FACULTY & STAFF E-UPDATE
Creating a safe, respectful, and equitable campus environment is a shared responsibility. Completing required Title IX training is an important part of that commitment and helps ensure that our faculty, staff, and administrators understand their responsibilities and know how to respond when concerns arise.
This mandated annual training provides practical guidance on recognizing and addressing sex-based discrimination and harassment, understanding reporting responsibilities, and following our institution’s established policies and procedures. Your participation not only supports our compliance obligations but also helps strengthen a campus culture where every member of our community feels respected, supported, and able to learn and work free from discrimination and harassment.
How to Access Training: Within the next few hours, you will receive a separate email from our security partner, KnowBe4, containing your personalized training link. Please look for an email with the following details:
From: BHSU Human Resources
Subject: You’ve been enrolled in Title IX training.
The assignments you’ve been enrolled in will be displayed as follows:
To access the South Dakota Board of Regents policies on sexual harassment and prevention of dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, and hazing, report a Title IX concern, or view resources, please visit the BHSU Title IX website.
Thank you for taking the time to complete this mandatory training and for doing your part to support our entire campus community!
PAYMENT DEADLINE REMINDER
The Tuition & Fee Payment Deadline for the Fall '26 semester is September 4.
Check your outstanding balance or make payments through the Student Portal using SDePay or by visiting the Cashier's Window on the first floor of Woodburn Hall.
There is still a payment plan option available.
Please note, students with an outstanding balance who do not have pending financial aid or who have not signed up for a payment plan will have their classes dropped.
Don't wait until the deadline! Check your balance and make sure you have made appropriate arrangements for your tuition & fee obligations.
Contact the Cashier's Office at (605) 642-6313 with questions about payments and plans.
Do you have upcoming assignments that require student research or library use?
Would you like your students to feel comfortable navigating a particular database?
I would love the opportunity to work with you and your class. I offer hands-on library tours, introductory tutorials, and library instruction sessions. Each session can be tailored to the learning outcomes that you find most valuable.
I generally schedule sessions at least one week in advance. Please feel free to contact Sara B. Freng with any questions or ideas you may have.
Let’s collaborate!
Services for Faculty
To schedule a class visit or for further questions, contact Matthew.Bauman@BHSU.edu
As a reminder, all students, faculty, and staff who drive and park a vehicle on campus are required to purchase a BHSU parking permit. HR has graciously made it possible for faculty and staff who would like to do so to have the cost of their parking permit deducted from their paycheck over three consecutive months. The annual cost of a faculty/staff parking permit is $100. The payroll deduction will begin after the required paperwork has been completed and the parking permit has been issued.
I have attached links to the two required forms. Both forms must be completed and submitted before coming in to pick up your parking permit.
Link to Parking Permit Payroll Deduction Form
Parking Permit Vehicle Registration Form
A couple of reminders regarding additional vehicles:
Please make sure both forms are completed and submitted before coming in for your permit.
We will be sending a TEST message through the Everbridge Campus Alert system within the next 2-weeks. If you do not receive it, please follow the registration steps or contact the Help Desk.
About Everbridge: Everbridge is a campus alert system that provides emergency notifications to all BHSU and BHRC faculty, staff, and students through voice, text, and email.
Alerts include:
How to Enroll
Mobile App
Download the Everbridge app from the Apple Store or Google Play. Log in with your BHSU credentials and enable notifications.
Need Help?
Enrolling in Everbridge ensures you will receive timely safety and emergency updates, even if you are off campus.
Hello : )
The Young Center will be closed for football gamedays on the following Saturdays:
September 5th
September 12th
September 26th
October 24th
November 7th
Come out to support the Yellow Jacket Football Team!!
We have removed trash and recycling bins from our classrooms. There are waste and recycling quads located outside the classrooms for convenient disposal.
This change will streamline our custodial operations while keeping waste and recycling centralized. Research at universities has also found that removing trash and recycling bins from classrooms will improve recycling practices as well as keeping our classrooms cleaner.
