Stephens named Interim Dean of Student Affairs
Chadron State College Director of Housing and Residence Life Austen Stephens has been appointed as the Interim Dean of Student Affairs, according to an announcement by President Randy Rhine.
By News Channel Nebraska
CHADRON – Chadron State College Director of Housing and Residence Life Austen Stephens has been appointed as the Interim Dean of Student Affairs, according to an announcement by President Randy Rhine. Stephens fills the position vacated by Dr. Tara Hart. He will also continue in his current role, a position he has had since Sept. 2017.
Rhine said Stephens’ experience in Housing and Residence Life will provide continuity for staff and students.
“We’re pleased Austen has accepted taking on this role, in addition to his current duties,” Rhine said.
Stephens said he appreciates the opportunity to continue the vision and initiatives of his predecessors.
“I look forward to leading a division composed of several strong teams,” Stephens said.
A native of Lincoln, Stephens supervises three full-time professional staff and about 40 part-time student employees. He oversees Residence Life educational and social programming including service projects, such as campus clean-up and programs covering a wide range of topics including healthy lifestyle choices, student success, personal development, diversity, and safety. His team collaborates with the Title IX Office, Security Office, Intramurals, and The Pit to provide events and activities for students.
Stephens, who also played football for the Eagles, earned his Business Administration bachelor’s degree in 2014 with a Management option and a minor in Biology. In 2016, he earned an MBA from CSC while working for Housing and Residence Life.
Stephens has participated in and led numerous search committees and student conduct panels, served on the Strategic Planning Committee established by the Nebraska State College System Office, the CSC Strategic Planning Committee, and the Food Service Committee.
Additionally, he has assisted with developing Requests for Proposals for laundry equipment, food service, and vending providers. He navigated the COVID 19 pandemic, and coordinated food delivery to students, and meeting needs to isolate and quarantine ill students. He has also helped facilitate temporary faculty and staff housing at Eagle Ridge.
Stephens began his employment with CSC as a part-time student worker in the spring of 2011. In the summer of 2011, he was hired as a Resident Advisor to help with high school camps.
From 2014 to 2015, he was an Assistant Director of Residence Life. He was then named Associate Director of Residence Life in 2015. A year later, he was named the Associate Director of Housing and Residence Life. In that position he was responsible for hiring, training, and supervising hall directors and resident advisors.
Stephens, and his wife Ashley, also a CSC alum, have three children.
Nationally-known saxophonist featured in debut of Stephens’ composition
CHADRON – During a Chadron State College concert February 6, guest artist and nationally-known saxophonist Bobby Watson played a composition by Music Professor Dr. Michael Stephens.
Stephens said he started composing “Trying to be Shorter,” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When CSC had a break between Thanksgiving (2020) and January (2021), that was a great opportunity for me to work on it because everybody else in my household would go off to school. Then, I'd sit down at the piano. I was trying to get inside of some of the compositions of Wayne Shorter, so that's the play on words in the title,” Stephens said.
He said he tried to use some of Shorter’s harmonizations.
“I was trying to create a singable melody and let the harmony provide a lot of interesting context. In some ways, I also alluded to Shorter’s tune Witch Hunt,” Stephens said.
Stephens led the CSC Band’s rehearsals of his composition during the fall of 2022.
“It's a difficult number because there's some double time working the saxophone. We started out working at half tempo and spent time on it. It was a lot of work preparing it. Then, when the opportunity came up with Bobby Watson, I rewrote a part especially for him,” Stephens said.
Watson had high praise for Stephens and the CSC music students he worked with.
“They have a great attitude and are very good listeners. I could tell they want to learn,” Watson said.
Watson said he enjoyed playing Stephens’ composition.
“It's a fun piece. I feel fortunate to have been part of the debut,” Watson said. “Coming here to Chadron State College really drives home for me how important music education is and how many places students are learning across the nation.”
CSC receives substantial grant for Clinical Mental Health Counseling graduate student stipends
CHADRON – Chadron State College graduate students pursuing a Clinical Mental Health Counseling degree will have the opportunity to apply for $10,000 stipends thanks to a $490,500 award CSC received from the Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska (BHECN).
The award application, written by Dr. Tara Wilson and Dr. Grant Sasse, focused on behavioral workforce development.
“It is very exciting. This opportunity will support our students as they complete an intensive internship as part of their training program,” Wilson said.
BHECN received American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) funds from the state legislature and they're utilizing it to further their efforts to expand efforts to recruit and retain behavioral health professionals in Nebraska.
