NDSUmagazineNORTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY SPRING 2002

contents

Editor’s note 5

Letters 6-7

Contributors 8-9

Letter from Western North Dakota 10-17by poet laureate Larry Woiwode

Kay ‘the scrapper’ Burgum 18-23

Excerpts 24-25Phil Hansen

Living design 26-31Alumna Tama Duffy

School of fish 32-37Art students “preach” the land-grant message

Comrades in germs 38-43NDSU scientist seeks Russian help with Anthrax test

Work Play 44-47Business professor Sarah Jacobson ponders the American attitude

NDSUmagazineVo lume 2 Number 2 SPRING 2002

EditorLaura McDaniel

Editorial staffDan KoeckKathy Laid

Art Direction/DesignJulie Babler

Address changesSend address and name

changes to:office@ndsualumni.com

LettersUnless noted “not for publication,” communications to the editor

are considered for publication, often in a condensed version.

E-mail: laura.mcdaniel@ndsu.nodak.edu

PO Box 5167Fargo, ND 58105

Fax: 701.231.1989

Volume 2, number 2

NDSUmagazine is published twice a year, in spring and fall, by North Dakota State University, University Relations,

PO Box 5167, Fargo ND 58105. NDSU is an equal opportunity institution.

President Joseph A. Chapman

joseph.chapman@ndsu.nodak.edu

Vice President for Academic AffairsR. Craig Schnell

craig.schnell@ndsu.nodak.edu

Vice President for Student AffairsGeorge H. Wallman

george.wallman@ndsu.nodak.edu

Vice President for Research, Creative Activities and Technology Transfer

Philip Boudjoukphilip.boudjouk@ndsu.nodak.edu

Vice President, Dean and Director for Agricultural Affairs Patricia A. Jensen

pjensen@ndsuext.nodak.edu

Vice President for Business and Finance Richard L. Rayl

richard.rayl@ndsu.nodak.edu

Executive Director of University RelationsKeith D. Bjerke

keith.bjerke@ndsu.nodak.edu

As we finish work on our fourth issue of NDSU magazine, it occurs to mewith a large sigh of relief that we have begun to do intuitively what we hadstruggled so to do deliberately. (I use “we” to be democratic, but I suspectmy coworkers would whisper to you that I alone was the worrywart.)

I had long hoped for a chance to launch a magazine. Such a goal was atleast remotely possible, it seemed, while outlandish dreams like being anamazing novelist clearly remain out of the question. But when the daycame to get to work on NDSU magazine, I began to experience fear. Howto honestly portray the institution, to honor its traditions while showcasingits progress and potential. How to please the boss and still be interesting tothe diverse audience, who, for starters, range in age from 16 to 100-plus.How to not blow it.

Communication practice is all about knowing your readers and under-standing the message, recognizing obstacles, finding solutions. Theframework was clear, but in practice I was trying too hard to form a men-tal picture of a thread that connected us all.

Being a land grant university means much to people on campus; it is nodoubt a less pressing detail to our future students and alumni. But it is thethread. “For the land and its people,” was the theme for NDSU’s centen-nial in 1990, and while technology and globalization and much more havechanged the particulars, the meaning still holds. So, for example, when Isat next to an alumnus on an airplane, a 1949 graduate in agricultural eco-nomics, we’re friends from the moment we discover our common thread.He knows my uncle Sig, ’49, who’s pals with Bill Guy, ’41, (later NorthDakota Gov. Guy) and on it goes.

Thank you for reading.laura.mcdaniel@ndsu.nodak.edu

editor’snote

6 NDSUmagazine

“The Duke was here” story broughtback pleasant recollections of myyears (1956-60) playing in thefamed Crystal Ballroom with thePaul Hansen Orchestra. That 80’ by120’ dance hall was an acousticgem. Small wonder that RichardBurris and Jack Towers managed torecord 40 of Ellington’s songs sowell on Nov. 7, 1940. It must havebeen a magical night. In 1995, jazzcritic Nat Hentoff called it a “stillvivid Fargo night,” noting theorchestra’s buoyancy and looseness,despite their eight-hour train tripfrom Winnipeg.

While the orchestra played a fewwarm-up pieces before Ellington’sappearance on stage, they actuallyperformed a total of 21 songs beforebeginning the KVOX radio broad-cast with “Sepia Panorama.” Andthe show ended at around 1 a.m.with Ellington leading the audiencein a rendition of “God BlessAmerica.” How about that?

Robert BrakeClass of ‘60

Ocean Park, WA

I purchased the Fargo Recordingsas L.P.’s when they came out yearsago and they truly are treasures.

I used to play with the PaulHanson Orchestra in the 1950’sand we did a live TEEN CAN-TEEN broadcast every Friday nightat the Crystal Ballroom so I havefond memories of that era.

I still play trombone in theLouisville, Kentucky, area and Iknow Orv Eidem and other Fargomusicians. NDSU was a wonderfulplace then as it is now.

Dick Sharpe

Read the FallIssue of theNDSU Magazine

on Thanksgiving Day and thoughtit was great. Got a lot of laughsfrom “Far” “go” North Dakota. Itreminded me of my freshman daysat the “AC.”

After Pearl Harbor Day in ‘41, Isigned up for the Navy V-12Program, a scheme to keep kids incollege until ships could be built forthem to man. In the course of theprogram, I found myself in AsburyPark, New Jersey, waiting forMidshipman School to open atCornell. Three or four of us decidedto go to New York for the week-end. We learned that the NavyWaves were holding a Sunday after-noon Tea Dance at the RooseveltRoom and we attended.

Across this large room, I noticedan attractive Wave and I walkedover and asked her to dance. In our

letters

7

conversation, I asked her where shewas from and she replied, “NorthDakota,” and I said “that’s whereI’m from.”

Well, we were in a city that hasmaybe 14 times the number of peo-ple as the whole state of NorthDakota and here two of its nativeswere dancing. I asked her, “Whereabouts in North Dakota?” and shesaid “Lisbon.” I said “That’s whereI’m from!” Turned out she wasFrank Hanson’s wife and had joinedthe Waves to help in the war effort.

I have met people from NorthDakota in many parts of the worldand I find it hard to believe notevery one hasn’t.

Bill Chisman

I finally decided to reorganize mydesk and in the pile is a Fall copy of NDSU magazine. I liked the arti-cle about the fascination withNorth Dakota. I did my young boy-hood growing up in North Dakotaand later studied at NDSU andeven later wound up on the facultyand started a family in Fargo before

embarking on what would becomean every now and then long termjob assignment in Africa.

I was trying to describe NorthDakota to a friend. I don’t think hegot it. My vocabulary is insuffi-cient. But there is a beauty therethat can barely be pictured inwords ... the changing colors of thevalley, the rolling hills, the prairie,the badlands. Even the politics andits history and the changing culturefrom place to place is unique.

I don’t remember or comprehendat what moment during our lives inAfrica that I stopped noticing thatCameroonians were black, but Isort of remember when it occurredto me that it had happened. I oftentell friends that the primary wonderof the world is that all people seemto have the same hopes anddreams. Little African boys teaselittle African girls in the same waysand for the same reasons that allboys and girls engage in that mys-tery of growing. Occasionally mywife and I would watchCameroonian children returninghome from school skipping,singing, poking, giggling as weremarked how literal the common-ality of childhood is. Whilesurprised, I understood being spit atin the face of a Cameroonian manwhile we met each other on adowntown street one afternoon. Icould escape any frustration or dis-appointment I might have ... hecouldn’t!!

David C. NelsonClass of ‘60

8 NDSUmagazine

contributors

Catherine Bishop (School of fish) may be the best writerever to have begun a career so inauspiciously. Her firstjob interview was scheduled such that she had toappear directly from her waitressing job, in her wait-ressing uniform. But since good writing always trumpsa fashion faux pas, she got the job at the Devils LakeDaily Journal and her now impressive career was offand running. After several years of hard work, shejoined the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead as entertainmentwriter, later advancing to features editor. A year ago shebecame the grant writer for Trollwood Performing ArtsSchool. Bishop is her pen name; in daily life she isCathy Jelsing. Her husband is Terry Jelsing, who led theCommon Ground project featured in this issue. Shemay be reached at jelsing@i29.net.

After many years as editor-in-chief of Pitt Magazine,Sally Ann Flecker (Living design) is living the dream. She’sbecome her own boss. But it’s called a dream for a rea-son. A freelance writer’s credibility is won or lost on herability to meet deadlines, so when the curse of the tape-eating transcriber falls upon her house, she must act

quickly. Sally Ann is no exception. She is in demand asa magazine writer and adjunct member of theUniversity of Pittsburgh’s English department for goodreason. In addition to ample talent and grace, she nowhas four transcribers.

Her credentials were of little interest, however, theday she traveled to Washington, D.C., to interviewNorth Dakota State University alumna Tama Duffy,whose colleagues were eager to view another NorthDakotan, this time one who lives here full time.Apparently Duffy’s coworkers already know plenty ofpeople from Pittsburgh.

Sarah Jacobson (Work Play) has taught high school biol-ogy, raised five children, earned a doctorate, taughtorganizational behavior at the university level—allthings that might have imposed a sense of, well, rigidity,on her writing. Evidence to the contrary comes frombiographical tidbits she submitted not in a formalresume but in bits of poetry: “My Mom was a greatstory teller (the Irish influence I suppose) and my child-hood was filled with the stories of my grandmothers

Sarah JacobsonSally Ann FleckerCatherine Bishop

9

(Sarah Anastasia, Mary Frances, Lousanna, andMartha), the hardships they endured and the ways inwhich they created new lives under difficult circum-stances. Those stories helped me believe I was a part of a line of strong women and that I could do anythingwith my life I set out to do — not such a common belieffor girls growing up in the ‘40s and ‘50s. The storiesalso gave me ‘itchy feet’ and a life-long love of travel.”

Carole Woiwode (photographs, Letter from Western North Dakota)

is manager and co-owner of Anchor West, a photogra-phy, registered quarterhorse and writing enterprise insouthwestern North Dakota. Her photography hasappeared in The New York Times, The San FranciscoChronicle, The Washington Post and The BismarckTribune and many other publications.

Larry Woiwode’s (A letter from Western North Dakota) fictionhas appeared in The Atlantic, Harpers, Paris Review,Partisan Review, and a variety of other publications,including two dozen stories in The New Yorker. Hisbooks include What I’m Going To Do, I Think,

Beyond the Bedroom Wall (finalist for the NationalBook Award and Book Critics’ Circle Award;Association of American Publishers Distinguished Bookof Five Years for presentation to White House Library),Indian Affairs, Silent Passengers, and the memoir WhatI Think I Did, his sixth book to be named a “notablebook of the year” by the New York Times BookReview. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, has conductedwriting seminars across the U.S., in England andEurope, and for four years was director of the writingprogram at the State University of New York,Binghamton. In 1995 he received the Award of MeritMedal from the American Academy of Arts & Letters,presented once every six years, for “distinction in theart of the short story.” He has received the Aga KhanPrize, the William Faulkner Foundation Award, theJohn Dos Passos Prize, the Lanan Foundation LiteraryFellowship, among others, and in 1995, by a joint reso-lution of the state house and legislature, he was namedpoet laureate of North Dakota. He lives in rural NorthDakota where, with his wife and family, he raises regis-tered quarterhorses.

