North Dakota Center for Persons with Disabilities

NDCPD is North Dakota’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD). We are part of a national network of 67 UCEDDs in the United States. At NDCPD, it is our mission to “provide service, education, and research which empowers communities to welcome, value, and support diverse people of all abilities to advance self-determination and inclusion throughout the lifespan." Faculty and staff at NDCPD fulfill this mission by providing services, training, research, and information to individuals in the disability community, professionals, service providers, agencies, and the general public. For MSU Students, we offer student employment, leadership opportunities as well as interdisciplinary training experiences across all the disciplines to equip students with an understanding and skills to work with individuals with disabilities. NDCPD’s offices are located in Memorial Hall 203. For information, contact one of our staff members at 701-858-3580 or visit our website @ ndcpd.org.

Center for the Applied Study of Cognition and Learning Sciences (CASCLS)

All learning occurs through the process of building, changing, or reinforcing of neural networks in the mind/brain. From the moment we are born until the moment we die: people are naturally designed to take in new information through our senses as we experience situations in our environment. We process that information back and forth with what we already hold in our mind/brain, in order to make sense of those new inputs as we grow in our understanding of the world around us—and how we might be successful in that world.

The Center for the Applied Study of Cognition and Learning Sciences (CASCLS) at MSU is designed to help educators at all levels connect information on how the mind/brain functions in learning, to appropriate applications in P-12, undergraduate, graduate, and community education. The initiative includes a Cognitive Science concentration within the Master of Education degree.

Participants in the CASCLS initiative have opportunity to learn, apply and test research regarding what we know about:

• biophysical structures, functions, and mechanisms brain,
• observed individual and social behaviors, mental representations and thinking processes (mind), and
• how human beings change over time as they develop in all quadrants: cognitive, social, emotional, and physical growth (education).

Over 80% of those in the education profession in the U.S. are prepared in colleges of education, many with 100-200 year roots in the study of learning sciences, working interactively with P-12 teachers in schools. As the CASCLS initiative at MSU continues to grow, it represents a new mindset in how we approach the learning sciences and prepare professional educators. This mindset is a necessary response by the profession to the increasing complexity of teaching and learning.

Contacts: Dr. Lisa Borden-King, lisa.borden-king@MinotStateU.edu, CASCLS Field Director

Minot Symphony Orchestra

The Minot Symphony, a university and community orchestra, aims to enrich lives by providing opportunities for musicians and inspiration to patrons through education and the performance of diverse orchestral repertoire.

North Dakota Geographic Alliance

The North Dakota Geographic Alliance is a statewide organization of teachers, professional geographers, and other persons interested in promoting geography education within the state of North Dakota. The Alliance administrative office is located in the Mt. Vernon, 500 University Ave, Minot. The Alliance holds an annual meeting, summer institute, and offers other types of geography-related programs. 

Communication Disorders Clinic

Each year children and adults with disabilities come to the clinic for diagnostic services and to take advantage of sophisticated equipment and expert faculty. A unique team of professionals provides assessment and designs individual habilitative programs which are carried out at home, in the public schools through cooperative planning with teachers and parents, or in the clinic itself. Undergraduate and graduate students, under the close supervision of faculty members, work with clients. Services are free of charge to full-time MSU students and their immediate family and are reduced for part-time students. Call (701) 858-3030 for additional information.

Western Plains Opera Company

Western Plains Opera Company's mission as an organization is to blend the best of professional, community, and Minot State University resources to produce outstanding opera in the north central plains and to foster in local youths the love of good singing and good singing practices.