South Dakota State University

Nick Lange, a music education major at South Dakota State University, will present his junior recital at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 24, in the Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center's Founders Recital Hall on the SDSU campus.

Haley Dahl, a senior majoring in music education, will present her senior recital at 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 22, in the Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center's Founders Recital Hall on the South Dakota State University campus.

Two South Dakota State University School of Design seniors will display their Bachelor of Fine Arts thesis exhibition in the Ritz Gallery on campus for the next two weeks. The public exhibit, "Tangibly False," features the work of Cassidy Hunt and Matthew Scott, including printmaking, drawing, sculpture and other works on canvas. These works explore themes of life and existence and are on display from Oct. 16-27.

The Friday, Sept. 22, presentation of Puccini's "La Boheme" brings an internationally-recognized opera troupe to South Dakota State University. Designed to demystify the art form and present accomplished musicians both on stage and in the pit orchestra, the show will provide opportunities for 30 Jackrabbit students to perform in the world's most frequently presented opera.

The following students graduated after the spring 2023 semester at South Dakota State University. More than 1,400 students completed all requirements for a degree and/or certificate program, and those requirements have been verified by the appropriate college. Overall, students from 27 states and 20 nations graduated following the spring 2023 semester. More than 50 students received two or more degrees or certificates from a college.

More than 3,000 students were recognized for their outstanding academic performance over the spring 2023 semester at South Dakota State University by being named to the dean's list. To earn dean's list distinctions in SDSU's colleges, students must have completed a minimum of 12 credits and must have earned at least a 3.5 GPA on a 4.0 scale. Students with F, I, U, RI or RU grades are not eligible regardless of system term GPA attained. Note that this report includes courses that were taken at other South Dakota institutions this term. A minimum of 12 credits within the 100-699 course range must be taken. A student who passes pregeneral education courses may still qualify, if the student has 12 other credits that do fall within the 100-699 range. Overall, 3,043 students from 37 states and 20 foreign nations are on the list. More than 1,300 students received a 4.0 GPA, and those are indicated with an asterisk. Congratulations to these distinguished scholars on earning this academic achievement.

South Dakota State University has pulled out another national championship-this one in the field of quarter-scale tractors. While the football team grabbed a lot of attention with its first-ever Football Championship Series national title in January, the students on the quarter-scale tractor team brought home national honors for the second year in a row and third time in the past five years. They were competing in the International Quarter-Scale Tractor Student Design Competition organized by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, which held the annual contest June 1-4 at the Expo Gardens Fairgrounds in Peoria, Illinois.

South Dakota State University engineering students used down-to-earth knowledge to design an out-of-this-world lunar transport vehicle which won them a NASA-sponsored contest. The SDSU team was one of 15 teams selected as a finalist in NASA'S Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts - Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) competition. Finalists were grouped in four categories. SDSU was one of four universities chosen as finalists in the Lunar Surface Transporter Vehicle category along with Maryland, Texas and Virginia Tech.

South Dakota State University held its annual Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity Day April 20 in the University Student Union's Volstorff Ballroom. In addition to selecting top student performances, the university announced the recipients of the Schultz-Werth Awards and the Joseph F. Nelson Undergraduate Research Mentorships. URSCAD is organized by SDSU's Van D. and Barbara B. Fishback Honors College.

Tackling a complicated bridge-building project with an inexperienced crew, a group of civil engineering students from South Dakota State University figured out how to span the Sweetwater River near San Diego and qualified for a national competition. The American Society of Civil Engineers began the student steel bridge competition in 1987, challenging student teams to develop a scale-model steel bridge to fit a given hypothetical environment. Each team must determine how to design and fabricate a bridge and then plan for an efficient assembly under timed construction at a competition. Bridges are then load-tested and weighed. SDSU students competed in the Mid-America Student Symposium at Kansas State University in Manhattan April 15, finishing third and qualifying for nationals in San Diego June 2-3.

