The Imagine Tomorrow campaign has more than doubled the scholarships awarded by Bemidji State University since 2011, and it also is making possible dramatic advances in the learning environment for students in mass communications.

Stacey Kaslon

Major: mass communications
Hometown: Holdrege, Neb.

Stacey Kaslon figured she’d go to college in her native Nebraska — or perhaps in Iowa. Either way, it would be on her dime, with help from scholarships.

Minnesota wasn’t in the picture before a Bemidji State brochure came in the mail and kept drawing her in, she said. While living at home and working in retail for a year after high school, Kaslon checked out BSU.

She discovered the university doesn’t charge out-of-state tuition. Furthermore, its generous merit scholarships would reward her high school success with $2,000 in annual, renewable scholarships.

Kaslon’s test scores, GPA and class rank were strong, though not off the charts. BSU valued them, and that’s why she’s at BSU today.

“I was up there (in rank), but I wasn’t the elite,” she said, “so it was nice to know I could get some benefit from my hard work.”

BSU’s mass communication department suited Kaslon’s demands for well-rounded training. But her two academic scholarships — funded through the Imagine Tomorrow campaign — are what made the difference, she said.

This summer, Kaslon hopes to publish freelance writing in Nebraska Land magazine and earn money shooting senior photos As a sophomore in the fall, she will be co-editor of the student magazine, Northern Student, and work as a community assistant in Pine Hall.

Davis Mills

Major: nursing
Hometown: Stephens

Nursing was supposed to be a means to an end — medical school — when Davis Mills transferred to Bemidji State from Northland Community and Technical College.

He graduated in May as planned with a baccalaureate in nursing and a minor in psychology.

But instead of seeking a medical degree, Mills is preparing to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner. He was accepted into an online graduate program at St. Scholastica University in Duluth that will include hands-on experience at the Stadter Center in Grand Forks, N.D.

“I ended up really falling in love with nursing,” he said.

Along the way, in addition to being BSU’s 2015 Homecoming King, Mills has received a BSU alumni scholarship (his dad and an aunt are BSU grads), an academic scholarship, a departmental scholarship in nursing and a David & Kathryn Sorensen Leadership Scholarship.

With additional money earned officiating and coaching high school athletics, he said he can pay his own way, as his parents did before him.

“I really made it an issue to make sure I paid for my own college just like they did,” Mills said. “I pay everything out of pocket and have no student loans.”

Receiving scholarship support “makes you want to cry because of how hard you work,” he said. “It really makes you feel good about yourself.”

Tammy Shoots

Major: indigenous native nations
Hometown: Keewatin

A 44-year-old mother of three who has worked many years providing care to foster children with special needs, Tammy Shoots has discovered her future at Bemidji State by exploring her past as an Ojibwe Indian.

Shoots plans to complete a minor, as yet undetermined, that complements her degree in indigenous native nations and will seek a job with a tribal nation, possibly out of state.

Before coming to Bemidji State, she completed her associate of arts degree at Hibbing Community College. Her grades at BSU have put her on the Dean’s List every semester, and her 4.0 last spring landed her on the President’s List.

Even better, the BSU Financial Aid office informed her last fall that her success as a non-traditional student had earned her a scholarship endowed by Jack and Delphine Jacobsen of Bemidji.

“It was a shock they would just call and offer it to me,” Shoots said. “I’ve used the money to pay for my books, which helped me a lot.”

In April, she was recognized by the university’s American Indian Resource Center for all the hard work reflected in her cumulative GPA of 3.76.

With a year to go, Shoots plans to continue commuting to Keewatin on weekends, working as a care assistant and at McDonald’s and somehow making time for her kids.

“I’m ready for a career change,” she said.

Mass Communications Reinvention

Deputy Hall

Infusion of $250,000 from an unrestricted gift to the Imagine Tomorrow campaign is taking new facilities for Bemidji State’s Department of Mass Communications from Chevrolet to Cadillac.

Combining those funds with $750,000 from the university will enable creation of a fully integrated multimedia learning environment on the second floor of Deputy Hall, transforming the student experience.

Work is scheduled for completion this fall on the new space that combines a former student production space with studios vacated last year by Lakeland Public Television, said department chair Dr. Virgil Bakken.

“It’s an integrated multimedia space for students in radio, print and TV all in the same area, sharing electronic resources and working together,” Bakken said. “It’s a big deal.”

Two new interactive classrooms will greatly expand multimedia learning, and new technology will facilitate broadcast of BSU events from the Sanford Center and campus locations, he said.

Guidance on the project and curriculum came from Dr. Michael Bugeja of Iowa State University’s Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication.