Faculty, Administration, Staff & Friends

The following is a partial list of faculty in the College of Arts & Sciences who are the first in their families to earn a four-year degree.

Debbie Storrs,
Professor of Sociology/Dean, College of Arts & Sciences

Debbie Storrs is originally from Alaska where she completed her BS with a major in sociology and a minor in psychology (1989) from the University of Alaska. She earned her MS (1991) and her PhD (1996) in Sociology from the University of Oregon. She joined the University of North Dakota as Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences in 2013. Her teaching and research interests focus on the intersections of race, gender, and class. Most recently her research has explored students’ attitudes towards science and mathematics.

Debbie is a proud first-generation student of higher education. She was raised in a working-class, bicultural family. Her father, Gordon, completed the 8th grade, earned his GED as an adult, and worked as a cook for the Navy and later for an oil company on a rig in Prudhoe Bay. Her mother, Yoshiko, completed high school in Japan and worked a variety of jobs including on a seafood processing line, electronics factory line, and later taught a Japanese craft class out of the home. While her parents did not attend college, they were supportive of higher education though they could not provide any financial support. Debbie’s first attempt at college lasted one year, after which she decided to quit for a number of reasons including financial challenges, unclear educational goals, and because she felt like an alien in a strange world. After working for several years as a transcriptionist, she returned to college and completed her BS. Her second return to college was successful in part because she found her academic passion in the discipline of sociology, became involved in a social justice student organization, and found support from faculty members who invited her to participate in research opportunities. Her goal is to help students find their academic passions and provide them support to pursue their dreams.

Columbia Hall, Room 1930
701.777.2749
debbie.storrs@UND.edu

Karyn Plumm,
Associate Professor of Psychology/Associate Dean, College of Arts & Sciences

Karyn Plumm is originally from Sault Ste. Marie, MI. She earned a PhD in Experimental Psychology (2006), MA in General Psychology (2004), and BA with a major in Psychology (2000) from the University of North Dakota. She joined the faculty in the Department of Psychology at UND in 2006 where she served as the Director of the Undergraduate Programs for the Department of Psychology from 2009-2015. Her research interests include social psychological issues in relation to the law, specifically attributions of blame toward minority-group victims of violent crime. She joined the Dean’s office in the College of Arts & Sciences in January 2015 as the Administrative Fellow for Academic Success to provide leadership and coordination in matters relating to student recruitment, advising, and retention.

Karyn is the only person in her immediate family to attend college and even within her extended family on both sides, only Karyn and one cousin (out of 12) earned a four-year degree. Attending college was not an expectation her family or any of her high school counselors had for her. Just getting started was a daunting task! She quickly learned that she loved going to college and that the people on campus were always willing to help answer her questions. Karyn received an EPSCoR research award as an undergraduate and began working in research labs. The faculty that she worked with and got to know helped guide her toward (and through) graduate school. She would not be where she is today without the relationships she developed with faculty at both the undergraduate and graduate level. She hopes to be able to help students make those connections as well!

Columbia Hall, Room 1933
701.777.4382
karyn.plumm@UND.edu

Crystal Alberts,
Associate Professor of English/Director, UND Writers Conference

An alumna of the McNair Scholars Program, Crystal Alberts completed her BA with a double major in English and Religion at Mount Holyoke College and her MA/PhD in English and American Literature at Washington University in St. Louis. She started teaching at UND in 2007 and, after completing her dissertation, became a member of UND's faculty in 2010. She is currently an associate professor of English specializing in post-1945 American Literature. Having worked in or with libraries since 2000, her print publications—on William Gaddis, Don DeLillo, and others—are based on archival research, while her digital research, including the UND Writers Conference Digital Collection, is intended to make archival materials accessible to the general public. She also serves as the Director of the UND Writers Conference, a position that she's held since spring 2009.

Crystal grew up in a small, northern Minnesota town. Members of her immediate (and extended) family are farmers, mechanics, and electricians, among other things, who have on-the-job or vocational training, but no four-year college degree. In fact, the first time that Crystal got on a plane was to visit Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. While attending MHC was the best decision that she ever made, adjusting to life at an East Coast liberal arts college was tough and took some time. Luckily, Crystal had wonderful faculty mentors at MHC, and later at WashU, who helped make sure that she didn't fall through the cracks. She is very grateful to those professors and tries to follow their example when mentoring students.

