News

Planetarium Director, Sara Schultz and Art Professor Brad Bachmeier were granted $9,000 to work in guiding art and science students to research and execute educationally accurate and visually dynamic murals to renovate the hallway entrance and walls for the planetarium. With this phase finished, Art students will now work with Youth Educational Services Art Teacher Karen Anderson and her students this fall in completing Phase 2.  Stop by and check out the impact of the amazing new and colorful murals.

Free viewing begins at 11:30 a.m. on MSUM campus 

The Great American Eclipse marks the first day of classes at Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM) Monday, Aug. 21. Most Americans with clear skies will be able to observe a total or partial solar eclipse. Fargo-Moorhead will experience a partial solar eclipse with just over 80 percent of the sun being blocked from view.

Solar eclipses occur when the moon passes directly between the Earth and the sun, casting a shadow that hits the Earth’s surface. Since it is never safe to look directly at the sun, MSUM’s Department of Physics and Astronomy is holding a viewing on campus.  Read the rest of this entry →

Please join us in welcoming the following employees to Minnesota State University Moorhead! Make sure to stop by their departments to say hello and let them know it’s a GREAT day to be a Dragon! 

July 28, 2017

• Bertha Vasquez – Art Gallery Director, College of Arts, Media, and Communication (Re-hire)

 July 31, 2017

• Melissa Dingmann – Director of Financial Aid & Scholarships, Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships

August 1, 2017

• Sara Schultz – Planetarium Director, College of Science, Health & the Environment (Re-hire) 

August 7, 2017

• Mikaela Scullen – Early Education Center Teacher, Early Education Center (Re-hire)
• Kristen Fildes – Early Education Center Teacher, Early Education Center
• Karisa Gratton – Early Education Center Teacher, Early Education Center
• Ryan Koehler – Graphic Arts Specialist (Graphic Designer), Marketing & Communications

July 18-20 four MSUM Physics and Astronomy students attended and presented at the Live Interactive Planetarium Symposium at Ball State University in Muncie, IN.  Melissa Foley, Boston Heaford, Jane Glanzer and Elizabeth Dougherty, along with Planetarium Director Sara Schultz,  presented their work on developing science content and programming for the planetarium. The conference was focused on engaging and educating planetarium audiences in a wide variety of ways including presentation skills and interpreting complex data sets for general audiences.  The development work was funded in part by the Strong Summer Research Internship.

Sara Schultz, Planetarium Director, and Juan Cabanela, Physics/Astronomy Faculty, have been awarded an American Astronomical Society (AAS) grant to support 2017 Great North American Eclipse outreach. The grant will include partnerships with YES School, FM Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, CHARISM, and the public libraries of Fargo and West Fargo. It will support the purchase of solar scopes and eclipse model kits for each participating organization as well as a planetarium show on the physics behind and safe viewing techniques of a Solar Eclipse.

The Great American Solar Eclipse will happen on August 21, 2017. The entire U.S. will be able to see some degree of solar eclipse (where the Moon blocks out some or all of the Sun) while a narrow band stretching from Oregon to South Carolina will experience a TOTAL eclipse. For more information go here: https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/​.

Last week, Planetarium Director Sara Schultz represented MSUM at the Great Lakes Planetarium Association annual conference. She attended a pre-conference workshop focused on live and interactive planetarium presentation as well as presented on current work with students to build an LED lighting system for the planetarium.  Read the rest of this entry →

For the first time, MSUM students presented at the Great Lakes Planetarium Society held in Flint, Mich., last week. Dana Koczur and Anthony Woltman from the Department of Physics and Astronomy were the first students to attend the annual conference and present on the research they completed over the summer under a Strong Endowment grant.  Read the rest of this entry →

Sara Schultz, Physics and Astronomy, and Brian Wisenden, Biosciences, and two MSUM students, Randy Sutrisno and Phil Schotte, had a paper accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed journal Ecology of Freshwater Fish. The title of their paper is “Fin-flicking behaviour as a means of cryptic olfactory sampling under threat of predation.” This is Sutrisno’s “Fish Whisperer” third peer-reviewed paper as an MSUM undergraduate researcher, and Schotte’s second.

College for Kids received $3,000 from the Lake Region Arts Council for the Legacy Arts and Cultural Heritage grant. The grant will be used to provide scholarships and funding for College for Kids art classes. This activity is funded by the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on Nov. 4, 2008. Read the rest of this entry →

Dave Weinrich, planetarium coordinator, recently presented a paper “Digital Skies at MSU Moorhead” at the annual meeting of the Wisconsin Iowa Minnesota Planetarium Society (WIMPS). Thirty planetarium professionals, including Scarlet Bernard and Sara Schultz, from MSUM attended the two-day meeting at Southwest Minnesota State University. Next year the MSUM Planetarium will host the event.