Five mechanical engineering students at South Dakota State University had their project selected for the finals of a NASA contest, meaning all three of the department's entries in three different NASA contests have advanced to the finals. "This honor again reflects the solid skills our students are gaining and the dedication of our students and faculty to pursue student success beyond the classroom walls," Yucheng Liu, head of the SDSU Department of Mechanical Engineering, said.

Engineering students at South Dakota State University pedaled their way to a third-place finish in the national e-Human Powered Vehicle Challenge at Liberty University, Forest, Virginia. The contest is sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and attracted 15 teams. The University of Central Florida won with 51.23 points while Missouri University of Science and Technology was second with 46.49 points. SDSU's 44.54 points edged the University of Wisconsin-Madison (44.50). Scoring is in two parts-design and endurance racing. SDSU finished first in design and ninth in racing.

For the second year in a row and the fourth time in school history, the best student chapter nationwide of the American Society of Civil Engineers belongs to South Dakota State University. "I was so ecstatic to hear that we had won again and a little bit surprised," said Rachel Zook, the 2022 president of the chapter and its 2021 vice president. Chapter adviser Zach Gutzmer, a lecturer in the civil engineering department at SDSU, made the announcement to the chapter's officer team April 17, but the formal presentation of the Ridgway Award won't be until this fall.

South Dakota State University's forensics team placed fourth in the Tier 2 Individual Events Team Sweepstakes and fifth in the Tier 2 Combined Debate and Individual Events Team Sweepstakes at the 2023 Pi Kappa Delta National Comprehensive Tournament in March at West Chester University in Pennsylvania.

From Galileo to Isaac Newton to Albert Einstein, physics has been dominated by people who were set apart from their contemporaries. For South Dakota State University physics majors Gavin Baker and Jax Wysong, it is undergraduate research that has set them apart from their contemporaries. In March, they shared their undergraduate research with those gathered at the mass meeting of the American Physical Society in Las Vegas. It is an international gathering with more than 10,000 participants. Their research on Heusler alloys was undertaken at the direction of associate professor Parashu Kharel, who has National Science Foundation funding for the work.

SDSU doctoral student Andrew Simpson has been chosen as one of 22 students to present his poster at the Joint Statistical Meeting of the American Statistical Association in Toronto Aug. 5-10. It is the largest gathering of statisticians and data scientists in North America with nearly 7,000 attendees, including 1,000 students. His adviser, Semhar Michael, an associate professor of statistics at SDSU, said, "The student paper competition is a big part of this conference and, to my knowledge, this is the first time an SDSU student has been selected."

South Dakota State University pharmacy student Madisen "Maddi" Hansen, of Watertown, has received a prestigious national scholarship through the Kappa Epsilon pharmacy fraternity. Hansen is one of five recipients of the $1,000 Zada M. Cooper Scholarship for 2023. She is the 22nd SDSU pharmacy student to receive the award in its 63-year history, two in the first 31 years and 20 in the last 36 years. Hansen is the first SDSU recipient since Abigail Sirek in 2020.

Men's hockey is back at South Dakota State University for the first time in four years, with students taking to the ice at Larson Ice Center for the past few months as an official club sport.

More often than not, the story about how someone figured out what they want to do-with their life or their career-is quite interesting. When a person is passionate about what they do, the "how I got to where I am" can even be inspiring.

The following students graduated after the summer and fall 2022 semesters at South Dakota State University. Nearly 1,000 students completed all requirements for a degree and/or certificate program, and those requirements have been verified by the appropriate college. Overall, students from 35 states and 28 nations graduated following the summer and fall 2022 semesters. Twenty students received two or more degrees or certificates from a college.

The sports and recreation management program is relatively young, compared to other programs at SDSU, but has seen exponential growth in recent years. The undergraduate program has grown by 86% while the graduate program has grown by 367%.

Ellie Balken, a South Dakota State University pharmacy student, has received a couple major recognitions from the nation's largest and oldest association of pharmacists in the United States. Balken, of Dilworth, Minnesota, was one of four students to receive the Student Leadership Award from the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists and one of six students chosen for its National Standing Committee. In addition, she and another SDSU student will give a presentation at the association's annual meeting in Phoenix March 24-27.