Please remember to take your trash and recycling to the appropriate quad located outside the classroom.
Thank you for helping us make this change a success and for supporting our campus sustainability efforts.
If you have any questions, please contact Facilities Services at 605-642-6244.
Emily Groth grew up in Sioux Falls, SD. She was a young, beautiful, talented athlete and artist who had just received an art scholarship to attend the University of South Dakota. Tragically, she died of an overdose on May 16, 2018 three days before her admission to an in patient drug and alcohol treatment facility. Emily had injected heroin that unbeknownst to her was laced with enough fentanyl to kill six people.
According to the Center of Disease Control, 188 people on average die each day in the United States from drug overdose. Total deaths thus far are 68,641.
Emily's Hope was created by Emily's mother, Angelina Kennecke. Emily's Hope in conjunction with the South Dakota Attorney General, Marty Jackley, is on a mission to distribute Narcan throughout the state of South Dakota. We will now have a Narcan dispenser given to us by Emily's Hope Organization. This will be located outside of the student health and counseling office. The Narcan is free and available for students, staff and faculty..
Narcan is a nasal spray and easy to use. It will typically work within minutes and cannot hurt someone who is given this mistakenly. For someone who appears to be overdosing and is unresponsive, Narcan can be life saving!
Please stop by BHSU Student Health and Counseling Center to pick up a free bottle or two of Narcan! Carry Narcan. Save a life!
The Glass Shop will be replacing the exterior and interior doors at the Donald Young Center entrances. The work area will be fenced off and secured. An entrance and exit will remain available at all times.
Please do not store or park scooters or bicycles in the vestibules during construction. Please use the bike rack near the entrance.
Work will begin at the following entrances and proceed in this order:
Please use caution around the construction area and follow posted signs.
If you have any questions, please contact Facilities Services, 642-6244.
Please consider joining the Center for Faculty Innovation for one of these upcoming events. Staff, students, and faculty welcome.
Principles of Play: Professional Game Design for Educators with Jay Schneider
About the speaker: Jay Schneider is the Lead Instructor of the Game Design Program at the University of Washington and the recipient of the 2024 UW Legacy in Teaching Award. He leads research into Game Design Pedagogy and serves as an advisor on the IMLS Critical Games project.
With over 30 years of experience in the gaming industry, he is known for discovering the foundational "Mana Curve" in Magic: The Gathering and producing the Xbox Hall of Fame hit Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers. His extensive ludography includes multi-ENNIE award-winning work on the 13th Age RPG line, the Escapist Game of the Year Shadowrun: Crossfire, Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonfire, Last Kids on Earth: Hit the Deck, and Armello: The Board Game. He also holds multiple International Serious Play Gold Medals for his work on the educational title Monsters vs. Fractions.
Session 1: Fundamental Principles of Game Design
Tuesday, Sept 8, 3:30-4:45. RSVP and Info
This foundational session introduces the key principles needed to design any successful game, including educational titles. Attendees will learn core game design principles & heuristics that serve as mental shortcuts to guide design decisions, alongside methods for managing cognitive load and reducing complexity. More than simply listing rules, the discussion focuses on finding and refining the fun to encourage intrinsic motivations for play.
Session 2: Educational Game Design & Positive Motivation
Friday, Sept 11, 3:00-4:15. RSVP and Info
This session covers the specific characteristics, theories, and practices of educational games and gamification. The discussion contrasts direct, teacher-directed learning with indirect, student-centered learning and the critical invisibility of implicit learning. Attendees will explore how to put learners into a "play state" that is both desired and receptive to learning. Additionally, the lecture provides strategies for effective gamification and avoiding "drill and kill" models that fail to compete with professional games.
