Public transportation course to be offered

Spring semester, January 2004, a course in public transportation will be offered over the TEL8 system. TEL8 is a telecommunications system allowing individuals to connect from several different locations. The course will originate out of North Dakota State University and will be telecast to sites in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. The course will be offered for university credit (3 credit hours). It will be scheduled to take place one day a week for 2 hours and 40 minutes. The course instructors will be James Miller and Jill Hough. James Miller is a retired faculty member from Penn State with 25 years of experience in public transportation. Hough, director of SURTC, is currently earning her PhD from the University of California, Davis and has 12 years of experience in transportation. If you are interested in taking the course, please contact Kathy McCarthy at (701)231-7767.

Student assistant receives degree and commission

Crystal Bahe, who served as a student research assistant during her undergraduate career at NDSU, received both her degree in sociology and a commission as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army at the end of spring semester.

Bahe, a native of Barnesville, Minn., comes from a military family, with both her father and grandfather serving in the armed forces. Already a member of the Army reserve, she qualified for an ROTC scholarship that basically paid for her college education in return for four years of active duty. Following her officer basic training at Fort Leonard Wood she will serve with an engineer unit in Europe.

As a research assistant she worked on several studies, conducting surveys and setting up data bases. Projects she was involved with included road studies for Cass County, North Dakota, and Mendocino County, California; a disabilities study for North Dakota, and an intelligent transportation system study. Jill Hough of SURTC said "Crystal did an outstanding job at SURTC and will be greatly missed."

Summer student intern

Dustin Ulmer, a senior in management information systems at NDSU, came to SURTC as a summer Intern, fulfilling a requirement for graduation from the College of Business Administration. His duties include preparing reports from survey data, creating databases and managing census data. He is from LaMoure, North Dakota. Dustin will continue to work at SURTC through the academic year 2003-04.

Submit your best practices and have your name entered to win a Terry Redlin exclusive edition print. Complete the following steps to be eligible:

1. Write a short paragraph describing the most recent best practice procedure or function your agency has started. (Example: a safety procedure, money-saving procedure, management technique)
2. Register on the SURTC Webpage discussion board at www.surtc.org/signup/dboard.php
3. Submit the practice to SURTC through the discussion board by e-mailing surtc@listserv.nodak.edu.

Drawing will be held December 15, 2003. Winners will be contacted by phone. SURTC dollars are not being used to purchase prints.