President Larry C. Skogen was named to a new Higher Learning Commission (HLC) panel, the HLC Partners for Transformation, tasked with rethinking higher education accreditation practices.

Bismarck State College and Valley City State University created a collaborative education program resulting in a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from Valley City State University earned on the BSC campus. Students can earn an Associate in Science degree with an emphasis in elementary education from BSC and a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from VCSU. Students will be able to complete the Bachelor of Science degree in two years without having to leave the BSC campus.
 

BSC received a $140,934 grant from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) which was used to fund 18 scholarships for qualified students enrolling in BSC’s Nuclear Power Technology program during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 academic years.

Joe Ellefson, professor of criminal justice, was named Higher Education Faculty of the Year by the Bismarck-Mandan Chamber of Commerce.

Bismarck State College Mass Communications students received several awards at the College Media Association/Associated Collegiate Press national fall convention in Dallas, Texas.
 
In the Best of 2017 Pinnacle Awards for organizations, BSC’s The MYX placed first as Two-Year Radio Station of the Year, beating out entries from across the United States. MystiCast took second place as Two-Year TV Station of the Year. Figments of Imagination, the BSC literary arts magazine, placed third in the Two-Year Literary Magazine of the Year category. The BSC faculty advisors of each are Cole Bernhardt, Dustin Anderson and Dr. Kimberly Crowley respectively.

BSC received a grant from The Bernard Osher Foundation to develop the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at BSC (OLLI@BSC), a non-credit education program specifically designed for people who are age 50 or older. OLLI@BSC offers an array of classes and activities that range from free movies to special events. For more information about OLLI at BSC, visit bismarckstate.edu/OLLI.

Fall of 2018 BSC Engineering Technology students were the first to benefit a new partnership with a leading regional sales company of surveying technology and equipment. Frontier Precision, a sales company headquartered in Bismarck with offices in Minnesota, Colorado, Alaska, Montana, Idaho, and Hawaii, partnered with the BSC Engineering Technology program to equip their surveying lab each academic year with state-of-the-art technology and equipment at no cost to BSC.

Well-known recording artist Kat Perkins was the guest speaker at BSC’s 78^thCommencement ceremonies on May 11, 2018.

An educational collaboration with Palo Alto Networks along with generous donations from Great River Energy, Midco and National Information Solutions Cooperative (NISC) to the Bismarck State College (BSC) Foundation, will allow BSC to grow the college’s Cybersecurity and Computer Networks Program and prepare more students to fill the predicted 1.8 million cybersecurity workforce gap.
 
Palo Alto Networks, the global cybersecurity leader, shared details about its educational initiatives at its annual Ignite user conference in Anaheim, Calif., in late May with BSC named as an education partner. Midco has donated $100,000, and both Great River Energy and NISC have donated $50,000 to BSC’s Cybersecurity and Computer Networks Program. These donations will help BSC provide the talent desperately needed in our nation’s hospitals, refineries, technology companies, power plants and more.