Carole Woiwode Larry Woiwode

10 NDSUmagazine

A letter from Western North Dakota-by Larry Woiwode, poet laureate

Phot

os b

y C

arol

e W

oiw

ode

11

Rural Burt, NDMarch 7, 2002.

Dear *******,Thank you for asking me why

I live in North Dakota. It’s a ques-tion I ponder, if you can believethis, more, I suspect, than you.Sometimes it occurs to me dozensof times over a single day, and Ihope it hasn’t hit you quite thatway yet. Some of the answers I’vetried on myself now have the bless-ing of release through your inquiry,so I’ll take the opportunity to set afew of the multitude in flight downthe right course, if I can, by thewriter’s trick of grabbing for spar-rows to produce from them thesewords you read.

I’m a writer, teacher, farmer,churchman, and I’ve sat here toolong trying to set their order right.Whatever I decide, no matter whatweight I ascribe to each, the orderwill, I know, offend some. Peoplehere are that touchy about what’s

important. Some offense, however,a writer must be willing to give, orsit paralyzed.

What you can’t fool even thefoolish about in writing is what youbelieve. It’s difficult enough tomove language toward sense underthe governance of belief, whichcauses it to cohere, and withoutbelief (in the most elemental sense)all pages are blank. So every wordsqueezed into ink and then anystrings of them that make sense are

pure self-revelation, awkward,embarrassing exposure, as withintimacies under the quilt in speech.

I and my wife (a Dakota locu-tion), Carole, who is a writer andphotographer, have four children.We have been married thirty-fiveyears and presently are twenty.Well, some days we believe that.Our first daughter was a child ofthe sixties, our only for nine years,and had not just the benefits andprivileges of an only child but accu-mulated a sorrow no actual onlychild has to bear, having that statusknocked out from under her. Thena convenient nursemaid for the wildand sometimes mean bunchbeneath her.

Why are we here? If I had thoughtahead of how to sort this, I doubt ifI would say what has occurred tome, because it isn’t a consciousthought, I mean, one I recognize asclearly as a Dakotan does a grudge,

and so a surprise to me too to say,now, that if there is an overarchingcharacteristic to start sorting mythought-scraps down through asthrough the sieve of it, it would be:North Dakotans know how to suffer.

So thanks for the question. It hascaused some sort of swift reassess-ment, in order to know where tobegin, and the answer, as I say, sur-prises me. Dakotans know they willsuffer if any of the earth’s dailyattendance on us and the mainte-

nance we give back to it is going to get any better, ever; or else sufferthrough a stretch of time until itdoes, as all do with the weather.Most suffer simply from the weightof work put in on the maintenance.Many are farmers, and that’s theanswer. A farmer is like a poet inthe way he wants to see the perfectpage, every detail and nuance andfly speck of foreign matter pertain-ing to the ink and print, even, setdown in such unshakable linesShakespeare would pale: flawlessfields facing a cloudless sky.

The problem is you find a dozendetails branching from a detailnewly discovered (the dilemma ofcommitted gardeners worldwide)and over every season, year afteryear, no matter how you attend tothose details or fix or prop anotherup yet again, you still have to pro-duce from the earth at just the righttime a bumper crop; bumper, yes,or the vision of perfection loses itsedge and the farmer his shirt. And

by farmer, in a reach of mechanizeddistance from the gardener, I don’tmean only those farmers who raisethe truckloads of stuff that go run-ning everywhere in the fall andspring, so that even the natives getrestless behind a chugging drudge of a truck of 1950s vintage, withancient green canvas wallowing overits side-racks as it bleeds a red-goldtrail of the pumice of wheat like adangling afterthought onto the roadunder your tires.

A farmer is like a poet in the way he wants to see the perfect page, every detail and nuance

and fly speck of foreign matter pertaining to the ink and print, even, set down in such

unshakable lines Shakespeare would pale: flawless fields facing a cloudless sky.

12 NDSUmagazine

By “farmer” I mean an innersense in most Dakotans. This takeson a curious, affirming shape: ahibernating perspicacity that oper-ates three floors below languageand allows for rather complicatedtasks to be completed at nearlyevery level across the state withoutany of the participants speaking a word until the task is done.Dakotans know the multiplemechanics relevant to the physicalworld that well. And, oh, impatientas a magpie with a claw between acoyote’s teeth if you don’t!

Do not submit to any farmer’srequest to help him by assuming theseat in a lead vehicle, truck or trac-tor, to pull his stuck one out.

Most of us have farmed at least

a half section (320 acres) of landfor X or more years, and, if familyfortunes or fate or government non-interference allowed, most wouldbe back at it right now. Half thepeople forty and older I know havebeen waiting twenty years for thechance. They suffer that. And allthe women who tend to like to nestspring up in embattled desperationat the thought of losing a familyhomestead—not in my genera-tion!—and put in full-field-hourdays beside their husbands, thenreturn home to do the chores othershave the leisure of (if not a day) anevening to resume again near thetop of the stack, not to mention the children always cranky lately at your absence.

Women support every venue ofdaily work in the state with the

heroic power of a pine board undera piano caster, and so suffer. Youmay find places in the U.S. where awoman is appreciated more forbeing a woman, while at the sametime serving as stalwart compadre,but I’m not sure, and I’ve traveledthrough all but Alabama andArkansas in the lower forty-eight.When Dakota men and I mean menallow a woman to have her head tostep forward and scout out everyemerging development, if not initi-ating a few, with her generallydown-to-earth, intuitive andrefracting mind (instead of thisencapsulating one), he should beprepared for a doubling of newoutlooks on his horizon. Some menturn away in the ageless gesture of

too much, yet hope this keeps up.And when it does, they admire hermore in that magnetic combinationattraction triggers—a way of sayinga notable number of women herefeel well attended to, thank you.

If a husband turns away in anger,hoping to get this under control,just exactly who’s doing what, well,here we also have the pattern ofself-pity to alcohol to divorce orabuse. All suffer then. Husband,wife, children, all carry midnightslivers like nail clippings from theirhousehold dark nights into thecommunity at large. I have been inthe halfway house here, if not thedoghouse, no joke; a reluctantadmission from yet anotherDakotan who has sworn off. Mywife helped. The equal unattractiveside to this stained coin is a statistic

I read in a rural magazine twodecades ago: an estimated forty per-cent of farm wives are secret(meaning bottle-hiding or hoarding)alcoholics. The percentage of hus-bands is probably worse. Villagesof five hundred support three bars,and we have our beery brayers, asanywhere, but few fights.

The usual annual rate of homi-cide is one per year.

From what I’ve seen over the lastdozen years, I would have toretreat from those statistics and sayI see a change, including a numberof bars closing down. But tied tothe top of this positive trend aworse pall perhaps rests—fewerand fewer farms exist for outsideinterests to wrest from the grieving

families who have known no otherlife for three generations.

Dakotans suffer also the distanc-ing effect of astonishment whenthey hear, after working like serfs toput part of each meal on most everytable in the U.S., that young peoplefrom all points of the compass (themore distant, the truer) believe thatthe source of food is the cornermarket or deli or the big store inthe mall or some such local dis-penser of manna—or, in the fartheststretch of their minds, their moststalwart effort to comprehend theconcept, warehouses.

Dakotans suffer this but do not(as the poet Theodore Roethke saysabout his grief over the death ofanimals as a child) suffer exces-sively. Few adopt the martyr trend.We understand that the source and

What we care about is people. That’s a rarity you don’t find in many areas of the lower

forty-eight, except for a few crusty Maine old lobstermen and others of their type com-

monly seen to be at the fringes of life.

13

center of matters is defined differ-ently elsewhere than here. We dowatch TV. It merely refracts a senseof our own defining of selfhood,simply defining who we are, withno television shows or films basedon us (Fargo is about Minnesota),and no other information about usor our state than the weather. Wemay carry our defining process intosleepless nights in bed, a craving asfor the sweetest of sweets, grindingour teeth on further refined defini-tions like Eskimo Pies vying after a mellower morsel yet.

Since September all have sufferedthe capsized Twin Towers,America’s Confidence and Securitydown in a crash; the agonized sepa-ration underway in the chalkydawn of that catastrophic disloca-tion, worse than dreams of the ashyArctic of the H-bomb; and if wehaven’t responded other than mon-etarily, or with our few volunteerfiremen, it’s because we haven’trecovered, either, from the woundthat day left across every part ofour back road pastureland, even, aswe pause in winter stillness, cattleor horses ambling in at the scent ofus. We suffer the effects on yourfamilies and children, the thousandsaltogether, appalling, ghastly as wepicture ourselves in its midst withour families and children. Here weare in such scattered settlements wetake most matters personally.

The jump is you can’t form affec-tionate bonds with multitudes, andwhen you rub shoulders with thou-sands in a city of millions day afterday, it’s difficult to get seriousabout more than six or seven.Generally we have less than sixwithin one square mile in this quad-

rant of the state, so our mindsrange wide among any with whomwe have bonds. We care for the fel-low in the next county in financialtrouble, just as we feel a familialpride when we meet Dakotans else-where, in another state or city, NewYork or Chicago or Phoenix, oreven England, Norway, or France.We wave to one another from vehi-cles in state and, outside itsborders, wave at the familiar licenseplate. North Dakotans still wave.

All this preface to my point; whatwe care about is people. That’s ararity in most areas of the lowerforty-eight, except for a few crustyMaine lobstermen and others oftheir type commonly seen as at thefringes of life.

Americans seem blinded to othersby categorizing conceptualizations;Money, Education, My Cause,Personal Advancement, Church,Body, TV, the laundry list long as arailroad flat. For most of the rest ofAmerica, North Dakota, if it exists,is less than fringe: that cold squareway high.

I notice (after a break to see whatI’ve said) that I have strayed, but Ihope to pick up here tomorrow, asthe weather and other demandspermit. I’ve decided to narrow myrange of reference further by divid-ing this into the natural divisions oflife here, the seasons.

WinterThe season we’ve entered, finally,

in our first week of March, surpris-ing us. Let me say now, Yes, I’vedriven out the last two days for alook at the worst storm of the win-ter, just returned from my recent

tour and, No, not looking for trou-ble or material for a book. I havemore than enough of both to purgeme a dozen times through eternityor drop me with the sizzle of usedlard into the other place.

