MSUM professor to receive University’s Corrick Spirit Award
Ryan Jackson, a 1995 Minnesota State University Moorhead graduate who’s now an assistant professor of music/technology at MSUM, has been named the recipient of the 13th annual Delmar G. Corrick Spirit and Vision Award. Jackson also owns Rj Ryan Productions, where he engineers and composes individual artist projects and custom musical compositions, and offers acoustical and technological consulting and installation to organizations, as well as professional audio facilities.
The award is presented by the faculty of MSUM’s Corrick Center for General Education to a graduate who exemplifies the spirit of Corrick, who retired in 1997 after 21 years at the university, 16 of them as director of the Corrick Center.
Corrick’s egalitarian vision of higher education and his belief in the potential of the human spirit prompted the Corrick Center to create an award in his honor.
An award ceremony honoring Jackson is scheduled at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 23 in MSUM’s King Hall Auditorium.
The Corrick Center is an alternative entry program at MSUM, established for students who don’t meet the university’s requirements for admission, but show promise to succeed in college.
Originally from Edgeley, N.D., Jackson is thankful for his experience with the Corrick Center and says that he owes much of his success to the faculty’s guidance.
“I had a friend who also had been admitted through the Corrick Center a few years earlier than me and he said it was the best thing that could happen,” Jackson said. “A lot of people have the misconception that the Corrick Center is easy. It’s not. It’s geared toward students who may not know how to study or may need an extra hand. If it were up to me, the Corrick Center would be a first year experience for all students.”
Jackson earned a bachelor’s degree in music with an emphasis in audio engineering, keyboard, and vocal performance, and a master’s degree in music technology in 2007.
He started playing music professionally at age 12, and began to freelance as an audio engineer as an undergraduate. After graduation, Jackson worked four years as a recording engineer with Media Productions in Fargo. He then worked one year with Original Sound Records in Hollywood as a contract administrator and audio engineer before returning to Media Productions and starting his own production company, Rj Ryan Productions. He has worked with EMI-Capitol Records, Island Def Jam, HBO, MTV, ESPN, DreamWorks, Twentieth Century Fox News, and Microsoft, among many others. 
Jackson has received eight “Addy” and “Tele” awards from the American Adverstising Federation. The Addy award is the world’s largest advertising competition.
He joined the MSUM faculty as a fixed-term instructor in 2004 and was named assistant professor in the music industry department three years later.
“I’ve really been a Dragon since I was a sophomore in high school because I knew MSUM had the program I wanted,” Jackson said. “Our university can, at times, be incredibly underrated. It’s nice to be a part of changing that perception. My colleague Simon Rowe and I have done everything we can possibly do to make MSUM’s music industry program the premiere educational experience for a program of this type in the region. I am extremely proud to have such wonderful colleagues at such a wonderful place!”