FACULTY & STAFF E-UPDATE

BHSU Giving Day is a two-day, online celebration of generosity that brings together Yellow Jackets from around the world to support what they care about most. Throughout the event, donors can make gifts to the colleges, athletic teams, clubs, scholarships, and programs of their choice—helping create meaningful opportunities for current and future students. The giving days are filled with fun student and staff contests, along with chances to win prizes while making an impact. While the main event takes place over two exciting days, donations can be made online anytime during the month of February, making it easy for everyone to participate. Every gift—no matter the size—helps move BHSU forward and shows the power of the Yellow Jacket community. Be on the lookout for upcoming contests, spread the word, and help us reach our $200,000 goal this year!

GIVE HERE

This is an update to inform you that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will be visiting BHSU on Wednesday, Feb. 18^th and BHSU-RC on Thursday, Feb 19^th to conduct their routine audit of international student records. Please note, this is a standard visit as part of our regular compliance process and is focused on ensuring that our records are up to date and accurate.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to the Director of International Relations, Kaitlin Palmer, for more information.

The BHSU Alumni Association is sponsoring the 35th annual Spirit of BH Award and is requesting nominations for this year's recipient.  This award will be presented during the Student Volunteer Awards Celebration on Monday, April 20th. 

On behalf of the Alumni Association, I am requesting your help to identify a student who has demonstrated an enthusiasm for learning while making significant contributions that reflect favorably on the university and larger community.  The selection committee is made up of faculty, staff, and board members.

Please use this nomination form.  Deadline to submit an entry for the Spirit of BH Award is Tuesday, March 10th. 

Please join us on Mondays at 4:00 p.m. in Jonas 110.

(We're also looking for Geek Speakers for fall 2026, too, so please send a note my way if you're interested.

February 23: Dr. Lesleigh Owen: “Race: A Very Serious Fiction”
Spoiler: It’s All Made Up (and Why That Still Matters)

How many racial categories do we recognize in the U.S.? Isn’t “ethnicity” just the PC way to say “race”? What the heck does “Caucasian” mean, anyway? Join Dr. Lesleigh Owen as she hops feet first into the messiness, ridiculousness, and consequences of pretending we can divide human beings into distinct “racial” subcategories.

March 2: Dr. Katelyn Kelly: “The Girl at the Edge of the World: What Miyazaki Can Offer Us on Hope”

In a world increasingly unreal and precarious, many to turn to realism or pessimism to stay grounded. However, these frames rarely help us imagine alternatives. In this talk we’ll explore what it might mean to ground ourselves in hope instead. We will look to the animator Hayao Miyazaki and his use of an active demanding hope. His movies hold beauty and violence–ruin and small acts of care–and the young as a model of hope within a damaged world.

March 9: Rosalie Aslesen and Katherine Kemp: “Transitioning the Meier House and Property into the Spearfish Museum”

This Geek Speak presents the dream for a community-run Spearfish Museum and will introduce you to the people fundraising for the project. Hear about their vision for how this museum can contribute to the city of Spearfish and why it matters now.

The Spearfish Museum is an emerging project that will transform the historic Meier House and its property into a museum celebrating the stories, people, and ingenuity that shaped the Spearfish area. Its mission is to acquire, preserve, and share the historic, cultural, and innovative spirit of Spearfish. The goal is to create a museum that feels engaging, memorable, and meaningful for residents, students, and visitors.

The Museum Board’s fundraising mission is to build on the $1.5M+ bequest from Johanna Meier Della Vecchia by rallying community support and raising the matching funds needed to open the museum within the next 4–6 years.

Ultimately, the vision is simple: a museum built by the community, for the community—one that tells Spearfish’s story and strengthens its future.

March 23: Dr. Tina Van Kley:“Hitler's British Fangirl: Unity Mitford and the Appeals of Fascism”

Unity Mitford was an English debutante in the 1930s, the youngest daughter of a minor British aristocrat. Her name is not one that most Americans are likely to know, unless you’ve seen the recent UK tv series Outrageous (2025).  Her story is wild, however, and she is infamous for her commitment to fascism and, most notably, her obsession with Adolf Hitler. At one point, she was rumored to be his fiancée and is thought to have met with him more often than any other British person. Her diaries from 1935-1939 were published in January 2025 in The Daily Mail, and offer new insights into her pursuit of “the dear Fuhrer,” as she referred to Hitler. More broadly, her diaries and letters shed light on the appeal of fascism to young women at the time, and can help us better understand the resilience of this ideology, even after WWII.

March 30: Greg Strobel: “Slow Tourism and Human Powered Travel”

This Geek Speak will discuss the concept of 'Slow Tourism' and emphasize human powered travel as the method for the concept. It will provide insight into understanding the mindset, introduce different methods of travel, and highlight some fun examples from personal experience.

April 13: Dr. Courtney Huse Wika (Please note the change in date): “A Poet’s Guide to Foraging: Creating Found Poetry”

In honor of National Poetry Month, this hands-on workshop will introduce the art of Found Poetry. Together, we’ll practice two distinct approaches, foraging from texts that already exist: the overheard, the discarded, the official and the everyday, and the overlooked. We will test how meaning shifts when language is lifted, reordered, and reframed. No prior experience is required. Bring yourself (and maybe a friend!)—and a desire to create.

Questions? Contact Courtney.HuseWika@BHSU.edu