Which is to say that often whenwe think we know others so wellwe are able to talk about what theythink (as we do here) we don’t, andbefore I continue I feel I should say,as you might hear from the heavymatronly or the adolescent-lookingyoung secretary (it seems there is noin between) at one of our manylocal church meetings, “It is with asense of sadness and joy that I givemy report.”

I mentioned my two excursions,so first let me try to give a sense ofthe look of things, as if you were inthe passenger seat of my Bronco II(the pint-sized Bronco) of early vin-tage, 1988, which has adopted akind of rocking wallow from thethousand natural shocks that suchare heir to on our gravel roads, andeven though you must see itthrough scrims and streamers com-ing at you, you can make out thelay of the landscape, as if its sinkingrest is so deep the planet has sunkin this spot to absorb it, leavinglong planes of space with plates andplateaus raised in regularities,bearer of the weight of the ages;these grainy imperfections seen outyour window, up close, furrowedand seamed, red-rock edges givingin gravelly lesions; eroded buttesassuming a primitive harmony withthe spread and angularity of theland itself—like the last raised edgeof consciousness in one otherwisesubmerged in sleep. Then color,what we miss in winter! Pastures

14 NDSUmagazine

15

and open grassland the hue of beef,tan and pale orange, the upper halfof every stem so far evading thissnowy invasion. Field-wide rows of subtle yellow furze, stubble, itsshifting parallelisms pinwheelingaway when your eye strikes thelines of planting runs head on,streaks of snow between their furzelike comb-tooth partings across ahealthy scalp—the white-lavendercolor snow assumes in tree shadow.

When I’m away from this,though it’s in a computer, I see eachpage in a tight U between the platenand roller of a mechanical type-writer of last century, and the onlyexplanation I can give is my sensethat I’m writing out of a distantpast, one that most Americansdon’t get a glimpse of, much lessexperience.

I’ve been catching mice, herewhere I work, one after the other intheir winter incursion, and carryingeach miniature corpse out in thesnow for disposal, dust to dust,thinking no more of it, there are so many. But Native Americans(Indians! as they prefer to be calledhere) brooded over any death withsolemn import, asking forgiveness ifthey caused it. They, our longest-known residents, were taken noteof by French and British trappers,largely, from the 1600s on, movingfrom Quebec into this region (TheMetis of the Red River Valley),recorded in prose by AlexanderHenry, visited by Lewis and Clark,painted by the New York lawyerturned portraitist, Catlin, whodepicted members of Dakotantribes as blond and fair-skinned—our Natives admit they havetrouble keeping track of all those

states down below, in their sover-eign view.

The makeup of the state, as pre-sented in the sweeping intuitive wayof its most successful businessmanand non-expatriate, Harold Schafer,is, “There’s a few Icelanders andDutch and Dane, and some Scotchand Irish, but mostly it’sNorwegians and Swedes andGermans and Germans andGermans!” He of course wasGerman. Or half. As my wife is halfNorwegian with Brit and othermixes on what used to be called thedistaff side, as I’m half German,one quarter mix of Norwegian andFinn, then Brit and other blends onthe, well, staff side. The thought ofthis Nordic strain might cause you,as in the manner of many of ourresidents, to gulp a gasp of air fromslightly parted lips in a downwardstream into a Kah deep into thelungs, an O! at the pit of its course,forever kept there, no release of avocalized Oh except perhaps in anunexpected sneeze.

Seventy percent of our inhabi-tants are Scandinavian (thus theKah!) and we seem to have inher-ited the introspective Nordicspooky look, especially in winter, or it’s from watching our display of Northern Lights from fall tospring, even when plowing. Weplow or cultivate or plant or har-vest all night, or often do. Mosthere have the Norwegian grip ondimes (pinching pennies, we’ve cal-culated, isn’t worth the time, andwere the first to empty heavy pock-ets into a plate beside a cashregister), so we are often better offthan we pretend, or even dress, orare silent about how broke and

badly in debt we are, when we are,pride rampant above anger at ournemesis, those who took it all: thebankers.

SpringPlanting season. A Dakotan need

hear no more. When a natural forcesuch as the wind strikes hard, theDakotan moves into and against it,when not with it (which can end upknocking you six ways into nextSunday, if afoot), with the emotivemotion a few might clinically clas-sify as “crazy,” in our frenziedtracking after half the tasks afarmer has to take care of withoutbreaking down (we pray), not onlyfrom spring planting to the time ofharvest but the many mini modula-tions of every season of the four on every day times three.

We are possessive of the weather,the IT of our existence, anyfarmer’s only non-defecting ally,plus worst foe. Oh, now that wordfarmer is going to cause me, or so I feel in the queasy second predat-ing exposure, a confession: onlymonths ago I was reading about awriter and ran through a sentencethat mentioned he was a farmer(not Wendell Berry) and the dazedand sneaking thought that crawledinto my consciousness was:Bumpkin!

I’ve worked farms forty years,farmed here for twenty.

When you feel the prejudiceagainst yourself and others thatAmerican society holds, as certainminorities must, prejudice has dou-bly hit home. Now I understand, I think—or for the first time thor-oughly take in my lesson; I see that(and what could be worse?) I agree!I am proof that prejudice works so

16 NDSUmagazine

well it converts its victims, thosediscriminated against. That is whatis at the root of all the worse ineducated humanity, and must bestamped out, along with money-love.

The scroll has been unfolded,seems my tone. Perhaps the replyshould be, The Shroud is Intact, butI don’t keep up with that kind oftheological controversy any more.

Our hundred and sixty acres, orpip-squeak quarter (of a section,640 acres) is more than enough fora family of six to deal with as wedo, and in our twenty-some yearshere I still see dozens of projects I have yet to undertake, besidesbeing able to do the jobs we know

must be done to accomplish whatwe want, a part of the Dakota syn-drome: “Two weeks and seven yearsbehind!” That as we do is the rele-vant qualifier; our farm is entirelyorganic, all those acres. Besides, awood-burning outdoor furnace; andwe’ve installed solar panels andwind generators—enough wind hereto run the U.S. into eternity— dis-gusted we can’t get these practicalcontraptions to work as well as thepower industry gets naturalresources to do.

Organic. Twenty years ago itroused catcalls and beer cans in themailbox, unheard of, but since thensome have seen to the other side.Organic instead of spraying or

the earth replenishing itself in richnew colors across a stretch ofhealthy landscape—is seldom seennow. Some of Carole’s recent pho-tos from our farm catch it. I willinclude a few, as in a family album,one of those older ones interleavedwith cards and notes and lettersand pressed flowers. She seesdeeper into aspects of the landscapethan I do, something coastal oroceanic, which is surely what drewScandinavians, as I understand in a way I never did before: glimpsesof lakes in snow with coastal sun-light gripping surfaces withtransforming Western Gold.

Once you work at organic farm-ing, a kind of vision starts risingfrom the ground within your partic-

ular place, and you don’t mind somuch the tiring labor and tillage—seeing a small patch of the resilientbut much-abused planet beinghelped toward the ultimate green of its re-creation. And once you seethat, you can transfer it as compari-son or state of perfect repair to otherlandscapes.

What we are deprived of in win-ter, color, colour, colors in thesuggestive shades of a Frenchimpressionist, not the hues of housepaint, appear everywhere in spring,and the festive taste of our unpol-luted air sends all the senses,especially the sovereign one, smell,into an ecstatic search for everyform of life and a graded sorting

injecting so much “chemical,” asthey say here, that some of thestate’s best soil has been shockedsterile, approximately as productiveas white sand, with herbicides andpesticides and chemical fertilizersand hormones flowing around rootsto provide growth, as in hydropon-ics. Some also irrigate. But in ourwestern sector the ground water,arriving in its roll off one half of theRockies, is too hard or too soft,meaning mineral bound or alkaline,too tea-colored or laced with toomuch hydrogen sulfide (that sicklysweetish tang of raccoon delight,going-rotten eggs), and can’t beused to irrigate.

Our yard is three acres, the gar-den an acre, and over our first fewsprings we mowed the whole lawn

and planted the garden from edge toedge, then took stock and focusnow only on restricted patches,heaping them with compost. I’veadded lettuce beds near the housefor Carole and attached a green-house to this building. All of thedisenfranchised, demortgagizedfarmers who have moved to townand taken three jobs, as their wivesalso do, to pay whatever else theyowe to the bank, raise paradisiacalgardens, often in a wordless glance-out-of-the-eye competition withother farmers in town.

We’ve planted thousands of treesand about half, suffering severaldroughts, have survived. That lookthat every elderly farmer knows—

The new generation begins where the height of our knowledge left off and all of our daugh-

ters, all lovers and trainers of horses, one a rodeo participant and queen three times over,

often seem so far in the distance of their sensibilities they have trouble finding words for it.

17

of the diversity of the actual unex-purgated spectrum. Life of thiskind in the U.S. is going out in thefast lane.

FallHarvest (summer a secret season

I decline to examine), and the workof gathering in one’s labor. Thesharp scent of fall air sometimestastes richer than in spring, espe-cially as it bends toward freezing. I picture myself a puffing and put-tering, chubby, diminutive, mangyand aged version of The Deerslayer,Matty Bumpkin, bustling through

this season, the one in which I mostlike to work—and winter on itsway again, snow in October!

I don’t hunt with the thousandsfrom out of state for pheasant,although occasionally I will walkbeside my son carrying a shotgunbecause he once said with anunguarded look how much it meantto walk with me like this one fallafter a harvest, so I do. I’ve notshot a deer, like many of our neigh-bors, but have clipped four frominside a car or pickup, a daily haz-ard in the fall due to theoverpopulation (and our speeds),two of them fatally. We made use

of both in the four years apart; onefor us, one for the dogs.

Herds of antelope roam over thispart of the state, one pair familiarin its fall return to our distantalfalfa strip, now seldom seeneither, migrating to the county-wideranges of South Dakota.

Our animals are mostly domestic,horses and dogs, with the compan-ionable presence of horse, likewarm shadow, always hoveringclose. We presently have eight onthe place, three or four elsewhere. I confess I can’t keep track as ourdaughters do, knowing every one

in its bloodlines and at every stageof development, forward and back,along with a sense of the milieu theabsent ones experience in distantpastures (mostly South Dakota)and barns and stalls and rings andpens and exercise yards.

The new generation begins wherethe height of our knowledge left offand all of our daughters, all loversand trainers of horses, one a rodeoparticipant and queen three timesover, often seem so far in the dis-tance of their sensibilities they havetrouble finding words for it. So it’ssometimes difficult for them to bepatient with me when I talk about

horses. But my vision is complete;my span reaches back to a grandfa-ther who farmed with horses, andall I wanted from the time I wastwelve was a few horses on my ownplace. That wish, at the height ofmy priorities for many years, hasbeen granted.