Merrifield Hall, 1D
701.777.2393
crystal.alberts@UND.edu

Tanya Butler,
Engagement and Events, College of Arts & Sciences

Tanya Butler’s dad quit high school to join the Air Force in 1957 and following four years of service he worked as a truck driver for nearly 40 years before his retirement. Her mother graduated high school in 1958 and worked various part-time bookkeeping jobs while raising Tanya and her two brothers. Growing up in Grand Forks, Tanya’s parents didn’t encourage – or discourage for that matter – her to attend college. It simply wasn’t discussed.

After high school, Tanya took time off from school and in January 1991 went to NYC to work as a nanny. While there she enrolled in an interpersonal communication course at Nassau Community College (her first college class!). Eventually returning to the Grand Forks region, Tanya enrolled at the University of Minnesota Crookston (UMC) for what was to be an associate’s degree in Small Business Management. She didn’t graduate. At the beginning of her second year at UMC, Tanya became pregnant and was due to give birth in May 1993 a week after finals. Her son was born early, three weeks before finals. Due to a lack of support at home and at UMC, Tanya was not aware of her options for completing the semester or her degree. As a result, she took incomplete grades in some classes and failed others after not returning to class following her son’s early birth. Little did she know, there are accommodations for such things!

Having left UMC with a new baby, no degree, and a lot of student loan debt Tanya took time away from school to work and support her new family. She has taken a UND class occasionally over the years but it wasn’t until about four years ago when Arts & Sciences Dean Debbie Storrs was hired and she began to encourage Tanya to finish the coursework and obtain a bachelor’s degree. Tanya proudly walked across the stage at UND’s graduation in May 2017 after earning a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies! She is the first person in her immediate and extended family to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Tanya has worked at UND since July 1998 and has been in the College of Arts & Sciences for over 12 years. With an open door, Tanya is thrilled to help all students be successful. She is an advocate for other first-generation students to have the encouragement they need to reach their goals and recognize their own abilities.

Columbia Hall, Room 1909
701.777.6240
tanya.butler@UND.edu

Tami Carmichael,
Professor & Director, Humanities & Integrated Studies

Tami Carmichael was the first person in her family to complete an undergraduate college degree, and one of only a small handful of students from her 1986 high school graduating class to do so. She holds the only advanced degrees in her family and the only Ph.D. in her small, rural hometown community of Westfield, PA. She earned her undergraduate degree in English/Communication/Marketing from Grove City College, PA and her Masters and Ph.D both in English from the University of Georgia, specializing in early 19th-century women authors and the works of Herman Melville. Since then, she has developed a specialization in pedagogy and in undergraduate learning practices and in education abroad issues.

College was challenging for Tami, since very few people in her support system had experience with the higher education system. She attended a private college, and in that environment, she was surrounded by students who had parents and siblings with college degrees, who had the opportunity to take college preparatory classes (something unavailable in Tami’s small, rural high school), and who had traveled abroad — things that most of the professors at the college expected all of their students to have experienced. From the first day, Tami realized she did not have the experiences or the background to compete with her fellow classmates and worked quietly and privately to try and make up the loss by reading widely on her own and getting involved in as many learning and extra-curricular activities as possible. By getting involved, Tami met some excellent mentors who aided her in uncovering yet more opportunities, and she realized, to her surprise, that she loved college and could be successful — so much so, in fact, that she has chosen to remain in higher education and to dedicate her career to teaching and developing best teaching practices for other college students. She hopes that she provides the mentorship needed to those students who also seek to develop their curiosity and to increase their knowledge of the world.

O'Kelly Hall, Room 253B
701.777.3015
tami.carmichael@UND.edu

Kim Donehower,
Professor of English

Kim Donehower grew up in Horse Shoe and Asheville, North Carolina, and got her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For her PhD in English from the University of Minnesota, she investigated why some Appalachian families were successful at sending their first generation students to college and beyond.

