE BUILDING

MCCRORY GARDENS’ Children’s Gard-ening and Education Center may be the coolest building on the South Dakota

State University campus. The 300 wheat straw bales that comprise its walls block twice the heat of a regular wall built with two-by-sixes and plywood.

Dean Isham, who taught interior design at SDSU for 16 years, led students and volunteers in construct-ing the house over two weeks during the summer of 2008. The center fills a need for classroom space at the Gardens, and teaches students about sustainable construction. “Straw bales are rapidly renewable,” Isham says. “With wheat straw, in today’s society, you could build a new house every year using the same

piece of land.”SDSU in Brookings was founded as the state’s ag-

ricultural college and is still the school for students planning careers in ag, so it’s fitting that faculty are finding creative uses for farm products. Straw bales, it turns out, make sturdy homes. “For those who say they won’t last, it’s just not true,” Isham says. “Water is the real enemy of any house, so with a good roof and a solid foundation, they’ll last as long as any other house.”

The 900-square-foot house also features a living roof. Plants soak up rainwater that would otherwise flood the city’s storm sewers, and block heat from en-tering the house.

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Homesteaders across the border in the Nebraska Sandhills popularized straw bale construction on the Plains. Bales

in the walls of McCrory Gardens’ education center help regulate temperature and the living roof absorbs rainwater.



NORTHERN STATE University in Aber-deen has six campus dor-

mitories, and when school ends each spring students sometimes leave unwanted items behind. Karla Jager noticed the leftovers and helped create the Green Move Out.

Jager and members of SERVE, a campus volunteer organiza-tion, place boxes in each dorm every April. Students f ill them with things they no longer need. The items are then donated to the Salvation Army or Safe Harbor in Aberdeen. “I’ve gone by the trash can and seen items with tags on it that have never been used,” says Jager, a graduate student in clini-cal counseling. “This is a way to keep students from wasting.”

Jager also serves as director of Kramer Hall, where she’s rallied students to request recycling bins for their dorm. “Recycling and being green and eco-friendly is part of being holistically well and creating a healthy environment,” she says.

SPRING CLEANING

The Missouri River dams generate 99 percent of

all electricity used on the University of South Dakota

campus in Vermillion.

DSU’S MINI WIND FARM

STUDENTS IN ANGELA BEHRENDS’ ART 121 learn that green is more than a color. Since she began teaching at Dakota State University in 2010,

art students have crafted tiny wind turbines, which are ex-hibited as Madison’s model wind farm.

The first turbines were paper pinwheels attached to pen-cils. But this year students made them larger and sturdier, with laminated paper, three-foot wooden dowels and hard-ware to allow the blades to rotate. Nearly 60 turbines were displayed during the fall semester on the student commons between Beadle Hall and the Science Center.

Each turbine is graded not just on creativity but how it looks assembled and in motion. “When these students have an experience like designing and constructing their own wind turbine, they have developed a relationship with the object,” Behrends says. “They will think more about the next one they see out in the world, and hopefully, they will think more about the implications of our energy sources.”

Behrends’ interest in green energy was piqued when the first wind turbine was built on the Buffalo Ridge, near her hometown in southwest Minnesota. “It completely changed the land,” she says. “Sometimes that’s not a good thing, but I thought they were gorgeous. There used to be windmills on everybody’s place, so it just seemed to make sense, and I think we need to pay attention to the stuff that makes sense.”

DSU art students display tiny wind turbines on campus.

2012 guide to higher education in south dakota

Documents

university of south

south dakota teachers

mcgovern center

south dakotas colleges

south dakotas schools

cost of food

kennedys food

senator george mcgovern