Perhaps that’s why I more andmore see in Carole’s recent photo-graphs miniature inscapes of thosedelectable mountains to the mostinsignificant pilgrim in progress, litas if in their interiors with the glory of paradise.

I have much more to say butportions of our stories others haveno reason to hear. That’s whereothers enter and move the messageof Dakota forward with stories oftheir own, seeming at times (to me,as with your question) like theangelic presences we can almostimagine, when our imaginationsaren’t self-seeking or jaded, whomight be walking beside us ineveryday duds like this dude here—to badly imitate my youngerdaughters.

I see the lacy leaflets of one of themany Russian olives you and Iplanted, Carole, the cheery shiningfaces at our small oak table, thefirst steps we took to reach thisplace, imagining the leafy greenabundance of another state, yetfearing the onward course of one of us or the other. So it happensthat the turnabout we still speak of, as we have today, arrived andcarried us to North Dakota. As formy affection for you and all ofthem in this state and what thatstate is and why it is that we live in it, Shhh.

18 NDSUmagazine

19

It has been said of KatherineBurgum, “She can walk into aroom full of people and makeyou feel you’re the one person

she was really hoping was going tobe there.” By the time the event isover, everyone in the room will feelthe same way.

That air of infectious enthusiasmhas not abated nor diminished atthe age of 87.

In fact, on the advice of her per-sonal trainer, the former dean of theCollege of Home Economics atNorth Dakota State University isnow practicing a skill that mighthave come in handy back in thedays of budget hearings with her

fellow deans (99.44 percent ofwhom were males). She’s learninghow to box.

That came about a couple ofmonths ago when she called one of Fargo’s health care providersand said, “Send over the best per-sonal trainer you have for workingwith an 87-year-old woman.” Thehospital folks, unaccustomed tobeing interviewed by a prospectivepatient, nonetheless agreed to goalong with it. Burgum now has herpersonal trainer, a woman namedCharlotte Hermes, and is happywith her choice. “Exercising hasbeen good for me,” Burgumobserves.

Still, one day the trainer came up with a question that may haveseemed a little strange.

“Have you ever boxed?” thetrainer queried.

“Not recently,” the former deanreplied.

“It’s a good way to loosen upthose muscles at the top of yourback,” the trainer advised.

“I don’t see any punching bags,”Burgum responded.

“I just put these pads on myhands,” the trainer pointed out,“and move them where we wantyou to hit.”

Ever game to try something new“Kay,” as she is known, agreed to go

20 NDSUmagazine

a couple of rounds with the pads.“I was having a great time prac-

ticing uppercuts, left jabs and hardrights to the midsection when thisold guy came up and said, ‘Lady, ifshe takes you on the road makesure you get the center ring. Italways pulls the biggest bets.’”

Burgum has always been a scrap-per. She believes it goes back to herchildhood on Fargo’s North FourthStreet where she claims to havebeen a member of a gang.

The youngest of five Kilbournechildren and the only girl, Burgumonce told a reporter, “It taught mehow to function in a man’s world,”adding, “... family expected me tobe just as productive, just as effec-tive and just as responsible as anyof the boys.” That experiencewould stand her in good stead inyears to come.

Katherine Kilbourne was born atMinneapolis (Kansas that is, notMinnesota). Her dad, a publichealth physician, brought the fam-ily to Fargo in 1923 when Kay was8 and settled in a house at 1122 4thStreet North.

“It was a great neighborhood,”she recalls. Other members of theFourth Street Gang included a groupof fellow 8-year-olds: C. WarnerLitten, who lived at 1045 NorthBroadway, Betty Baillie (later BettyLitten), Hugh Anstett, John Jenkinsand Ellen Blair, all of whom wouldgrow up to be solid citizens of Fargo,and whose names would becomevery familiar in both the communityand “the AC” as NDSU was knownin those days, in later years.

Burgum’s dad had chosen Fargofrom among a number of possibili-ties including Atlanta. His reason?Because, unlike Kansas, “Fargocools off at night.”

Being a public health physicianwas not a popular occupation in1923, even among some of Dr.Kilbourne’s fellow doctors. “Dadwas an epidemiologist,” Burgumrecalls, “concerned with contagiousdiseases.” The city of Fargo hademployed him to be its health offi-cer for five years as part of anationwide campaign to improvehealth conditions, including thepurity of local water supplies. Inthose days most people preferredthe water from their backyard wells.

Dr. Kilbourne liked to use hischildren to demonstrate that thingslike the Schick test for tuberculosisdidn’t really hurt very much. “Iunderwent more Schick tests thanany other person in the wholeworld,” Burgum says.

Dad would say, “‘OK, who’sgoing with me tonight?’ He’dadminister the test and I’d have towalk down the aisle holding myarm out to show everyone I wasOK.” Looking back on that experi-ence, Burgum believes it helped herdevelop an appreciation for theimportance of public issues and forkeeping an open mind about them.

At age 12, a solo trip toWashington, D.C., when Burgumwas 12 and in the seventh grade,she had another “defining experi-ence.” As a student at HoraceMann Junior High School, she won a county essay writing contestamong junior and senior high stu-dents. First prize was to representNorth Dakota at a national RedCross convention in Washington,D.C. Burgum and a boy fromCasselton won the nod. “It was the biggest day of my life up to that point.”

For some reason, the studentfrom Casselton wasn’t able to make

the trip, so Burgum boarded thetrain alone, armed with a couple ofshoeboxes filled with candy barsand a paperback book provided bysome of her classmates. “I didn’tsleep a wink on the train.” Toomuch excitement.

“These days,” she reflects, “nosane set of parents would put a 12-year-old on the train and send herhalfway across the country.” Butthose were simpler times.

Although her parents may havehad a few reservations about send-ing her off alone, they madearrangements with the Traveler’sAid folks in Chicago to meet thetrain and put her on the right onefor Washington. Friends of her par-ents, another doctor and his wife,had agreed to meet her in D.C. andlet her stay with them. All of thatwent without incident, according to plan.

When the time came for her pres-entation at what is now theCorcoran Art Museum inWashington, the young emissaryfrom North Dakota was ready.“Although my notes fell under atable and were unrecoverable justas I got up to speak, I knew mytopic — What the Junior Red Crosshad accomplished in North Dakota— well enough by then to wing itwithout my notes.

“That was the point where I decided a person from NorthDakota could do anything theychose to tackle. I never worriedabout public speaking again after that.”

Back in Fargo the 12-year-oldcelebrity was in demand to speak atsenior Red Cross gatherings, one ofwhich was held in the Lincoln LogCabin at the college on the topfloor of Old Main.

21

The guests had just finished din-ner when it came time for her tospeak. The college’s famous impre-sario, Professor Alfred Arvold wasmaster of ceremonies. Just asBurgum began her presentation,Arvold announced “They can’t see you!” “He picked me up bodilyand stood me on the table with the hem of my dress about eyelevel, right in the middle of thedirty dishes.Another definingexperience.”

Burgumenrolled at NorthDakotaAgriculturalCollege in 1933and quicklyemerged as a stu-dent leader. Overthe course of theensuing fouryears she waselected presidentof Gamma Phi Beta Sorority, editorof the 1937 Bison Annual, and anoutstanding member of the seniorclass. She was graduated in 1937,by which time the Kilbournes hadmoved to Montana.

Offered a teaching job in Beach,which is about as far as you can goin North Dakota and not be inMontana, she boarded the train atFargo, setting her alarm clock to gooff in plenty of time to take a lookat Beach. Perhaps luckily in retro-spect, the alarm clock didn’t wakeher up and she slept all the way toHelena. That fall, instead of takingthe job at Beach, she took a posi-tion teaching junior high and highschool home economics at Sayville,N.Y., on Long Island, about as faras you can get from Montana andstill be on the continent.

That job allowed her to earn amaster’s degree at ColumbiaUniversity during evenings andweekends, which in turn led to ateaching position at Wayne StateUniversity in Detroit. She taught

there from 1939 to 1947, becomingan assistant professor and researchassociate in the university’s schoolof business.

Katherine and Joe Burgum hadmet as students at the NDAC. Hewent on to the University ofMinnesota Law School, thenenlisted in the Navy. After a sev-eral-year courtship they weremarried in Chicago in 1944. Hespent most of the next three yearson a destroyer in the Pacific andAleutian Islands, his service culmi-nating with the Japanese surrender.

Still essentially newlyweds, Joeand Katherine Burgum returned toArthur in 1947 and started a fam-ily. Over the course of the nextseveral years, Brad, Barbara andDoug were born, and KatherineBurgum would embark on a 27-

year career as homemaker, commu-nity leader and political activist.That role would change quite dra-matically with Joe Burgum’suntimely death in 1971.

That same year, in her new roleas head of the household with threeteenage children to raise, Burgumagreed to serve as the alumni repre-sentative on a committee searchingfor a new dean of the NDSU

College ofHomeEconomics.The follow-ing year,when thesearchproved to beunsuccessful,she agreed tobecome tem-porarily theacting deanwhile thesearch con-

tinued. Later, on a unanimousrecommendation of the home eco-nomics faculty to President L.D.Loftsgard, she was appointed deanof the college.

At an event rededicating theFamily Life Center as theKatherine Kilbourne BurgumFamily Life Center in 1998, DonMorton, then assistant to the pres-ident at NDSU, recalled, “Backwhen President Laurel Loftsgardaccepted the recommendation ofthe home economics faculty toappoint Katherine Burgum asdean, one can’t help but wonder ifhe really knew what he was in for.

“Practically within minutes ofthat announcement, the new deanwas camped on the front steps ofOld Main, insisting a new buildingwas the college’s top priority.”

22 NDSUmagazine

“Still,” Morton added,“President Loftsgard had a lot ofrespect for people who knew howto get things done. I have a feelingthat he sensed he had made theproper choice.”

During Burgum’s eight years inthe deanship, dramatic changestook place in the college.

Enrollment grew to more than1,100 majors.

The Family Life Center was built,reflecting Burgum’s considerablepowers of persuasion with the uni-versity administration, the NorthDakota Legislature and a sizablegroup of private donors.

The number of faculty membersholding doctoral degrees grew fromfour to 18.

The NDSU College of HomeEconomics became ranked amongthe top 15 colleges of home economics in the nation, and 26thamong 400 eligible colleges ofhome economics to be accredited

by the American Home EconomicsAssociation.

The 1979 North DakotaLegislature earmarked $100,000 in Agricultural Experiment Stationfunding for research projects inhome economics, something forwhich Burgum had campaignedthroughout her professional career.

As a charter member of theNDSU Development Foundation,created during a meeting at Medorain 1968, Burgum served with dis-tinction, first as its secretary, thenpresident, board chair, then mem-ber of its executive committee, overthe course of a quarter century.