Kim began her career at California State University, Fresno, directing the first-year composition program and experimenting with support structures for first-generation students from immigrant families. She joined the UND faculty in 2001. Kim coordinates the English education program, is actively involved in the first-year composition program, and continues to research literacy in rural communities.

Merrifield Hall, 122F
701.777.4162
kim.donehower@UND.edu

Mary Feller,
Success Coach/Career Services

Mary Feller is originally from St. Paul, MN. She completed her Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of North Dakota in 1996 and her Master’s in Education from the University of Minnesota Duluth in 2009. After working in Student Affairs for the past 19 years, she recently joined the University of North Dakota as a Success Coach in the Career Services Office. Her background expertise includes Career Counseling, Financial Aid, and Admissions strategies.

Mary’s parents were refugees from the country of Hungary, who immigrated over to the United States after the Hungarian Revolution in the 1950’s. Her mother and her immediate family arrived by boat to New Orleans. Her father was a Freedom Fighter who was liberated from a prisoner of war camp in Hungary by American Soldiers, and offered a chance at freedom by immigrating to the United States. Mary was born an only child in St. Paul, MN and learned English once attending school-as Hungarian was the primary language spoken in the household. She was raised in a working class family, where her father was an ornamental iron worker until disabled, and her mother received a business certificate from a 9 month business college, working in the insurance industry. Education was very important to her family as they knew learning English and advancing in school was the way to achieving the American dream. Life was difficult at home and Mary many times studied in the locker room or library to make sure she stayed on top of her academics. Knowing deep down that education was important, Mary however lacked the mentorship needed to excel in school until she arrived at the University of North Dakota campus back in 1992. As a freshman, she knew she wanted to get a college degree, but felt lost in the shuffle of college life and academics and didn’t know where to turn. She contemplated going back home after just one semester. It wasn’t until she stumbled into a visit with then advisor, Dr. Lisa Berger, that she felt someone understood and could refer her to the areas she needed assistance with, and towards a major she fit into. She credits Student Support Services for giving her the support system, tutoring, and ability to register for classes early that she desperately needed. She also credits Dr. Dennis Elbert, now retired Dean of the College of Business and Public Administration for fully seeing her potential and encouraging her along the way. The mentorship from faculty and staff at UND guided her decision to eventually find her way back into a career in higher education, paying forward the gift of giving, and helping those same students find their way. It is her lifelong passion: student success.

Mary lives in Grand Forks with her two sons (Jackson & Brett) and husband Chris, and is an avid fan of UND athletics. Her husband, now a CPA, had played on the 1992-1995 UND football team and is a graduate from the Accounting program. Go Hawks!

McCannel Hall, Room 280
701-777-7024
mary.feller@UND.edu

Liz Legerski,
Assistant Professor of Sociology

Liz completed her Bachelor’s (2002) and Master’s degrees (2004) in Sociology at Brigham Young University, and she received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Kansas (2010). Her teaching and research interests include social inequality, gender, families, and social policy, and she enjoys doing both quantitative and qualitative research. Her most recent work explores the effects of Bakken oil development on interpersonal violence.

Liz was born and raised in the Twin Cities. Although her father attempted college when she was young, he stopped going in order to provide for his growing family. Out of her family of seven, she was the first person to graduate from college. Growing up she was constantly inspired by how hard her working-class family labored to make ends meet. There was rarely a time when her parents weren’t juggling three jobs between them. Liz excelled in high school and saw her peers pursing college, so decided to apply too; working as a custodian, telemarketer, and office worker to pay her way through. One semester she stumbled across a job as a research assistant. Even though she felt woefully inadequate, she decided to apply. Her boss became her mentor and helped her see she was capable of earning a Ph.D. Although her parents were supportive of her decision to go to college it was hard on her family when her graduate education and career in academia kept her from returning home. She’s glad to be raising her family in North Dakota now, and her parents are glad she’s within a day’s drive from home. Liz is eager to help other first generation students find their place at UND so they can set their own trajectory to a rewarding career.