What goes up must come down. That is the interesting dilemma for a group of South Dakota State University engineering students whose project has been selected as one of six finalists in a NASA competition. The six senior mechanical engineering majors entered NASA's FLOATing DRAGON Challenge. That's NASA's simplified title for the Formulate, Lift, Observe, And Testing; Data Recovery And Guided On-board Node (FLOATing DRAGON) Balloon Challenge.

A cohort of six South Dakota State University Indigenous undergraduate students honored "place" through a series of performances at the National Communication Association Annual Conference. The theme for the national conference, held Nov. 17-20 in New Orleans, was "Honoring PLACE: People, Liberation, Advocacy, Community and Environment."

The robotics club at South Dakota State University is better equipped to enter a collegiate combat robotics contest this spring after receiving a $10,000 grant. The SDSU Robotics Club received notice Jan. 27 that it was among 100 college robotics organizations receiving a $10,000 award from the Norwalk Havoc Robot League in Norwalk, Connecticut. The grants are designed "to help inspire innovation and provide robotics teams with resources they need to reach their full potential," the league stated on its website.

Walgreens, one of America's largest retail drugstore chains, renewed its support of student success and inclusion within the South Dakota State University College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions through a $5,000 donation presented Feb. 1 to Dean Dan Hansen. The presentation was made by Jason Frederick, district manager with Walgreens in Sioux Falls, and Curt Orchard, health care supervisor for Walgreens' Minnesota South region in Roseville. The donation funds two $2,5000 scholarships. The 2022-23 recipients of these awards are: Hyunjun Cho, of Bakersfield, California, who is in her first year of pharmacy school; and Amy Cockrum, of Sioux Falls, who is in her third year of pharmacy school. Hansen said, "For many years, Walgreens has shown a strong commitment to supporting South Dakota State University and our historic land-grant mission of access. These scholarships support our efforts to expand opportunities for all students in our profession."