In 1976, on the 300th anniver-sary of the American Revolution,Jim and Jean Leet and Erv andMarie Rector volunteered to behosts to the DevelopmentFoundation board’s semi-annualmeeting in London. Rector wasmanaging director of BurroughsCorporation operations in the

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United Kingdom and Leet was asenior vice president of PanAmerican Airlines. Partly throughher political affiliations, KayBurgum had come to know TexanAnne Armstrong, at the time serv-ing as American Ambassador to theCourt of St. James. Largely becauseof that connection the NDSU con-

tingent was treated royally,receiving a private briefing at theU.S. Embassy, and an invitation tobe guests of the Armstrongs atWinfield House, which is the offi-cial residence of U.S. ambassadorsto England.

For the NDSU board members, a highlight of the visit was beingannounced individually by theArmstrongs’ veddy proper Britishbutler as they came down the stairsof the palatial British mansion onLondon’s historic Regents Park.

The Development Foundationhonored Kay Burgum with itsService Award in 1994. That recog-

nition had been preceded with anAlumni Achievement Award in1971, designation as a Blue KeyDoctor of Service in 1978, anHonored Alumnus in 1981 and an Honorary Doctor of Science in 1982.

Foundation Trustee Bob Reimers,in presenting the group’s Service

Award, referred back to theDeclaration of Independence and its commitment to “life, liberty andthe pursuit of happiness,” noting “I can think of no one who embod-ies those treasured Americanaspirations more than my friend,Katherine Burgum. And, in sodoing ... has set an example forwomen ... and all of her fellow citizens.”

Since her retirement more than20 years ago, Burgum has contin-ued that pattern of activeinvolvement in civic, professional,business and philanthropic affairs.

As a member of the original

board of directors of Great PlainsSoftware, of which her son, Doug,became president, (it’s nowMicrosoft Great Plains) she playeda major role in the company’s earlygrowth and expansion and, in thatsense, the economy of NorthDakota.

Some years ago, comedian

Woody Allen put it quite succinctlyin a commencement address, advis-ing the new crop of graduates:“Life is a series of pitfalls andopportunities. The trick is to avoidthe pitfalls, seize the opportunities,and be home by five o’clock.”

Kay Burgum rarely got home by 5during the years of her professionallife. On the other hand, over thecourse of a relatively long life, sheclearly encountered her share of pit-falls and opportunities.Characteristically, she dealt withthem with intelligence, verve, goodhumor and dogged perseverance.

— Jerry Richardson

24 NDSUmagazine

Phil Hansen is 33 and hasjust retired from the

National Football Leagueafter 11 years with the

Buffalo Bills. After winning two college

championships at NorthDakota State University

in 1988 and 1990, he wasdrafted in the second

round. In 2000 he wasvoted one of the Bills

team captains. He grewup in Oakes, N.D.

Hansen earned a bachelor’s degree fromNDSU in agricultural

economics in 1991.

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Any time you play for more than a couple years in the National Football League you alwaysthink about retirement, especially Monday mornings after Sunday games. But for a defensivelineman — playing 11 years — that’s almost above and beyond the call of duty.

I wanted to leave the game on my own terms. I didn’t want to be cut or traded.

I watched football as a kid but I never thought in my wildest dreams that pro football would bea reality for me. I never really considered college. My scope was a farm in Oakes. I’ve thoughtout of the box a little bit since that time and learned the sky’s the limit and tried to achieve mypotential through sports.

I worked hard through sports, but if I would have been a sales rep., I would have liked to thinkI’d have progressed just as much. The hard work is the common denominator, not just the jobyou’re in. There’s no substitute for effort. I’ve been told that and had it instilled in me and Ibelieved it and I can’t say that it has ever failed me.

I would have never paid to go to college.

The financial rewards of playing professional football far outweigh anything I could imagine. I can say this now — I would have played the game for a lot less.

The NFL is really a cross section of America. It’s like any other business, you have every walk of life.

I played in three Super Bowls and two national championships in college. We won all the col-lege ones and lost all the professional ones. I wouldn’t reverse it but I wish I could have wonone in each.

Everybody says ‘at least you got there, 30 other teams didn’t even get to the Super Bowl.’ Thatonly goes so far with the competitive spirit.

I would have given up the chance to go to two Super Bowls to win just one.

I think everybody should move once in a while so they don’t become a pack rat. I moved outhere with two duffel bags and a suitcase. It’s amazing what you collect.

Basic things will always get you through — hard work, determination, truth. Put in an honestday’s work and you’ll get an honest day’s pay.

I want to be remembered as a dependable, consistent, accountable person. Those are things Iprided myself on and those are things I had to go to sleep at night knowing I achieved that day.You don’t lie to yourself, you don’t assign blame. If it’s your fault take it, live up to it and move on.

Marv Leavy used to say football is simple but it’s not easy.

I’ve learned that common sense isn’t so common any more.

Respect is earned. It isn’t given as a birthright. In my career I’ve come to that conclusion.

E X C E R P TS

26 NDSUmagazine

It’s hard to keep up with Tama Duffy, even when she’s wearing high-heeled leatherboots that would make the feet of a lesser woman whimper. The 42-year-old isspeed-walking through her Capitol Hill neighborhood in Washington, D.C., in themiddle of a brilliant and chilly Friday afternoon. The air is almost as brisk as Duffyas she heads from the Metro station to her home. Cell phone in hand, she is speed-dialing, too, checking messages en route to her meeting with an air conditioningcontractor — worried that she might already have missed him.

livingdesign

28 NDSUmagazine

Duffy, a 1980 design grad, isone of the latest additions to theteam at OP.X, an edgy D.C. strat-egy and design firm. She’s at herbest leading high-powered teamsof architects and interior designerson complex building projects. Shecan go head to head with majorcontractors without blinking aneye. And this project today is nodifferent — only this time Duffy’sclient is Duffy herself.

The AC guy is upstairs, Duffy’selectrician tells her when shereaches her classic 150-year-oldwood-framed row house. Shecharges up the narrow steps —temporarily sans banister — to thesecond floor while the electriciancontinues to calmly work. He’sinstalling track lighting — small,multi-faceted halogens to brightenup a room that gets only the softlight of morning. Duffy had calledthe home a demolition zone. It’strue. There’s an elegant black velvetsofa half covered with plastic in themiddle of the room. Other pieces offurniture — a table and severalchairs — are huddled up next to it,trying to stay out of the way. Yetdespite the Men at Work feel, it’sclear that there’s a gracious, wel-coming home coming into being.

Standing in the front living room,you can see straight through thedining room and kitchen (alsounder construction), past the brightCaribbean-blue mosaic walls of atiny downstairs bathroom all theway to the sunny, terraced brickgarden. Duffy moved to D.C. fromNew York City at the end of thesummer and lived in the house for acouple of weeks watching, as shesays, “how the sun penetrated the

spaces.” She thought about hownatural light could be broughtindoors — an important theme inall of her work — then drew upplans and elevations. That done,she packed her bags and moved inwith her sister’s family for threemonths while workers exposedbrick walls, gutted the bathroomsand kitchen, straightened walls andleveled floors. She’s been back inthe house for a month. Even if thekitchen sink isn’t yet in place andplaster dust is still flying, she’sdetermined to get herself settled.(The upstairs bath, which is com-pleted, helps. It’s spa-like, with abath deck that gives the originalcast-iron tub the impression ofbeing sunken, a heated, tumbledstone floor, and large custom-sizedwindow. This is the room thatspeaks to Duffy’s deep, contempla-tive nature. She’s designed a placewhere she can soak away a toughday, look out at the stars anddream.)

Duffy’s move to D.C. was a gutsyone. She had been at the top of hergame in New York. Vice presidentand principal in charge of healthcare design at Perkins & Will, she’dspent 20 years building her reputa-tion as one of the leading nationalexperts in health care design. Now,she wasn’t just changing jobs; shewas restructuring her life — person-ally and professionally — and everybit as radically as she was her smalland sturdy new house.

Some of the impetus for thechange came from a desire to livecloser to family; her sister’s familyand other close relatives reside inthe D.C. area. Her parents’ failinghealth back in North Dakota made

Duffy reflect on her own life andtake stock of what mattered most.(Her father, who gave Duffy anappreciation for beauty through hisstamp-collecting hobby, took aturn for the worse suddenly inearly September, passing away onSept. 11. Her mother, who liked topaint and draw and who wroteweekly letters to Duffy while shewas still able, is now in the latestages of Alzheimer’s.) Still, it wasn’teasy leaving behind the close rela-tionships she’d developed with hercolleagues in New York. Duffyturned 40 the same year that Barbiecelebrated that landmark birthday.As a surprise, her co-workersworked for a week to customize aBarbie doll, hiding it when Duffypassed by. They cut off the hair tolook like Duffy’s short “do” anddressed her all in black. Then theymade her tiny Tumi roll-on luggage,called her TamaBarbie, and, as afinal grace note, set her up with aKen doll, replete with blanket andbottle of French wine.

Back when Duffy was startingout, health care was only beginningto emerge as a design niche. Freshout of school, Duffy went toMinneapolis to look for a job incommercial interiors. She landed aposition in a small firm and pro-ceeded to wrest everything shecould from the experience. “I dideverything from unlocking the doorand making the coffee,” she recalls,“to meeting with the reps, typing upspecs, coordinating the library, anddesigning. I kind of got my fingersin every aspect of what was neededto support a project. Working forthat small firm helped me to under-stand the entire process of design.”

29

D UFFY TURNED 40THE SAME YEARTHAT BARBIECELEBRATED THAT LANDMARK BIRTHDAY . . .HER CO -WORKERSW ORKED FOR AW EEK TO CUS-TO MIZE ABARBIE DOLL .

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30 NDSUmagazine

DUFFY�S WORKHAS SHOWN HOWIMPORTANT THECOMPONENTS OFSPACES � NATU-RAL LIGHT,INTERESTINGVIEWS, COLORPALETTE ANDFURNITURE �CAN BE INHELPING PEOPLEFEEL WELL.

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Her next career move was a cal-culated risk — a three-monthcontract in the Minneapolis officeof Ellerbe Becket. Moving from asix-person shop to a firm of 800could have caused culture shock ina young woman who hailed fromWesthope, N.D., near the Canadianborder (population 600). Instead,she thrived. “In a large firm, gath-ering information to do your jobcan be a bit like a scavenger hunt,”she says. “But I liked that.” Therewere lighting designers, architectsand interior designers, not to men-tion the mechanical, electrical,structural and landscape engineers.They all had, Duffy says, an abun-dance of information: “It was agreat place for me to bloom.” Herthree-month contract lasted for 10years.

Duffy’s second project for EllerbeBecket, the Mayo Clinic’s CharltonBuilding in Rochester, Minn.,would shape her life in ways shenever anticipated. It was Duffy’sfirst experience in health caredesign. In the middle of the project,the director of design left. Duffy,who describes herself as focusedand intense and a product of theMidwest work ethic, took up theslack, attending all of the meetings,coordinating the team of designers.At one point, she discovered thatthe furniture specifications — acomplex and detailed listing of thecomponent of each and every pieceof furniture, in this case several mil-lion dollars worth — were riddledwith errors. Duffy started over onit, working nights and weekendsnonstop to get it right.

