One of America's leading indigenous intellectuals today delivered a devastating critique of Western industrial civilization, calling it unsustainable and labeling its impacts catastrophic.

"Human actions threaten all life on the planet," said Waziyatawin Angela Wilson, a university professor, author and activist. She said the Euro-American world view that places humans above all other life forms is the foundation of the most exploitive and rapacious era in human history.

"This cannot be sustained much longer," said Waziyatawin (wuh-ZHEE-uh-tuh-ween), an enrolled member of the Upper Sioux Community near Granite Falls, home to the Sisstonwan and Wahpetonwan bands of the Dakota people.

Speaking at the Jan. 27-29 Power in Diversity Leadership Conference, Waziyatiwin called on students, educators and higher educational professionals in the Atwood Ballroom audience to resist government oppression and to join in dismantling corporations that exploit people and the environment.

The economy is stagnant. Congress is paralyzed by ideological gridlock. Bart Simpson hasn't grown an inch since 1989.

But at St. Cloud State the march of progress continues, reshaping Minnesota's second-largest university with initiatives that are re-imagining learning, teaching and campus life.

Leading the parade are a trio of higher education veterans, each of whom presented to university employees Jan. 5 at the spring semester Convocation in Ritsche Auditorium. 

President Earl H. Potter III praised employees for commitment and resilience, remarking that "the challenges that we have faced and will face are significant and they require all the insight, skill and perseverance that we can muster."

Said Potter: "We are meeting the challenge of change."

Come May, Mónica García-Pérez is expected to publish research regarding child health outcomes of immigrant children and children of immigrants.

The importance of her research is tied to a major national demographic shift. First- and second-generation children of immigrants are the fastest-growing growing segment of the population, according to García-Pérez, an assistant professor in the Department of Economics.

Understanding health-care access and health outcomes will have political, social and public-policy implications. Economists and other academics have explored immigrant health issues in the past, but few have examined these issues through succeeding generations, said García-Pérez.

Among the questions García-Pérez will tackle: Why do non-citizen Hispanics and Asians self-report higher levels of health among their children despite lower access to traditional health care?

Sarah Louise Stalker, Hudson, Wis., will bid the Class of 2011 adieu with her commencement address about disproving the impossibilities in life.

St. Cloud State's Fall Commencement is 2 p.m. Dec. 18 in Halenbeck Hall Gymnasium.

Stalker is a College of Science and Engineering graduate earning her bachelor's degree in meteorology and hydrology with cum laude honors.

Registered to participate in the commencement ceremony are 525 undergraduate students, 67 graduate students and two doctoral students.

The ceremony will be streamed live on the Internet.

The Wind Ensemble will provide music for the ceremony. Conducting will be Rik K. Hansen, director of bands and professor of conducting and musicology.

Top countries sending students to St. Cloud State are Nepal (196), China (165), Saudi Arabia (123) and India (90). Asians are 62 percent of the fall international student enrollment.

View the Center for International Studies chart (PDF).

Of the 1,085 international students enrolled fall semester, 737 are pursuing undergraduate degrees, 218 are graduate students and 130 are non-degree students.

Total enrollment was 17,231 on the 30th day of the semester.

Among students traveling the farthest to attend St. Cloud State are three undergraduates from Uzbekistan.

Nicole (Fellows) Keegan ‘01, a Rapid City, S.D., middle school teacher, is one of 40 teachers to receive a national teaching honor.

The Sioux Falls, S.D., native earned a $25,000 cash Milken Educator Award that acknowledges her excellence as a teacher.

“I was really surprised,” Keegan said. "Teaching is a very humble profession with very little recognition of this magnitude, so it’s quite an honor and at the same time disappointing that more educators cannot have this experience.”

Milken Educator Awards have honored more than 2,500 K-12 teachers, principals and specialists nationally, with more than $63 million in individual, unrestricted $25,000 awards. View the list of 2011 recipients.

St. Cloud State Wind Ensemble joins hands with the Minnesota National Guard 34th Infantry Red Bull Band and the St. Cloud community to pay tribute to veterans 7 p.m. Nov. 12 in Ritsche Auditorium.

St. Cloud Mayor David Kleis will co-host the collaborative civic event. Patriotic music to honor the veterans of the Armed Services will be provided by the Massed Ceremonial Band, co-directed by Mst.Sgt.-Commander Trygve Skarr and Rik Hansen, professor of music.

View the American Spirit Concert poster (PDF). 

This year’s tribute will extend special memorials on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 with Angels in the Architecture. Veterans will be welcomed home. Profiles of Courage, chronicling selected heroic stories of the veterans will be rendered by St. Cloud State students to honor all veterans in attendance.

Historian Deborah E. Lipstadt, one of the nation’s foremost authorities on the Holocaust and the people who deny it happened, will speak on anti-Semitism and the politics of denying the Holocaust at 7 p.m. Oct. 27 in Ritsche Auditorium.

"Professor Lipstadt's visit is important because she brings a scholarly perspective to the sometimes heated campus discourse on anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and Israel," said Daniel Wildeson, director of St. Cloud State's Center for Holocaust & Genocide Education, which is hosting her visit.

Her talk “Anti-Semitism: How New? How Bad?” is free and open to the public. Parking is free on some streets adjacent to campus. Parking in the 4th Avenue Parking Ramp is a dollar per hour.

Gov. Mark Dayton heads a roster of dignitaries at the noon Oct. 27 groundbreaking for ISELF, the university's $45 million science teaching-and-research facility.

The 100,000 square-foot structure, which is expected to open in 2013, will be built on Eighth Street South, east of the Education Building, at the site of the former 801 Building.

The public groundbreaking ceremony will be on-site. The rain site is Brown Hall auditorium.

Known formally as the Integrated Science and Engineering Laboratory Facility, ISELF will be the largest single construction project, measured in dollars, in Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system history, according to university officials.

The construction project will create 900-950 on-site jobs, directly support nearly 320 off-site jobs and indirectly impact another 150 off-site jobs.

Anti-bullying activist Jamie Nabozny, State Sen. John Marty and apartheid scholar Mary West will headline the Oct. 3-6 Global Social Responsibility Conference at Atwood Memorial Center.

In addition, other speakers will address subjects such as famine in the Horn of Africa, Ojibwe treaty rights at Mille Lacs Lake and the use of toxic weapons in warfare.

Conference organizers will screen documentary films about topics such as war, human trafficking, free trade, the media’s effect on society and the environment.

View a video of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) welcoming conference participants.