Four area businesses have donated essential baking ingredients to the NDSCS Culinary Arts department. These ingredients provide significant support for the department by supplying frequently-used ingredients for the program’s baking projects, while giving students the opportunity to bake using locally sourced products.

“We teach our students that great products can be found a short distance from your back door,” said NDSCS Culinary Arts Associate Professor Kyle Armitage. “This is a large movement happening in food service. The focus on using local products is great for the environment as well as the producers. Now our students have the opportunity to learn and practice with ingredients from right here in the Red River Valley.”

The donated products include:

• 2000 pounds of sugar from Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative of Wahpeton, N.D. This extra-fine sugar donation will provide for the department’s baking projects for approximately two years. Armitage noted the easy ability of this sugar to dissolve without over mixing.
• 20 gallons of corn syrup from Cargill of Wahpeton, N.D. This product will be used in baking units for the program, as well as by the student-led Chef’s Club, which will use the corn syrup in pecan pies for its annual pie sale.
• 50+ pounds of fresh baker’s yeast from Lallemand Inc. of Wahpeton, N.D. This contribution will supply all of the department’s yeast needs for the academic year. The yeast will be used for the program’s bread unit, and for any yeast doughs made for the 6^th Street Eatery in the spring.
• 300+ pounds of high protein bread flour from Ardent Mills in Fairmount, N.D. The flour is made from red spring wheat harvested in this region, and will be used for bread, sweet yeast doughs, pizza and pasta. This will supply the department’s bread flour needs for the year.

“We are so thankful for these generous donations of ingredients that we would typically need to purchase on a regular basis for our day-to-day program needs,” said Armitage. “We have wonderful support from our community. This fall, community members provided 800 pounds of apples for our students to use in baking projects. We hope to continue to grow and expand these partnerships to provide even more value for our students.”

The NDSCS Culinary Arts program provides students with a broad range of skills and experience that enables them to be employed in a variety of careers within the food service and hospitality industry. Additional information about the program can be found online at ndscs.edu/culinary.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) is partnering with North Dakota State College of Science and eight other Midwest community colleges to support hands-on student learning in the field, to develop future conservation-minded farmers and ranchers, and to cultivate more graduates interested in pursuing careers with NRCS.

Today, NDSCS President John Richman, together with representatives of the Community College Alliance for Agriculture Advancement (C2A3) and NRCS, held a virtual ceremony to formally sign a national memorandum of understanding to develop a cooperative framework to enhance and accelerate training and adoption of technologies and best practices for improved agricultural productivity and natural resources stewardship.

“We are extremely pleased to partner with NRCS to provide access for our students to new soil management and agronomic practices, resources and technical expertise,” said NDSCS Vice President for Academic Affairs Harvey Link. “This partnership recognizes the important role NDSCS plays in providing technical education in multiple agricultural areas. It will allow us to partner with other two-year colleges throughout the Midwest to share resources and best practices that will benefit our students, while also helping the NRCS further its mission.”

All C2A3 member institutions, including NDSCS, have land labs or college farms and are able to utilize their land resources for the implementation of conservation practices on the ground to help educate and inform students and producers. The goal of the cooperative agreement between the entities is to not only accelerate the adoption of conservation practices through the education of current, two-year agriculture students, but to also disseminate information to the broader community through field days and other college events and partnerships.

In addition, the colleges are utilizing the network to share resources, knowledge and expertise. Collectively, they are working on a grant through USDA’s North Central Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, which seeks to increase awareness, knowledge and skills related to soil health, cover crops and no till agriculture. The development of content such as videos and case studies for the classroom is a critical component to help illustrate concepts of profitability, sustainability and productivity. These assets will be shared across the network for the benefit of all member institutions.

“Community colleges educate nearly half of all undergraduate students in this country and yet, our agriculture programs have been an under-utilized resource within USDA,” said Dr. Tracy Kruse, C2A3 board chair. “A majority of our students are the producers in fields. They are technicians in our local co-ops and implement dealers; and they are our agronomy and seed sales professionals. Through these efforts, we hope more of them will also become the soil health specialists and conservationists for local NRCS offices.”

The C2A3 collaboration was born out of a mutual desire to provide more ongoing education, training and demonstration projects to future farm producers and agricultural service providers with the goal of improving the health, and therefore the long-term productivity, resilience and sustainability of the soil.

“We hope that this pilot will grow over time to include more partners and more institutions,” said Jimmy Bramblett, deputy chief of programs for NRCS. “The more successful we are, the more likely we are to drive further innovation and adoption of practices and impact the long-term sustainability of our nation’s resources.”

In addition to NDSCS, C2A3 member institutions include Central Lakes College (Staples, Minn.), Clark State Community College (Springfield, Ohio), Illinois Central College (Peoria, Ill.), Ivy Tech Community College (Lafayette, Ind.), Northcentral Technical College (Wausau, Wis.), Northeast Community College (Norfolk, Neb.), Northeast Iowa Community College (Calmar, Iowa), and Richland Community College (Decatur, Ill.).

For more information about C2A3, visit the organization’s website at agalliance.net.

By Tri-College University

There is no doubt that 2020 has presented challenges without precedent. Academic challenges, nimbleness and creativity have been at the forefront in higher education. The campus faculty and the students were dramatically affected by limited physical access to the campuses due to COVID-19. Faculty had to quickly and expertly switch from students in the seats and side by side in labs to a distance instructional model. This dramatic shift to essentially migrate to 100% online platforms in a period of generally only two weeks ignited the spirit of creativity and collaboration by dedicated faculty.

To honor and hold up faculty members who successfully transitioned from traditional in class instruction to alternative distance delivery options, Tri-College University has awarded Tri-College University Excellence in Innovation and Adaptive Education Awards.

Benjamin Whitmore from North Dakota State College of Science was selected for the award for his excellence, innovation, creativity and successful use of advanced technology in producing high quality education under the challenge of limited time allowed for successful transition to a fully distance delivery classroom as a result of the global pandemic.

“Education faculty were challenged with developing new delivery systems over a very short period to ensure quality instruction prevailed over the challenges presented by COVID-19 limitations. Educators performed this task with amazing results and ensured that students stayed on track to achieve their academic goals. Benjamin has the additional challenge in that this occurred during his first year of full-time instruction,” said Tri-College Provost Tim Flakoll.

These commendation awards will help highlight excellence, inspire creativity and fuel how we will deliver excellent instruction in the future.

Tri-College University partnered with Xcel Energy to provide five (5) awards, one at each of the partner campuses of Concordia College, MSUM, NDSU, M State and NDSCS. Award recipients received a plaque and cash award.

Tri-College University is a partnership who this year celebrates their 50^th anniversary. Their partner campuses represent approximately 35,000 full and part time students.

The North Dakota State College of Science 2020 football season has been cancelled, as the College’s football conference, the Minnesota College Athletic Conference (MCAC), announced today that it will limit its fall sports to those that have been identified as low-risk as it relates to COVID-19.

The decision to cancel the season only impacts NDSCS’s football program. The NDSCS Clay Target team also competes under the MCAC; however, that sport has been identified by the conference as low-risk and will continue this fall. The NDSCS volleyball team is a member of the Mon-Dak Conference, and is not directly impacted by today’s MCAC announcement.

“We are disappointed that our 2020 football season has been cancelled; however, we recognize this was a difficult decision for the MCAC,” said NDSCS Athletics Director Stu Engen. “We are committed to supporting our student athletes as they navigate the impacts this will have, and we look forward to the return of Wildcat football in 2021.”