Duffy’s contributions and prom-ise were recognized. She was asked

to head another health care project,then another. “Before I knew it, Iwas leading teams on four projectsaround the country and had sud-denly become a specialist,” shesays. She made vice presidentbefore she turned 30.

As one of the leaders in the field,Duffy’s work has shown howimportant the components ofspaces — natural light, interestingviews, color palette and furniturethat supports the patient, the familyand the caregivers — can be inhelping people feel well. But whenDuffy began, health care design wasnot a coveted niche in interiordesign. In fact, it was called institu-tional design, reflecting interiorsthat took their cues from medicalequipment. “I became intrigued inthe practice of healing environ-ments because they tended to bedismal,” says Duffy. “Many creativepeople steered away from thembecause they felt they were too lim-ited in terms of design solution.”

The Mayo project was eye-open-ing for Duffy, its philosophy datingback to the turn of the centurywhen the Mayo brothers insistedthat their facilities be warm, invit-ing and visually friendly. “Wealways say that the perception ofdesign by our visitors and patientsreflects on the perception of qualityand care,” says Robert Fontaine,who was Duffy’s client on theCharlton Building. (He’s now direc-tor of planning and projects for theMayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.Duffy has not only worked withhim on several other high-profileprojects, but considers him a men-tor.) Fontaine adds, “It takes moreability when you have parameters

that are limiting. You have to beable to actually be more creative.”

Duffy thrived on that challenge— and she’s not exactly leaving thatbehind now. Her new challenge isto take what she knows abouthealthy design and apply it to othervenues. At OP.X she’s currentlyworking on projects that includelaw offices and a hotel and confer-ence center. “I’m interested in thewhole mind/body response to envi-ronment,” she says.

Meanwhile, back at her own per-sonal construction zone, theinterview with the air conditioninginstaller, a man whose hair bearsmore than a little dab of Brylcreem,isn’t going well. Duffy is lookingfor an efficient and elegant alterna-tive to the upper story’s currentwindow units. The salesman isreluctant to problem solve with her.Whatever you want us to do, we’lldo, he says. She knows there’s abetter answer than that, so she’llkeep looking.

And maybe there, right there, isthe key to Tama Duffy. She isn’tafraid to keep looking until shefinds the solution that works. She’sa woman who can look at some-thing — a space, a profession, a life— and see what it could be. She’sgiven definition to her new house.She’s turned her career in a newdirection. How her influence willplay out in the commercial world ofdesign will be interesting to follow.

That is, of course, if you cankeep up with her. — Sally Ann Flecker

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33

“Maybe Jesus was an ice fisherman.”Someone said it between baiting hooks, eating barbecues and play-

ing dice in the belly of the Big Fish. It came off as a gentle joke,but it presented an interesting comparison.

Jesus walked on water, had a thing for fish, and usedthe familiar to explain the unfamiliar. These five North

Dakota State University students were “living”on the water. They aimed to preach a littlegospel of art, of NDSU and the land. And

they were using a fish as bait.People came almost as soon as the students

began assembling the Big Fish on frozen DevilsLake. It’s not every North Dakota fish house that has

a dorsal fin. And not every fish house is so modular indesign that — on a good day — it can be put together,

wood-burning stove and all, in 74 minutes flat. Nor do most icefishermen invite visitors inside to draw pictures on the walls. So,

when visitors ask “Why?” the students set their hooks and reel them inwith the story of Common Ground.It all started a few years ago with the Kellogg Foundation. “Kellogg’s inter-

est was in discovering how land grant institutions were interacting with thepublic and if they were still meeting the mission of being the people’s universi-

ties,” says Gary Brewer, who chairs the NDSU entomology department. Thatresearch evolved into the Leadership Initiative for Institutional Change or LINC, a part-

nership of land grant universities in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. “Onecomponent of the training they provide is the use of art to break down communicationbarriers and to get people to share their thoughts and feelings about different ideas,”Brewer says. Agriculture reached out to the art department. Architecture got involved.President Joseph A. Chapman liked the idea. And so in the fall of 2001, with the help of aKellogg grant, two Fargo artists were hired.

ART IS THE TEACHER

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Jon Offutt and Terry Jelsing wereselected based on their proposalsfor public art projects that wouldengage the university communityand foster relationships out in thestate, says Kim Bromley, artdepartment coordinator. Offutt’sproject was to build a portableglass blowing studio and use it toshare his expertise with NDSU stu-dents and people across the state.Jelsing invented Common Ground,a project that would introduce acorps of NDSU students to site-specific sculpture, take them on“art safaris” across the state, andengage the public along the way.While the impact of the two proj-ects is yet to be fully evaluated,Bromley says, “I’ve had a couple of students tell me working withTerry and Jon have been life-alter-ing events for them.”

The lives of the CommonGround students changed the daythey decided to show up for thefirst informational meeting. Mostof them remember how they gotthe call. One overheard other stu-dents talking about it. A couplecaught wind via e-mail. One heardabout it from a girlfriend too busyto participate herself. Before theyknew it, the “chosen ones” (it wasa competitive selection process)were wandering in the rain build-ing sculpture from twine and twigsalong the Red River at Fargo’sDike West.

The group’s Doubting Thomaswas revealed: Andrew Rising, 22, asenior in art and philosophy fromMedina, N.D. “I’m the one tryingto figure it out, trying to pushwhatever lesson there might be toits extreme, to try and get as muchas I can out of it,” he says. Rising

did not “get” the twigs, grass andtwine project, and he told Jelsing soover coffee. Jelsing said, “I’m gladyou brought that up.” And theytalked, and they talked, and they’restill talking.

A few students who began withthe Common Ground team weren’table to continue for various rea-sons; schedule conflicts and thatthing called winter graduation. Inthe end there were five, each with adistinctive personality and rolewithin the group. Of course, theyhad no idea of what those roleswould be until their first art safarion the banks of the Missouri River,near Williston. On a chilly night inearly October they pitched Jelsing’soutfitter’s tent, stoked the wood-burning stove, and began to discusswhat they, as a group of artists,would create. Jelsing, the “synthe-sizer of ideas,” preached trust,respect and honesty and talkedabout how those common principlesof behavior would affect theirendeavor. The next day he turnedthem loose on the land, to scavengeand experiment with nature’s mate-rials: driftwood, brush, stone, sand.Jelsing calls them “earth sketches.”They were all different, somestarkly stunning in their beauty.

Site-specific works like these,Jelsing says, are transitory. “Theweather, the water, the sun, willchange them ... In that way thisbrand of public art is very fragile.It’s created with an intense energyand focus, it exists in time, and thenit goes away or changes.”

The sun went down and the seri-ous talk began. The next day theteam would collaborate on theirfirst joint project. Guided by Jelsing,they reached a consensus: they

would use the flat, sandstone rockfrom the shoreline to build a per-fectly round disc, 12 feet wide and 3feet high. Part of it would rest in thewater. The project defined, theyrelaxed and listened to the cowboypoetry and songs of D.W. Groetheof Bainville, Mont., a buddy fromJelsing’s undergraduate days at theUniversity of North Dakota. A coy-ote wandered by and the landquietly awaited the artists’ assault.

To this point, Common Ground’smajor projects have been extremelyphysical, one working with rock,the other with saws, screws andplywood. And each was executedunder less than choice conditions,one cold, windy and damp, theother — in an art departmentQuonset — dry, dusty andcramped. The two women in thegroup were challenged by the physi-cality of the rock work and theunfamiliarity of power tools andconstruction, but never discour-aged. They persevered for the loveof the process and the camaraderie.“I kind of wimp out early if I don’thave other people working withme,” admits Cindy Sondreal, 24, asenior in landscape architecturefrom Grand Forks, N.D. “When wewere picking up all those rocks, andthey were talking about more lay-ers, I knew in the end it would lookgreat, but I needed everyone thereworking with me in order to keepgoing.” Amanda Henderson, a 22-year-old architecture major/artminor from Scranton, N.D., con-curs. “The thought crossed mymind that ‘This is crazy, all we’redoing is making a big pile of rocks,’but at the same time, it was morethan that.” How much more,Henderson discovered the next day.

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“I remember as I was walking up toit ... my heart started racing. I feltso much excitement and energycoming from the piece. It was hardto leave. I really felt personallyattached to it.”

The feeling was mutual. Theteam was forged. And they startedspreading the word about the greatthings they had seen and done.

The momentum drew a late addi-tion. Rick Woodland, 41, a visualarts major who grew up in Idaholiterally worked his way into thegroup, lending a hand on the BigFish. Selfishly, he wanted to spend alittle more time around the “youngminds” he’d grown to appreciate;generously, he thought he mightplay the role of helper perhaps evenmentor. “They’re becoming a unit— a small patrol,” observesWoodland. “I think they could cap-ture and dominate anything theydecide to do.”

One might assume the main rea-son at artist would build a fishhouse that looks like a fish wouldbe to have the joy and challenge ofpainting it. Not Troy Mann, 21, afourth-year architecture studentand visual arts major fromDickinson, N.D. “This is the stuff Ilike,” he says, as he measures, cuts,fits, re-cuts and installs one of thecollapsible bunks in the Big Fish.Wood and metal are more hismedia as an artist; as a team mem-ber his tools are honesty, a sense ofhumor, and a rejection of absolutes.“I’m the agitator ... the instigator. Ilike to disagree and play devil’s

advocate,” Mann says. “Terry does that too. He says things like, ‘Whydon’t you do it the opposite way of how you do it, then you’ll know whatit is that you do.’ ’’ Or, as Mann remembers from a philosophy class: Tounderstand the antithesis is to understand the thesis.

The Big Fish is the antithesis of the Missouri River Project. Obvious.Gaudy. Humorous. Smack dab in the middle of Devils Lake’s fishing derbyone weekend in January and Shiver Fest another in February. People cometo have their pictures taken beside the Big Fish. Guys in earflap caps volun-teer to drill ice holes. A group of teenage fishermen from South Dakotadonate a Northern pike, which is hauled back to Fargo and tested as aprinting tool. Inspired, the team develops a printing project for kids, whichthey conduct during the Shiver Fest chili cook-off in the Devils Lake ElksLodge. To top it off, the team wins a Sony home stereo system in the fish-ing derby drawing (they donate it to the art department) and the Big Fishmakes newspapers across the state.

The media also covered the intimate exercise out west, and the creationwill last, but it will never draw crowds. “I don’t regret that the first projectwas not seen,” says Sondreal, voicing the team view. “I feel like it was theright project to do. It came from the land. It was so perfect. It was sosecluded. Our piece just reacted to that seclusion.”

