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Education

• M.L.S. (Master of Liberal Studies), University of Minnesota
• M.S., English, Bemidji State University
• B.S., English Education, University of Minnesota

Biographical Information

Louise Mengelkoch has taught journalism, English and interdisciplinary studies at BSU since 1988. She currently teaches a variety of courses, including mass media & society, communication law, media ethics, interdisciplinary honors courses, people & the environment, and politics and the media.

Her writing, focusing on public affairs, social and environmental issues, has been published in a newspapers and magazines that include Columbia Journalism Review, Z Magazine, Minnesota Law & Politics, the Star Tribune and the Seattle Times. She is currently actively involved in a citizen journalism Website initiative started by KAXE Community Radio.

She co-edited Native American Wisdom, New World Library, 1991. Her academic articles include "Journalism for a Just Society: Why the Philosophy of Traditional Journalism is Better for Our Democracy than the Philosophy of Civic Journalism," in Media, Profit and Politics: Competing Priorities in an Open Society, ed. by Joseph Harper and Thom Yantek, Kent State University Press, 2003. She has published three volumes of student travel writing entitled The Journey That Matters under the auspices of the BSU Press.

Louise has served as academic director for study-abroad programs to Europe, Hawaii, Washington, D.C., and to National Political Conventions. She has been a faculty leader and campus liaison for The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars for more than ten years.

Her professional memberships include the National Society of Experiential Education (NSEE), The Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ), Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).

Louise is a co-founder of the first two charter schools in the Bemidji area. Schoolcraft Learning Community serves 165 K-8 students at the Internationally renowned Concordia Language Villages and TrekNorth Charter High School serves 160 students near downtown Bemidji. She is the recipient of the 2002 Community Builder award from the Northwest Minnesota Women's Fund.

Louise lives in rural Bemidji with her husband, author Kent Nerburn, and Sid, their senior citizen cat and Lucie, their yellow lab. They have four grown children and one grandchild, who is, of course, above average.