Congratulations to our 2026 Dragon Excellence Award Winners!
There were many outstanding nominees this year, with a total of 55 nominations in four categories. Thank you to all of those who nominated colleagues. Letters were sent to all nominees and nominators, which included the nomination information. What a great way to recognize outstanding service to the university and community.
Nominations are reviewed and finalists recommended by campus colleagues with Cabinet selecting this year’s winners.
Dr. Julia Poplin: Academic Excellence & Innovation
Dr. Poplin was recognized for her creative activities that elevate student achievement and ensure student success through rigorous curriculum, innovative pedagogy, or student engagement. Here are excerpts from the nomination:
- As one of five AI Faculty Fellows, she is helping to lead the charge on campus to transform how students learn, preparing them to be better teachers through the responsible use of AI. She incorporates project-based and problem-based assessments – assignments that AI can’t answer – so students must demonstrate true understanding rather than memorization.
- Julia is also known for creative, highly engaging demonstrations of AI in action. During the fall State of the University event, she presented a prompt that transformed ChatGPT into a middle school student, showcasing how pre‑service teachers can practice classroom management in a simulated, low‑stakes digital environment.
- Julia’s creativity also shines through in her leadership of Become a Teacher Day… she fine-tuned the day’s agenda to be more interactive, adding hands-on activities such as creating personalized teaching supply kits. She is now piloting a new, outward facing model, taking Become a Teacher Day on the road to high schools across the region. This flipped recruitment strategy introduces younger students to the teaching profession and strengthens the pipeline of future educators choosing Moorhead for their teacher training.
Dr. Ben Druffel: Collaboration
Dr. Druffel was recognized for his cross-campus collaboration, focusing on programming and processes that lead to greater opportunities for students, employees and the university. Here are excerpts from the nomination:
- His leadership extends well beyond traditional responsibilities, offering performances, programming, and musical experiences late into evenings and across weekends. He regularly travels across the state and beyond to bring music, mentorship, and meaningful engagement to communities near and far, serving as a visible ambassador for MSUM wherever he goes.
- Regardless of background or prior musical experience, students flourish under his mentorship. He creates belonging first, and from that belonging, confidence, discipline, and artistry follow.
- Dr. Druffel does not position himself above his students. He plays alongside them, learns with them, and models lifelong musicianship in action. He attends their events, celebrates their accomplishments, and roots for them in ways that extend far beyond the rehearsal hall. Students know that his investment in them is genuine.
- Dr. Druffel seeks out and secures paid performance opportunities within the community, inviting Dragon musicians to perform alongside him and develop professional experience while supporting themselves financially. In doing so, he bridges university preparation with real-world opportunity and helps students envision viable futures in their craft. He does not simply prepare musicians. He cultivates professionals.
Karen Qualey: Community Engagement
Dr. Karen Qualey was recognized for her instrumental work in our communities to position Moorhead as the university of choice and affirm our vital role in the region. Her leadership and passion tackle important economic and social issues facing the region. Here are excerpts from the nomination:
- Karen sits at one of the most consequential intersections on our campus: the place where access, technology, equity, and learning all meet. What Karen has built here extends well beyond any single role or credential. She has served as the campus lead on MSUM’s AI initiatives during one of the most consequential and complex moments in higher education, helping to facilitate more than 36 AI-related workshops, trainings, and regional presentations, and stewarding the two-year community of practice that brought together faculty, staff, and administrators from across the institution to grapple with AI’s implications together.
- She helped envision and build the formative infrastructure of MSUM’s Institute of Applied AI, doing so with the steady, behind-the-scenes leadership that made everyone else’s work possible. When the institute was announced to position MSUM as the strategic AI leader in the region, it was Karen’s groundwork that made that announcement credible.
- She has run the Coursera workgroup and expanded accessibility options through our D2L learning platform, ensuring that students across our community have pathways to learning that do not depend on geography, circumstance, or prior advantage.
Ralf Mehnert-Meland: Student Engagement
Ralf Mehnert-Meland was recognized for creating meaningful student experiences that engage, inspire, and foster a strong sense of belonging and cultivate Dragon pride. Here are excerpts from the nominations:
- Ralf’s tireless dedication to student success is evidenced by his leadership in high-impact experiential learning, international engagement, and professional development initiatives that align perfectly with the MSUM mission.
- Ralf led a DECA team to the International Career Development Competition in San Francisco, where 13 Dragons were recognized as finalists or top performers among 1,300 competitors. Notably, he mentored Anna Egeland to a second-place international finish in Entrepreneurship Operations. Such success has a big impact on high school students who are involved/interested in DECA when they make their decision to join MSUM for college education.
- He was instrumental in hosting MSUM’s first “Dragon’s Lair” competition, engaging student entrepreneurs from over a dozen different majors in a rigorous professional pitch environment judged by regional experts.
- Recognizing that success requires more than technical knowledge, Ralf organized the school’s first etiquette dinner. This event provided over 70 students with essential tools for navigating formal business environments, a practice the PSB now plans to offer annually.
- Ralf led 23 students on a high-impact study tour of South Korea and Japan. This experience combined cultural immersion with deep industrial insights through visits to major global firms like Ernst & Young, AmorePacific, and Doosan Enerbility.