The team’s final work will likely have more in common with the stonedisc than the wood fish. Maintaining the serendipitous water theme, acanoe trip is planned. Consensus is yet to be built on what they will create,but Jelsing says the students have the tools to design and execute the proj-ect themselves. “If you come from the kind of background in art theorythat looks at art and life as necessary equals, then the experiences they’vebeen part of so far would prepare them for conceiving a project and carry-ing it out to the end. What’s been most rewarding for me is seeing thestudents coming together and giving up some of their own individual egosfor the common good of the group. ... I think wherever these artists go,they will engage others in team art projects.”

Common Ground has profoundly affected the students. Each has a highpoint, a low point, a point of revelation. Each confesses a deeper apprecia-tion of the land because of the project. And each has exciting ideas of howthey will apply to their own work, both now and in the future, the lessonsof leadership, teamwork, art making and risk taking. But ask them — oneby one — what they believe is the Common Ground, and the answer is uni-fied: People. “If you didn’t have the people, you wouldn’t have CommonGround,” Mann says, “the six people in Common Ground, and the peoplethey affected, without that — in my mind — you wouldn’t have anything.”

—Catherine Bishop

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COMRADES IN GERMS:NDSU SCIENTIST SEEKS RUSSIAN HELP IN A QUEST FOR A BETTER ANTHRAX TEST

anthrax :

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ANTHRAX IS CAUSED BY BACILLUS ANTHRACIS, ABACTERIUM THAT FORMS SPORES. THE SPORESARE HARDY, CAPABLE OF WITHSTANDINGEXTREME TEMPERATURES AND SURVIVING IN THESOIL FOR DECADES, AND RELEASE TOXIC PRO-TEINS. THE NAME STEMS FROM ANTHRAKIS, THEGREEK WORD FOR COAL, BECAUSE THE SKINFORM OF THE DISEASE CAUSES BLACK LESIONSTHAT RESEMBLE COAL.

bolensk, a clearing in remote woods southwest of Moscow, is the site of ascientific city that has fallen into sad disrepair. The broken windows andgrime belie the significance of what once took place there. One building inparticular stands out among several drab structures enclosed by an electri-fied fence, an eight-story box of concrete and glass that houses a collectionof hundreds of bacterial strains, many of them genetically altered. BuildingOne, as it’s still known, served as the hub of a mammoth Sovietbioweapons program, which at its peak employed 60,000. Within theguarded complex, in one of the most closely kept secrets of the Cold War,Soviet scientists toiled for almost two decades. Their work produced break-throughs in germ warfare, including deadly neurotoxins, plague andanthrax made resistant to antibiotics.

Inside Building One, on a chilly afternoon last October, CharlieStoltenow sat at a library table among Russian scientists, some formerlyemployed in the Soviet Union’s biological weapons program, in a scientificexchange. Their meeting was interrupted when a man came in holding news

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pulled from the Internet, a CNNreport that a south Florida man haddied from inhaling anthrax, amidspreading fears that he was the vic-tim of a bioterrorism attack.Stoltenow, who knew a little ofObolensk’s dark history, asked ablunt question.

“Is this you guys? Are you doingthis?”

The Russian scientists looked ateach other — an unspoken conver-sation flickered between them,conveying surprise at the imperti-nence from the affable, beardedvisitor who days earlier had jok-ingly introduced himself as comingfrom the North American Siberia.

“Nyet, nyet,” came the answer,accompanied by awkward chuckles:No, no.

Stoltenow, an extension veterinar-ian at North Dakota StateUniversity, considered this responsefor a moment. Maybe he wasemboldened by the camaraderiethat had developed during the pre-ceding week of meetings,increasingly frank discussionssmoothed by small talk over vodkaand a trip to the Bolshoi ballet. Ormaybe he was thinking of the temp-tations that might have beendangled before some strugglingRussian scientist by someone will-ing to buy his deadly expertise. Hepressed further.

“How do I know this?” Againthe Russians exchanged wary looksbefore one of them, a senior scien-tist, answered for the group.

“Oh, comrade, if it was us, therewould be a lot more dead. Thislooks like the work of an amateuroperation.” More nervous laughterfollowed, this time from theAmericans as well, and then the

scientists went back to their work, adialogue exploring research possi-bilities of mutual benefit.Cooperation in defending againstanthrax attacks, in fact, was one ofthe agenda items in the scientificexchange that Stoltenow took partin, one of two recent delegations ofAmerican civilian scientists whomet with counterparts in Russia.The respected National ResearchCouncil sponsored both trips. Sincethe collapse of the Soviet Union in1991, the U.S. government has ledprograms aimed at keeping thearsenal of biological and nuclearweapons from falling into hostilehands. Even before last fall’sattacks, which killed five people,authorities were worried about thelethal use of anthrax, which wasavailable via mail order until themid-1990s.

Stoltenow, whose specialty is vet-erinary epidemiology, was selectedas part of a six-member team ofcivilian scientists that included fel-low veterinarians as well as severalmolecular biologists. Previousexchanges involved defense scien-tists, but the government wants tobroaden American-Russian collabo-rations. During Stoltenow’stwo-week visit, he was able to seefirst-hand how even elite Russianscientists must make do with work-ing conditions one would expect tofind in the Third World.Dilapidated buildings at Obolenskwere dotted with broken glasspanes, some replaced by boards oraluminum foil. For the first 10 days,Stoltenow’s hotel room had no heat.Obolensk had just two large apart-ment buildings, no business districtand few services. Within the sciencecompound, laboratories function

with outdated equipment. On atour of one lab, Stoltenow’s groupsaw an empty gin bottle under alab-bench ventilation hood. Mostsurprising, he says, was the factthat it was left out in the open,where it could be seen.

Earlier exchanges, involving U.S.military or other government scien-tists, often ended in mutualfrustration. Sometimes scientistsagreed to share information, onlyto be overruled by their superiors.Russian scientists, for instance,once agreed to provide copies oftheir arsenal of germs — specimensfrom Building One’s Museum ofCultures, a deadly collection ofplague, anthrax and tularemiamicroorganisms — but securityofficials nixed the idea. Almost fivedecades of Cold War hostility willnot evaporate overnight, in spite ofa warming in relations. The scien-tists work under watchful eyes.Case in point: Stoltenow learnedthat one of the Russian scientists, abalding, bearded man whose vagueexplanations of his duties seemed tochange daily, was, in fact, a spy forthe Russian equivalent of the FBI.The suspicion is mutual. While inMoscow, en route back to Fargo,Stoltenow encountered someAmerican military officers in aninternational hotel and joined themfor dinner. He told them about histalks with Russian counterparts,with hopes of cooperating to com-bat bioterrorism. The officersshrugged, saying such lofty work isbest left to civilians. “In two orthree years we could be at eachother’s throats — you never knowhow world politics will go,” hesays, quoting the officers’ reaction.

The changes have, indeed, been

PULMONARY ANTHRAX WAS FIRST DISCOVERED IN THE EARLY 19TH CENTURY, WHEN WORKERS IN A TEXTILE MILL BREATHED SPORESRELEASED BY NEW MANUFACTURING PROCESSES TO MAKE WOOL. IT WAS KNOWN AS WOOL SORTERS’ DISEASE.

ANTHRAX BACTERIA OCCUR NATURALLY THROUGHOUT MUCH OF THE GREAT PLAINS, INCLUDING AREAS OF NORTH DAKOTA AND SOUTHDAKOTA. SOME SCIENTISTS BELIEVE THE BACTERIA MIGRATED WITH CATTLE ON DRIVES FROM TEXAS, WHILE OTHER RESEARCHERSBELIEVE ANTHRAX CAME EARLIER, WITH THE ROAMING BISON.

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AN ANTHRAX INFECTION REQUIRES EXPOSURE TO BETWEEN 10,000 AND 20,000 SPORES, A MICROSCOPIC QUANTITY. AS SOON AS ANANTHRAX SPORE ENTERS THE BODY IT GERMINATES AND MULTIPLIES. WITHIN A FEW DAYS, THE BACTERIA PRODUCE TOXINS THAT CRIP-PLE THE ABILITY OF WHITE BLOOD CELLS TO FIGHT DISEASE.

THE PIN CUSHION PREVENTION: ANTHRAX VACCINE SHOTS MUST BE GIVEN SIX TIMES BEFORE THEY BECOME EFFECTIVE — THREE TIMESIN TWO-WEEK INTERVALS AND THREE TIMES IN SIX-MONTH INTERVALS, FOLLOWED BY YEARLY BOOSTERS. SO FAR, THE VACCINE IS NOTAVAILABLE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

(NO EXIT)

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staggering. During the late 1980s,at the peak of the Sovietbioweapons program, Obolenskteemed with a staff of 3,000 scien-tists and technicians. The numbertoday has dwindled to approxi-mately 1,000. Among those whoremain, even top scientists are paidthe equivalent of $500 a month.Stoltenow knows of one formerscientist who works as a construc-tion worker; another served as oneof their interpreters. In light of thewidespread poverty and lack ofjobs, Western officials worry thatsome unemployed Russian scien-tists might work for terrorists orrogue states.

“I asked them ‘where are theother 2,000,’ “ Stoltenow says ofthe scientists who left Obolensk.“They said ‘we don’t know.’ It waspretty scary. People are a pretty liq-uid commodity. What type ofinformation left — who knows?”

:

As demonstrated by last fall’sbioterrorism-by-mail attacks, thefirst evidence of a clandestineanthrax release is likely to bestricken patients turning up inemergency rooms, complaining ofsymptoms similar to pneumonia orother respiratory infections.Unfortunately, by the time symp-toms turn up in cases of inhaledanthrax, it is often too late for acure. The fatality rate of pulmonaryanthrax approaches 95 percent iftreatment doesn’t begin within 48hours of exposure. Blood culturetests are used to diagnose the dis-ease, usually evident within 6 to 24hours. Confirmatory immunologi-cal and microbiological tests cantake up to several days to provide a

definitive diagnosis. That leaves lit-tle margin for error.

However, Stoltenow says, thetests used for initial diagnosis ofanthrax are prone to false positiveresults, causing unnecessary panicand expense. Given those problems,he has assembled a team of scien-tists, Russian and American, tosearch for a new testing method foranthrax. The technique he proposeswould zero in on detecting what iscalled the lethal factor of anthrax, atoxic protein that must be presentfor the bacteria to cause a fatalexposure. Once inside a nutrient-rich environment — such as warm,moist lungs — the bacteria secretethe lethal factor and two other pro-teins, a protective antigen and anedema factor, which causes a rapidbuildup of fluids in the victim.Luckily, researchers have learnedthat anthrax with the lethal factordevelops a distinctive cleavage ofprotein enzymes once it establishesitself in a host; by targeting thatlong cleft, using biochemicalprocesses that “see” unique molec-ular shapes, Stoltenow and hiscolleagues hope to develop a morereliable medical test to confirm thepresence of anthrax.