South Dakota State University senior Jay Holm wants state legislators to know about an encroaching tree species that is threatening native grassland bird populations. Holm, a Dell Rapids native studying wildlife and fisheries sciences, is among two SDSU undergraduates who will showcase their research in front of South Dakota lawmakers early next month. He and Madison Fitch will travel to Pierre on Feb. 7 for the 2023 South Dakota Student Research Poster Session. Student researchers from Black Hills State University, University of South Dakota, Dakota State University, South Dakota Mines and Northern State University will also present their work. Jay Holm, a senior majoring in wildlife and fisheries sciences, with his research poster. Encroaching on grasslands For the last year or so, Holm has been investigating the spread of the eastern redcedar, a woody juniper tree species, in the Northern Great Plains. Due to fire suppression, planting in windbreaks and overgrazing, the ERC has been encroaching on native grasslands in the region. "If you drive around the countryside in South Dakota and look at the fields, you might see a bunch of scattered little pine trees," Holm said. "Those are probably eastern redcedars." While the ERC isn't necessarily an invasive species, the wildlife biology community is concerned that the spread of ERC could have a destructive impact on grassland bird populations, which include species like sedge wren, bobolink, western meadowlark, grasshopper sparrow and Savannah sparrow. Because of its widespread use among farmers in shelter belts, the ERC, often found in woodland areas, has been extending outside of its native range. ERCs are now sprouting-and growing-in grassland areas. ERCs, along with invasive species, are contributing to the decline of native grasslands around the world. Other threats to grassland destruction include overgrazing, crop clearing and unsustainable agricultural practices. Since the '80s, grasslands have declined by 50%, Holm said. "The decline of many of the native grassland bird species have declined alongside the grasslands," Holm said. "With this study, I wanted to compare grassland that has been encroached by the ERC and grassland that hasn't and see if there's any difference in the bird communities between the two." What Holm found, at first, was surprising. He was expecting to see a decline in species population's diversity metrics, distribution and richness. What he found instead was those metrics had actually increased. "This was confusing-did this mean the encroachment was actually a good thing for the bird populations?" Holm said. "We then looked at some literature and found that this was pretty much expected." What was happening in the areas that Holm studied (public land in the surrounding Brookings area) is what he calls a "temporary ecotone effect," which is a transitional area between two distinct habitats, grasslands and woodlands. The native grassland bird species are able to persist in this transitional period when the trees are not fully grown, alongside woodland species that are moving into this new habitat. In other areas of the country where the ERC has encroached, like Kansas, the trees are much taller and have pushed out many of the grassland birds. Previous research has suggested that with a 25% canopy cover, grassland birds are no longer able to persist in their native, encroached habitat, Holm explained. "I did some GIS imagery to see what our canopy cover was at for my study sites," Holm said. "We are only at about 9%, so there is a ways to go." Solutions Considering the 9% canopy cover, there is still time to reverse the trend, Holm said. While a singular solution has yet to be fully developed, there are a number in the works. One of the more interesting solutions is the use of goats. "What they do is they'll eat the bark off the ERC trees, which effectively kills them," Holm said. "A grad student here at SDSU is investigating to see if this is a feasible control method." The "mechanical" method is by using a bulldozer to basically "chop them down," Holm said. The other, most proven method is the use of prescribed burns, which would do an adequate job of eliminating many of these trees in their early stages (and would allow for native plants to grow and flourish), but as Holm explains, private landowners have become wary of allowing agencies to carry out these types of burns. "The prevailing thought is that they started to become afraid of (burns) because of the Smokey the Bear campaign to prevent forest fires back in the '80s," Holm said. "There's a lot of extension going on right now to try and educate them about burns and how safe and beneficial they are." Without any interventions, grasslands will continue to decline which will then lead to the decline of native grassland species-which are essential to a healthy, balanced ecosystem, Holm said. Further, as habitats merge, species tend to evolve into more generalists, rather than specialists. "When this happens, you basically see a drop in biodiversity," Holm said. "Biodiversity makes an ecosystem more resilient to environmental change, essentially, because you have more species with different adaptions." As Holm notes, this is one of the chief reasons why biologists harp on "preserving biodiversity" and why individual ecosystems, like grasslands, must be preserved. Future plans Holm will graduate this spring and then is hoping to move on to grad school, where he will pursue a master's degree in environmental education. He's also considering a more research-focused grad school option in which he will continue with similar studies. "I'm very interested in public outreach and educating people," Holm said. As for his post academic career, Holm isn't 100% sure what he wants to do, but he is interested in outreach, education and teaching. "I wouldn't mind being a wildlife education program coordinator, and I wouldn't mind being a professor either," Holm said. "K-12 education would be good to as would being a wildlife biologist for a state agency. I'm leaving my options open."

Madison Fitch, a senior at South Dakota State University, will show state legislators the need for palliative care services for Native Americans in rural communities when she heads to the Capitol next month. Fitch, a Rapid City native majoring in nursing, is one of two SDSU undergraduates who will showcase their research in front of South Dakota lawmakers. Fitch and Jay Holm will travel to Pierre on Feb. 7 for the 2023 South Dakota Student Research Poster Session.

Lesly Abarca-Valladares, a senior advertising major in the School of Communication and Journalism at South Dakota State University, has been named one of the nation's most promising multicultural students for 2023 by the American Advertising Federation. Industry leaders have selected 50 of the highest-achieving diverse seniors in the U.S. to participate this spring in AAF's premier industry immersion program in New York City promoting diversity, equality and inclusion.

Nick Grote became only the second South Dakota State University student selected to participate in an elite group that toured Israel during Christmas break. Grote, a 2021 graduate of Aberdeen Central High School and a junior business economics major, was one of 70 U.S. college students chosen for the Jewish National Fund's Caravan for Democracy. The all-expense paid, 10-day (Dec. 27-Jan. 7) trip was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, Grote said.