Gillette Hall, Room 205
701-777-4414
elizabeth.legerski@UND.edu

Patrick Luber,
Professor of Art & Design

Raised on a farm near Pocahontas, IL, Patrick Luber received a BA degree from Greenville College in Greenville, IL, and MA and MFA degrees in sculpture from the University of New Mexico. Mr. Luber’s work is included in the permanent collection of the North Dakota Museum of Art, the University of North Dakota, the Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, IA, Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, TX, the Ina Mae Rude Entrepreneurial Center Art Collection, Grand Forks, ND, the Henry Luce III Center for Art & Religion, Washington, DC and numerous private collections. With over 30 solo and 130 group exhibitions, his work has been exhibited on the local, regional, national, and international levels. His work has received numerous awards in juried exhibitions including the Best of Show Award in the 1992 North American Sculpture Competition in Golden, CO and in 2002 received Best of Show in the 58th Annual Exhibition at the Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, IA. In 2005 Mr. Luber received the North Dakota Humanities Council’s Larry Remele Fellowship and during Spring 2016 Mr. Luber served as an artist-in-residence at the Henry Luce III Center for Art & Religion in Washington DC. In addition to his artwork, Mr. Luber has presented numerous lectures on the intersection of art, religion, and American culture at regional and national conferences. He has taught sculpture at the University of North Dakota since 1990.

Hughes Fine Arts Center, Room 139c
701.777.2230
patrick.luber@UND.edu

Adam Matz,
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice

Adam K. Matz received his B.S. in Police Studies (2007) and M.S. in Correctional and Juvenile Justice Studies (2008) from Eastern Kentucky University (EKU). He then relocated to Pittsburgh where he recently completed his Ph.D. in Criminology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). Prior to joining UND in 2016 he worked for the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) and the Kentucky Court of Justice (KCOJ).

Adam grew up in a small rural town in Kentucky. While his mom attended some college she was unable to complete a degree. She was a single-parent and survivor of intimate partner violence (IPV). However, she was fortunate to see all her children go to college and complete a degree, despite the many difficulties she endured in relation to menial work. Support from faculty at EKU and IUP led Adam to pursue his graduate studies, currently the first and only member of his extended family to obtain a doctoral degree.

O’Kelly Hall, Room 305D
701.777.2010
adam.matz@UND.edu

Marcia Mikulak,
Professor of Anthropology

Marcia Mikulak, born in North Carolina and living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, until the age of eight, has made her Anthropology academic career by studying street-and-working-children, human rights, race, and racism in Brazil. Prior to her academic career, however, Marcia had another career: music. Under her mother’s tutelage in Brazil (her mother had studied at Julliard School of Music in New York, from which she did not graduate), Marcia began to play the piano at age three, was giving concerts by the age of ten. As a teenager, she worked with the Conductor of the Sacramento Symphony. To her credit, Marcia has several recordings (both CD and vinyl format).

Returning to the United States at the age of eight, her family settled in the Sacramento area where she graduated from high school, was accepted into the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she earned her Bachelor of Music degree, and her Masters of Art from Mills College. She has worked closely with many living composers, specializing in American Contemporary Music and with several dance companies, including the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company (http://www.mjdc.org/), The Oakland Ballet, and the Department of Dance at the University of California, Berkeley.

Her father was a first-generation son of American-born immigrants from the Ukraine. His family was large: eleven children – two girls, and nine boys. Her paternal grandfather was a Pennsylvania coal miner, and all the boys began working in those mines at a young age. One day, according to a family story, her father was in a mining accident, was pulled out by one of his older brothers, who later impressed on him that he would die in the mines if he stayed. Eventually, the Army provided her father with options for a career, and after marrying her mother, was stationed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Earning her Ph.D. in Anthropology led Marcia back to Brazil, where her original fieldwork focused on the social/cultural phenomena of street-and-working-children in Rio Janeiro, where she drew heavily upon her work in music to study them. Together, they created a popular music ensemble that built their own instruments, created their own music, and turned their life-stories into musical performance that became popular in the city of Courvelo, Minas Gerais (Marcia’s anthropological study of the agency of street-children was published by Cognella Academic Press in 2015). For the last nine years, Marcia has worked as an activist scholar studying and documenting human rights abuses (assassinations, historical genocide, and racism and social inequality) with the indigenous Xukuru nation in Pernambuco, Brazil) which has resulted in other academic publications. Marcia is the only member of her immediate family to have received a doctorate.