Three prospective Russian col-leagues from Obolensk haveexpertise in virulent anthrax strainsand their proteins. His fourAmerican collaborators wouldinclude Lynn Rust, a microbiologistat NDSU; Eric Garber, a biochemistwith the U.S. Department ofAgriculture in Fargo; as well as adiagnostic molecular biologist withexpertise in developing test kitsfrom South Dakota State Universityand a Colorado veterinarian whosecompany is the sole supplier ofanthrax vaccines for livestock.

“Quite frankly I wanted to dosomething out of the Midwest,” Stoltenow says. “We’re smallschools, but we have excellent sci-entists.” His proposal, for fundingto bring the Russian and Americancollaborators together for an initialstrategy session in Washington,D.C., is pending before theDepartment of Defense. In addition,Stoltenow is formulating a secondresearch proposal, involvinganthrax monitoring and surveil-lance, to collaborate with acolleague who is an anthrax expertworking for the Russian equivalentof the Centers for Disease Control.The plan is to study environmentswhere anthrax occurs naturally —as it does in three pockets insideNorth Dakota as well as nearbynorthwest Minnesota — in thehope that someday it will be possi-ble to predict where outbreaksmight occur.

Stoltenow is pleased with the rap-port he has developed with hisRussian colleagues. He has bilin-gual business cards, with English onone side and Russian on the other,and keeps in regular contact withRussian colleagues via e-mail. “I’mvery encouraged about theRussians,” he says. “They werevery matter of fact, yet very open,”and many have sons and daughtersstudying in American universities.“We don’t have to fear theRussians.” Still, he would like tolearn more of the secrets keptinside Building One, which he fearsis a microbiological Pandora’s box.

“It would really be good if wecould know what’s in their arse-nal,” he says. “If we know what’sin there we could have a prettygood idea of what might haveslipped out of there.”

—Patrick Springer

workSarah Jacobson/AssociateProfessor/Business Administration

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playi

n July 2001 the White House announced that George W. Bush, some sixmonths into a presidential term entered by virtue of controversial elec-tion, would be spending the entire month of August on vacation at hisCrawford, Texas, ranch. The announcement was met by the press withderision apparently reflecting a sense that chopping wood and driving apickup around his property were inappropriate ways for a president tospend his time — vacation or not. Or, perhaps, their reaction came outof jealousy. At any rate, Bush stuck to his plan, and, despite a few briefpolitical junkets, maintained his retreat. Given the events of Sept. 11,

who among us would begrudge him that time?I paid particular attention to press reactions over the Bush vacation because at

the same time I was making last minute arrangements for a long anticipated devel-opmental leave. On Sept. 10, my retired husband and I were to depart Fargo tospend the fall semester in Europe. We planned to do a bit of traveling in Italybefore heading north to Finland where I would be working, and Jim would readhis way through a pile of books.

The previous year had been a particularly demanding one even for a person asessentially resilient as I. While I relished each activity, serving as presiding officerof the University Senate and embarking on a new research project, in addition tomy usual responsibilities, made for a busy year. Then, in January, we learned thatmy mother was dying of pancreatic cancer. My sister and I, indulging my mother’swish to die at home, served as her primary caregivers until her death in lateMarch. By summer I was more than grateful that my request for developmentalleave had been approved the previous fall. I was elated at the prospect of time theleave offered to read, reflect, write, redesign a couple of my courses and, on a per-sonal level, to renew my energy.

At the same time, however, I felt a nagging sense that I must be “getting awaywith something” — a peculiar pull between on the one hand the attraction of timeaway from the busy days and multiple responsibilities being a college professorimplies and, on the other, the sense that I really “should” spend the fall in myoffice conducting business as usual. Needless to say, this conflict was not seriousenough for me to abandon my plans. However, it was serious enough for me tofeel somewhat uncomfortable sharing the story of my good fortune easily withany but my closest friends and colleagues. What could be the matter with me?

Prompted by these feelings I read a book over the summer by Cindy Aron, a his-tory professor at the University of Virginia, called “Working at Play: A History ofVacations in the United States.” It is a fascinating read in which Aron chroniclesthe history of the vacation concept in the United States from the early 19th cen-tury forward. Aron argues that the American middle class, from the time of earlyindustrial development, has felt considerable tension between work and play. Onthe one hand, reaching a level of economic security that made vacations possible,was a highly valued goal of 19th and 20th century Americans. On the other hand,there has long been cultural suspicion and discomfort with the idea of leisure forleisure’s sake.

The end result has been twofold. First, long vacations like that of PresidentBush are uncommon and, when taken, suspect. Americans have been labeled themost “overworked nation in the world” surpassing even Japan. We seem proud ofthat fact. Until quite recently most companies, both large and small, allowed justtwo weeks of paid vacation for employees with less than five years of service.Today, while about half of all large companies offer three weeks, it is uncommon

for workers to take those weeks atone time. Contrast this withEuropean countries where almosteveryone is allotted four to sixweeks of vacation per year. ManyParisians, for example, depart forthe entire month of August fillingFrench highways and leaving thecity to tourists.

The second effect of our uneasyrelationship with leisure, and onethat has more to do with leavegranted to professors, is that whenAmericans vacation we take ourwork with us or, as Aron notes,“fashion vacations that substitutefor work.” Connected by laptop, e-mail, cell phone, fax and theFedEx truck, we Americans can lit-erally work anytime, anywhere.Many of us do — even on ourporch at the lake in the heat ofAugust. Or, instead, with the goal ofactive self-improvement, those of uswho can afford it may spend ourvacation time in service activitysomewhere around the globe, orlearning a new skill like cooking ora language, or exploring a particu-lar avocation like genealogy orarchaeology, or engaging in chal-lenge with long-distance bicycletrips or white water rafting or losingweight.

Reading the Aron book put myambivalence in perspective. Ithelped me to understand the sourceof my discomfort, which I elected todismiss and, prompted by theexcitement of the moment, I left forEurope with great anticipation andjoy. After all, I wasn’t abandoningmy work, I was just moving it toanother location!

Jim and I arrived in Amsterdamearly in the morning on Sept. 11and took a train north to Groningenwhere the NDSU College ofBusiness is in partnership with theuniversity. The purposes of our trip

The American middle class, from the time of early industrial development, has feltconsiderable tensionbetween work and play.

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to Groningen were to visit the university and to take two former exchange stu-dents out for a promised dinner. After arriving, we had lunch and then, becausewe were tired (a tourist class flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam will do thatto you) and needed to be fresh for the evening ahead, we decided to take a nap.We were awakened about 5:30 p.m. by the ringing of the telephone — a callfrom one of the professors I was to visit expressing his concern and sorrow overplanes having crashed into the World Trade Center. I remember saying, “Whata terrible accident!” My colleague replied, “No, I’m afraid it appears that it wasnot an accident at all but an act of terror.” We immediately turned on CNN andstayed pretty much glued to it, between appointments and tours, for the nextseveral weeks.

There was no way that day or for most of the next to reach our five grown chil-dren by telephone. However, early on Sept. 12 we went to the public library inGroningen where access to e-mail was available. It was a tremendous relief to finda way to contact our family, to know they were OK, and to let them know wewere too. Also, on that day, I was able to help the faculty and staff at the univer-sity by meeting with the American exchange students who had arrived in theNetherlands no more than a week before and who were, understandably, scaredto death. It seemed to help them to have an American adult around.

At first we thought we might abort our trip and head for home. It was unclearfrom that distance, as I understand it was here too, whether the attack was to bean isolated event or signaled more extensive violence. Our children encouraged usto come home as soon as possible. However, since flights to the United Stateswere grounded for several days, and subsequently overbooked to accommodateall of the Americans stranded in Amsterdam, there was literally no way to gethome. So we stayed on and flew to Milan, agreeing to re-evaluate our decisiondaily at first and later weekly. Before we knew it, it was December.

We are both glad we decided to stay. People in the countries we visited couldnot have been kinder or more supportive. The almost 60 percent drop inAmerican tourism in Europe over the fall made it possible to actually get withinviewing distance of the “David” in Florence and “The Lord’s Supper” in Milan.We joined flocks of other tourists from all over the world as well as a sizablegroup of citizens of Milan in the palatial and somber Duomo to silently mark theweek’s anniversary of the attack, emerging into brilliant sunlight and the pealing ofchurch bells throughout the city. It was a moving reminder of the solidarity of somany people around the world in the face of terror.

We spent five weeks in eastern Finland, taking long walks along the banks ofbeautiful lake Saima, observing the progress of autumn when I took breaks frommy work with a long-time colleague and collaborator at LappeenrantaTechnological University. We lived at the university, and I was loaned a bright,spacious and quiet office where I spent my days writing. My colleague and I con-ducted a research workshop for faculty and doctoral students, and I was a guestlecturer in several of her classes.

We took a train one weekend to St. Petersburg and attended two ballets. Weattended a symphony concert in Lahti and met its musical director, OsmoVanskaa, who is moving to the Minneapolis symphony. We spent our final weeksin Germany, where I taught an international business module at theBerufsakademie in Mosbach, a lovely town in the Neckar River Valley about 35kilometers from Heidelberg.

Over the fall, I accomplished all of the work I set out to do — the writing andthe planning of new research and the course revisions, the chance to talk about myideas, and the chance to teach in a new venue. Jim managed to finish most of the

books he planned to read. The tripwas a perfect combination of workand play.

We were very happy and relievedwhen our plane landed at Hectorfield, glad to be home, but incredi-bly grateful for our experiences.

In January, I returned to the class-room feeling “re” freshed and “re”created — exactly the way one issupposed to feel after leave. Alongthe way, however, the two of us alsolearned some important life lessonsthat we did not expect to learn atour ages. From the Italian rail sys-tem that mysteriously goes on strikeevery Sunday, we learned patienceand flexibility and the value of giv-ing up thoughts of being in control.After pulling heavy duffels and lug-ging sizable carry-on luggage forseveral weeks, we discovered thevirtue of economy, keeping onlyitems we absolutely had to have,and sending the rest home.

We learned humility as we strug-gled to be understood in a series of unfamiliar and often incompre-hensible languages — it is not truethat everyone in Europe speaksEnglish, especially in Russia. A driv-ing tour around St. Petersburg withits depressing apartment complexesfrom the period natives call “thetime of stagnation” offered the les-son of appreciation for all that weso often take for granted.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, wecame to appreciate in a dramaticway the fragile interconnectednessof this world and the precious com-monality of human experience.Most of all we experienced theessence of time well spent andincredible gratitude that I am ableto do work that I love that offersthis kind of opportunity. No moreambivalence about that for me.

Aron, Cindy S. (1999). “Working at Play: A Historyof Vacations in the United States.” New York:Oxford Press.

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