Session 3: Instructional Techniques for Teaching Game Design with Jay Schneider
Monday, Sept 14, 2:45-4:00. RSVP and Info
This final session shifts from theory to application, focusing specifically on how to teach game design and integrate game mechanics into your own instructional materials. Drawing on lessons learned as the Lead Instructor at the University of Washington, this lecture will explore game design instructional techniques, specifically highlighting "knowledge first" processes. The discussion will cover pedagogical strategies for the game design practicum and the practical process of mapping specific learning objectives to component game actions. As a shorter lecture, this session reserves 30 to 45 minutes for an open workshop and discussion, allowing you to bring in your current projects for direct feedback tailored to your specific departmental and classroom needs.
Questions? Email Nicholas.VanKley@bhsu.edu.
We are looking for faculty to teach courses in the Honors Program. The University Honors Program offers an Honors Colloquium every semester as part of the Honors Curriculum. Colloquia are unique 3-credit courses that are a key element of the Honors Program. Colloquia allow faculty and students to explore ideas outside of normal course offerings and are often interdisciplinary in nature. Colloquia are available to all students in the Honors Program and should not have any prerequisites.
Faculty are invited to propose a course topic for an Honors Colloquium for Fall 2027 to Spring 2029. Both individual and team-taught colloquium proposals are encouraged. Please reach out with any questions, or submit a title and a short description of the course to Katrina.Jensen@bhsu.edu.
Starting in Fall 2026, E.Y. Berry Library-Learning Center will be closed on Saturdays and open 1-9pm on Sundays. The regular weekly schedule will be:
Monday-Thursday: 7:30 am to 9:00 pm
Friday: 7:30 am to 5 pm
Saturday: Closed
Sunday: 1:00 pm to 9:00 pm
As you may be aware, beginning with the 2026–2027 award year (funding effective: July 1, 2026), students who are eligible for Federal Work‑Study (FWS) will now have access to a Federal Work‑Study Authorization in their Financial Aid Self Service Portal.
This Authorization serves as official confirmation that a student:
What This Means for You
The Federal Work‑Study Authorization provides a clear, consistent way to verify a student’s FWS eligibility before hiring. Students can share a copy or screenshot of their Authorization with you during the hiring process.
The Authorization includes:
If a student cannot provide an Authorization, please do not submit a Federal Work‑Study ePAF. Without an active Authorization, the ePAF cannot be approved by the Student Office of Financial Aid.
Using the Authorization for Hiring
If helpful for your department, Career Development can also assist with tailoring your Handshake job postings to request a screenshot of the Federal Work‑Study Authorization as part of the hiring or budgeting process.
Additional Information
We have added two Jacket Connect articles related to Federal Work‑Study:
Thank you for your continued support of our student employees. As this is a new process and may come with some growing pains, we welcome your feedback - both on what is working well and what is not. Our goal is to make this a helpful and effective tool for everyone involved.
BHSU welcomes artist Pard Morrison for the installation of three outdoor sculptures on campus. Morrison’s visit offers students, faculty, and the campus community an opportunity to experience the installation process and engage with the artist’s work firsthand.
The public is also invited to attend a co-artist talk with Pard Morrison and David Pyle, where they will discuss their creative practices, public sculpture, and the ideas behind their work.
Sculpture Walk: Monday, September 14
Time: 10:00AM
Location: Campus Green
Co-Artist Talk: Monday, September 14
Time: 1:00PM
Location: Woodburn Theatre
Pard Morrison is an internationally
recognized artist who hand cuts and
welds box-like aluminum hybrids of
painting and sculpture. Morrison’s
hand-brushed graphic compositions
function visually as paintings. He
describes the fusion of surface and
medium is a metaphor for the human
condition.
David Pyle serves as an Instructor in
the Arts Management Program at
Colorado State University, where he
teaches courses like Law and the Arts,
Community Engagement and the Arts,
and The Perfect Intersection: Art making
as a Way to Learn (and Do) Anything
Join us at 4:00 p.m. on Mondays in Jonas 110 for Geek Speaks!