Babcock Hall, Room 109
701.777.4718
marcia.mikulak@UND.edu

Michelle M. Sauer,
Professor of English

Michelle Sauer is originally from Fargo, ND, and spent many weekends and summers on her family’s farm in Kidder County (near Tappen, ND). Michelle is not quite a first generation faculty member, but she is closely connected to the community and its concerns. On her mother’s side, although her grandmother earned a BA in 1921, her grandfather dropped out of school after 8th grade to work in grain elevators and on the family farm. Michelle’s mother earned a two year nursing degree, but the majority of her aunts and uncles had only a high school diploma and worked in farming or in the military. Similarly, her father, who resides on the Indian subcontinent, has a PhD, but is the only one in his family to have an education beyond secondary school. Nevertheless, each of her family members respected the hard work and dedication required to pursue an academic path, and valued the Humanities as a building block of a well-educated citizen.

Growing up as a biracial child raised by two women (Michelle was raised by her mother and one of her aunts) in North Dakota in the late 1970s and 1980s was challenging and sometimes isolating, and she compensated by throwing herself into schoolwork. She earned a BA from Purdue University (1993), an MA from Loyola University, Chicago (1995), and a PhD from Washington State University (2000), all in English with an emphasis in medieval literature and culture. Her research focuses on sex, gender, and early Christianity, especially cloistered religious women. Michelle’s first job in higher education was as a faculty member at Minot State University in western North Dakota. There she had the opportunity to work with many first generation students providing outreach and support. Michelle joined the UND faculty in 2008 and continues to mentor students from all walks of life.

Merrifield Hall Room 9
701.777.2783
michelle.m.sauer@UND.edu

Heather Terrell,
Assistant Professor of Psychology

Heather Terrell grew up in Mayer, AZ. She earned a PhD in Social Psychology (2009), MA in General Psychology (2006), and BA with a major in Psychology (2002) from Arizona State University. She joined the faculty in the Department of Psychology at UND in 2009 and has served as the Director of the Undergraduate Programs for that department since 2015. Heather regularly teaches Introduction to Statistics, Advanced Research Methods, and Advanced Social Psychology. She oversees several research projects, many of which are student-driven, in her Gender and Social Psychology Lab. In particular, she focuses on research related to gender roles, stereotyping and prejudice, aggression, and/or evolutionary psychology.

Heather is the only person in her immediate or extended family to complete a four-year degree or beyond. As an undergraduate, a handful of committed faculty members helped her navigate the world of higher education and understand the graduate school application process. She hopes to continue to “pay it forward” by helping other 1^st g students accomplish their educational goals.

Corwin Larimore Room 240
701.777.3882
heather.terrell@UND.edu

Ryan Zerr,
Professor of Mathematics/Director of Essential Studies

Ryan Zerr is a native North Dakotan, growing up on a farm between two typical North Dakota small towns – Tuttle and Wing – located in the central part of the state. His father, the eleventh of fifteen children, was the first of his siblings to attend school past the eighth grade, earning his high school diploma and immediately beginning the life of a farmer alongside his father. His mother earned a two-year degree and has worked in secretarial positions throughout her career. Despite neither parent having a four-year degree, their approaches to life exemplify the values of hard work and persistence.

Ryan attended UND and graduated with a B.S. in Meteorological Studies, and subsequently went on to earn his Ph.D. in Mathematics at Iowa State University. He has been fortunate to find educational environments – whether at home, in grade and secondary school, and at college – which supported curiosity and promoted high achievement. Through his educational experiences he has developed the conviction that education will enrich nearly all aspects of one’s life. This point of view has made him a strong supporter of the notion of general education, with its capacity to enrich students’ lives regardless of career or job choice.

Witmer Hall Room 313
701.777.4605
ryan.zerr@UND.edu

If you are a faculty member who would like to learn more about UND 1stG, please contact Karyn Plumm (karyn.plumm@UND.edu).