News

DCB's students present Campus Read

By Tyler Ohmann

11/01/2011

The Dakota College at Bottineau Campus Read discussion series continued this past Wednesday with a panel of student speakers from the college.
The topic of discussion was place, and the students were representatives from all places around not only the U.S., but the world.

“I think that is one of the part’s of the book we’re reading this year, Sweet Land, is place,” said professor Mike Porter. “The place is western Minnesota and eastern Minnesota, and it is pretty rural.”
The discussion with the students about place came up for the committee during a meeting.

“When Dr. Gross and Dr. Albrightson got together and talked about these brown bags, we thought that this would be a really nice addition if we could hear the places some of our students grew up and are from,” Porter said
Six students comprised the panel: Will Kinsman, Cesare Dall’Ana, James Odneal, Maria Espindola and Joe Everett.

Each student told the audience a little bit about the place that they were from, and the differences they see between that place and Bottineau. The student panel also answered questions from audience members.

Joe Everett, who grew up in Parshall, N.D., on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, but moved off the reservation when he was a teenager, came from the closest place to Bottineau.
He is amazed at the differences his town has gone through in the past few years with the oil boom.

“When I visit back home now, all I see is oil rigs,” Everett said. “The little town I used to live in is just booming.”
The main difference of place that he notices between where he grew up and where he is now is race.

“It is still a little bit different, because I’m used to seeing majority natives, but I’m from North Dakota, so it isn’t that different,” Everett said.
Kinsman is a sophomore at DCB from Winnipeg, Manitoba. He believed that Winnipeg is very different from Bottineau.

“Winnipeg is a very different place than Bottineau, but I didn’t go through any culture shock, because I played junior hockey in a small town for two years,” Kinsman said. “To give you an idea though, Winnipeg’s population is more than the entire state of North Dakota.”

One of the biggest difference he noticed was school populations.

“My graduating class was 554,” Kinsman said. “I met kids at my prom, that I had been going to school with for four years.”

From a slightly farther place was sophomore James Odneal, who hails from Pontiac, Mich.

Though he says he felt no discomfort in coming to Bottineau, he did recognize many differenes between Bottineau and Pontiac.

“Pontiac is basically black and Hispanic, but there wasn’t a culture shock coming here, because I’m used to getting to know people that aren’t like me,” Odneal said. “I feel like being here has made me a better person. When I was at home I was getting into a lot of trouble, but being up here is a good thing.”

The final student from the states was Maria Espindola, who was born in Chile, but at a young age moved to Miami, Fla., where she was raised.
Transportation was a major change she noticed when coming to North Dakota.

“When I first got here I asked my coach if I could take the bus from Minot to Bottineau,” Espindola said. “He told me there is no such thing here. At home I can take the bus wherever I want to go.”

She also noted the overcrowding that is taking place in Miami.

“If you go there (Miami) from a small town, it would be a bit of a culture shock,” Espindola said. “Because you always see houses, you always see stores, you always see malls. It is never one house and then land.”

Two of the students on the panel were from different countries.
The first was Cesare Dall’Ana, who came from Italy to play goalie for the Lumberjack hockey team.

Coming to Bottineau was not his first visit to North Dakota, however.

“The first time I came to North Dakota I was a foreign exchange student in Dickinson, N.D., and they told me that I was going to be in a small town, but to me a small town is 200,000 people,” Dall’Ara said. “When I was sitting in the airplane in Denver I already had a strange feeling, because two people in a 50-seater, that’s pretty strange.”

The main differences Dall’Ara noted between North Dakota and Italy were the way people dress, the cars we drive and the school system.

“The thing I like most about North Dakota is the people, and how nice they are,” Dall’Ara said. “I don’t know the neighbor down the street.”
Other major differences he divulged were population and open space.
“We (Italy) are the size of Arizona, but have a population twice the size of California,” Dall’Ara said. “In Italy it is like house, house, house, but in North Dakota it is like Dickinson, nothing, Bismarck, nothing, Minot, nothing and Bottineau.”

The final student panelist was Jadyen McMillin, who traveled on a 16-hour flight to come from native Melbourne, Australia to play basketball at DCB.

“I had never heard of Bottineau before, and actually had never heard of North Dakota before, believe it or not,” McMillin said.

The major difference McMillin noted between Australia and his experience here is money.

“The money is total opposite,” McMillin said. “We earn way more, but everything is way more expensive.”

The students places made for interesting topics, a few laughs and genuine audience participation.

The book series will continue next on Nov. 30, and will be a read and response discussion. Other future sessions will include wildlife management, aging from a care prospective, panel on large farms and a speech by the author.