According to Wilson, 52 percent of the BHECN funds from ARPA went to rural communities.
“That demonstrates how BHECN is committed to building the rural behavioral health workforce. Also, the legislature is aware of the current need for behavioral health,” Wilson said.
CSC students pursuing a Clinical Mental Health master’s degree are required to complete a 600-hour internship. The entire program takes about six semesters for a full-time graduate student without any prior graduate coursework. To apply for the stipend, email [email protected] or call 308-432-6043.
“Our students in their internships are less likely to be able to maintain employment outside of the required internship. These stipends from the award will help our currently enrolled students complete the program and also recruit additional students into our degree program,” Wilson said.
She anticipates that many of the stipends will go to CSC students who have completed their undergraduate degrees and then enrolled straight into the Clinical Mental Health master’s degree program. Students can apply to the clinical mental health graduate program with an undergraduate degree in any field.
Other types of students that Wilson anticipates being interested include non-degree-seeking adults.
“We see a lot of school counselors who have the bulk of their clinical coursework completed and come back to finish requirements to be eligible for licensure,” she said.
If a student already has a school counseling degree, completing the clinical mental health degree would be shorter due to having much of the coursework completed already.
“We also have students who come back after having a successful career in another field and now want to enter the clinical world. COVID-19 increased overall awareness of the importance of mental health. A career in clinical mental health is a way to give back,” Wilson said. “Counseling is an incredibly fulfilling job. You go home each day knowing you've made a difference for your clients,” Wilson said.
Common sites where CSC students finish their internships in the Chadron area include Education Service Units, Options in Psychology, Pathways to Wellness, A Touch of Hope Therapy, and Western Nebraska Behavioral Health.
“We also have a lot of students who work with individual practitioners. Typically, our students are offered employment after a successful internship, so students often have a job waiting for them if they want it.,” Wilson said.
The deadline for CSC to use the funds is December 2025.
Brust discovers grasshopper in unusual range expansion
CHADRON – In the Wisconsin Northwoods country during the summer of 2022, Chadron State College Professor Dr. Mathew Brust found a pallidwinged grasshopper thousands of miles from its natural breeding range while he was looking for the boreal tiger beetle.
“Sometimes on satellite photos, I can find abandoned gravel pits on Forest Service property so access is easy and those are often tiger beetle bonanzas. It was morning and the tiger beetles weren’t active yet but I scared up a grasshopper that looked like nothing that should be there that time of year,” he said. I collected it and suddenly realized it was a species way out of its natural range.”
There is a related species that looks similar, the Lake Huron locust, which is endangered in Wisconsin and threatened in Michigan. But it was early June, so the timing was not right for that insect, according to Brust.
“I wondered if it could be a pallidwinged grasshopper. It's one of those freak occurrences where I happened to be in the right place at the right time,” he said. “Historically, some of my finds have had these initial denial moments. I look at the insect and say, ‘You can't be here.’ Some ask me if it hitchhiked there or if it flew there. I'll never know.”
According to Brust, the CSC collection has 10,490 grasshopper specimens and he has about 300 more at his home since the company that made the archival storage cabinets that CSC has acquired in the past went out of business during the pandemic.
“Once we find a new supplier, we plan to order a lot. This one will end up in the CSC collection. It was in wonderful condition, possibly indicating perhaps it flew at a higher altitude,” he said.
It and related species are called band-winged grasshoppers because the hindwing is often bicolored with yellow and black or red and black.
“I'm one of a few people who would have known what species it was because band-winged grasshoppers are insanely difficult to identify. Most folks have probably seen them in the Sandhills. We've got about 30 species in Nebraska with yellow and black wings that make buzzing noises. To the novice, they all look alike,” Brust said.
The normal breeding range of the pallidwinged grasshopper is Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, according to Brust. He said it probably also breeds in west Texas and as far north as southwestern Kansas or southern Colorado. He said other recent records indicate one has been collected in Missouri and one in Arkansas, and even one in southwestern Iowa in 2022. However, the Wisconsin record is over 300 miles to the northeast of even the Iowa record from the same year and is the first record from east of the Mississippi River.
Brust has collected one or two in southern Wyoming and a couple in Chadron.
“They've often been beaten up when I find them in western Nebraska. They probably traveled more than 500 to1,000 miles in some cases,” he said.
He plans to contact a friend who is the editor of the Southwestern Naturalist Journal to see if he would like to publish a brief article about the discovery.
“It will be a short paper. One of those quick notes about highly unusual range expansion,” he said.