September 14: Dr. Kyle Kopplin
Designing Decisiveness – Applying Economics to High School Wrestling Rule Changes
When the scoring system of a game changes, how can spectators tell if the scoreboard is simply showing different points or whether the competitors are actually choosing different strategies as they play? Without detailed play-by-play event logs, this question is surprisingly difficult to answer in sports settings. Moreover, this scenario is prevalent when policies change economic incentives and intermediate decisions are unobserved (e.g. sales tax collections, income tax filings, work promotions, academic grades, etc.). I address this problem using high school wrestling data from South Dakota over the last decade by exploiting a recent rule change and some specific features of wrestling. From there, I document how this recent scoring change induced more points scoring, promoted more decisive margins of victory, and created differences across weights, rounds, and divisions. The major takeaway is that rule changes and economic forecasts of policy should not assume static actions by those affected.
September 21: Ezekiel Bucks
Film as Metaphor: Utilizing Film as a Historical Narrative Source
Film is a powerful source of narration. Those that fund, produce, and distribute film often have some kind of message they hope to investigate or propagate to the culture at large. Within the study of film there is conflict between who actually arbitrates this message: politicians, a self-sustaining cultural industry, artists, or consumers. Regardless of who arbitrates the narrative messages of films, film reflects the culture in which it was made and can be utilized as a historical source to understand the values, hopes, and fears of people in the past.
The narrative message within film is often reflective of cultural values that may not translate directly to different spaces and times. Examining the conflicting views of film interpretation and identifying film as metaphor can equip academics and non-academic with a means to interpret the past through film which is far more accessible than other historical sources.
So, bring some popcorn and let’s learn about film as a historical source!
September 28: Karl Lehman and Casey Hibbert
Yes And!
Casey Hibbert and Karl Lehman have energized BHSU's Theater and Creative Writing programs with a spring semester class-to-class collaboration built on one simple idea that has long been the guiding principle of theater improv performance: YES, AND...
Join these two instructors for a discussion of the educational, personal, creative, and professional application of this simple but challenging approach. What does it mean to always say yes and contribute to an additive experience whether you're in the classroom, at home, in the workplace, or in any of the complex (cultural, digital, political, ideological) landscapes we inhabit?
Casey and Karl feel the answer is in the play, both the idea of play and the plays created in their collaboration each spring. Expect to laugh a little, play a little, and ponder a few meaningful insights about how we can all get along and have more fun.
Saturday, September 12th at 1 PM - Lyle Hare Stadium
BHSU Athletics would like to invite all Veterans, Active Duty Military, Law Enforcement, Firefighters, Forest Service and EMS personnel to the “Hero Appreciation Football Game” as the Yellow Jacket football team hosts Adams State University, Saturday, September 12th at 1 PM at Lyle Hare Stadium in Spearfish. All Veterans, Active Duty Military, Law Enforcement, Fire Fighters, and EMS personnel will get in free. You’ll also receive (2) two extra tickets to the game when you arrive at the stadium for guests. Just let the event ticket staff know your status,
Join us for the opening reception of Wasteland, featuring the photographic work of Brett Kallusky, on Thursday, October 1, from 4–6 p.m. in the Ruddell Gallery. The exhibition explores landscape, place, and human intervention through Kallusky’s distinctive photographic practice. Please join us to celebrate the opening, meet the artist, and experience the exhibition.
Workshop: Getting Started with Accessible Documents
When: Friday, Sept 4, 2:30-4:00
Where: JA 103A (Center for Faculty Innovation); RSVP for online option
Description: When you create a document, are you thinking about styles and heading tags? Do you know how to ensure graphics have alternative text? Do you know how to evaluate “reading order” in presentation slides? If any of that sounds new to you, this workshop is for you. Join us to practice using simple Microsoft Office tools to start making accessible documents that don't require fixing after the fact.
This workshop is intended for any staff.
The following policy/policies have been adopted, revised, or reviewed and approved by the President.