Distinguished Alumni to be honored at MSUM Homecoming

Distinguished Alumni to be honored at MSUM Homecoming

The MSUM Foundation will recognize accomplished alumni at the Night of Distinction Oct. 12

Five Dragons are making an impact in the fields of mathematics, psychology, political science, technology and journalism. The Minnesota State University Moorhead Foundation will honor them for significant contributions to their professions and communities at the Night of Distinction on Oct. 12 during the university’s Homecoming Week festivities.

Each recipient exemplifies the high standards we expect from MSUM graduates and has made significant contributions to the communities where they reside and work.

Honored with the Distinguished Alumni Awards are Stacey Benson ’90, Tim Connolly ’78 and Lonni Schultz ’82. Jennifer Glenski ’13 will receive the Outstanding Young Alumni Award. Dr. Andrew Conteh will receive the Outstanding Service Award.

We are proud of our alumni’s successes and MSU Moorhead’s role in their lives.

Distinguished Alumni Awards

Mass communications alum Tim Connolly ’78 was a career journalist who worked at newspapers across the country, landing at The Dallas Morning News, where he worked for over 30 years as an assistant news editor, reporting internationally from Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Belize, Bahamas, China, Hong Kong and Indonesia. Connolly worked with the wire services and the news staff resources dedicated to the Mexico/Texas border region to coordinate national, foreign and immigration-related reports. Connolly recently stepped away from the desk and busy schedule of being a full-time journalist and is adjusting to retirement. Read more about Tim Connolly.

Computer science and mathematics alumna Lonni Schultz ’82 is a senior research biostatistician in the Department of Public Health Sciences at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Mich., where she is the section head for the Design and Biostatistics Core within the department. She has authored/co-authored more than 160 medical publications, serves on the hospital’s Internal Review Board (IRB), has served on numerous National Institutes of Health scientific review study sections, and is a permanent standing member of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke study section. Read more about Lonni Schultz.

President and CEO of Benson Psychological Services Stacey Benson ’90 is a psychology alum and a forensic psychologist specializing in risk assessments, training corrections departments in 10 states, and testifying in state, federal, and military court. In 2014, she co-founded the Sex Offender Treatment and Assessment of North Dakota, a nonprofit teaching men and women coming out of the prison system the skills they need to reintegrate into the community and make choices incompatible with causing harm. Read more about Stacey Benson.

Outstanding Young Alumni Award

Mathematics graduate Jennifer Glenski ’13 is a rising leader in AI and technology, with experience leading impactful technology projects that have uncovered cutting-edge trends, and critical gaps in medical research, and will be used to advance the fields of research with targeted funding. With a background in machine learning, she now leads data and AI product management in BMC Software’s Innovation Lab, helping the companies that the world runs on do business more effectively. Read more about Jennifer Glenski.

Outstanding Service Award

Political science Professor Andrew Conteh taught at MSUM for 31 years before retiring in 2017. The Sierra Leone native and specialist in international relations and international law was Sierra Leone’s ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1976 to 1981, was a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, and was senior assistant secretary in Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was integral in developing MSUM’s prestigious Student Academic Conference, which celebrated its 25th year in 2023 and was renamed in his honor in 2017. Read more about Andrew Conteh.