North Dakota
UND LGBTQ community thriving despite unclear future
GRAND FORKS – UND is home to a flourishing LGBTQ community thanks to efforts from students, staff and faculty, though its future is shrouded in uncertainty as states across the country propose and enact bans against diversity, equity and inclusion at public institutions.
Jeff Maliskey became the first director of UND’s Pride Center in 2022 after having steered it in an interim capacity since 2017. Under his stewardship, the LGBTQ community has taken an increasingly active role on campus.
“You start small, and then it’s grown all over campus,” Maliskey said. “That’s why you really do see us kind of as this hub in the state, this hub in little Grand Forks, North Dakota, as the ones leading the initiatives.”
Darin Buri, the College of Engineering and Mines Facility and library manager, credits the increased visibility of the community to Maliskey.
“Jeff’s been wonderful,” Buri said. “It wasn’t always visible, but I think it’s gotten a lot more visible since Jeff started in his position.”
Maliskey joined the university staff in May 2015, during a time when marriage equality was a political hot topic. This would culminate in the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision the very next month, which made same-sex marriage a constitutionally protected right.
The month before Maliskey came to Grand Forks, the North Dakota Legislature
voted down a bill that would prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ individuals
.
“(It wasn’t) a great conversation that I was hearing around campus from other faculty and staff, from students that were engaging in conversations,” Maliskey said. “So I almost felt like I was retreating a little bit back into the closet, if you will.”
Over two years later, in the 2017 fall semester, Maliskey was approached by the university’s vice president to take the interim leadership position of the newly founded Pride Center.
The center was created as a result of student advocacy, providing a physical space as well as resources and support for a community that has been active on campus since the creation of the Ten Percent Society, now known as the Queer and Trans Alliance, in the 1980s. Both were firsts for the state, according to Maliskey, creating a picture of a university leading efforts for queer and trans inclusion in North Dakota.
From the 1980s onward, students were responsible for leading these efforts, Maliksey said. Once the Pride Center was established, staff and faculty began to assume a greater role, using the Pride Center to provide students with support and resources as well as forming their own advocacy group, the LGBTQ Staff and Faculty Association.
During the most recent academic year, the Pride Center held 43 events, including the LGBTQ+ Higher Education Day-Long Institute and week-long events like Coming out Week and Trans Awareness Week. The center also provided academic support for LGBTQ students, such as study tables and academic challenges that were successful in raising the GPA of some of its participants, according to the center’s annual report.
Maliskey said the effect has been felt by students. The number of students involved with the Pride Center and the programs it offers has increased every year and the climate for LGBTQ students on campus has improved since.
However, the national conversation surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion doesn’t bode well for the center and the support it provides for students.
According to the Chronicle Of Higher Education
, 85 bills that would prohibit public colleges and universities from having diversity, equity and inclusion offices and staff have been introduced across 28 states and the U.S. Congress since 2023. Of those 85 bills, 14 have become law in states like Florida, Texas and most recently Utah, where LGBTQ resource centers have closed their doors for good.
In North Dakota,
such a bill was signed into law last April
, though it extended only to prohibiting mandatory diversity, equity and inclusion — commonly referred to as DEI — training and diversity statements. Offices that receive funding from public universities, such as UND’s Pride Center, can remain open for now.
“We don’t have the federal protection and it’s really up to the states,” Maliskey said. “It’s not looking great or promising for us right now.”
According to Maliskey, closing down these centers could result in students, faculty and staff leaving the schools and the states to go to institutions elsewhere. This doesn’t just apply to queer and trans students, Maliskey said, but allies as well.
A closure could also result in an increase in mental health concerns, which Maliskey said is already being experienced by states that have lost their services.
“Are we going to be here tomorrow? Oh, I hope,” Maliskey said. “I hope we can continue to do our work to support students. We know there’s a need, because if we don’t we know the outcome isn’t great for our students.”
In the past year, 39% of LGBTQ young people nationwide seriously considered attempting suicide and 12% attempted suicide, according to
survey data from the Trevor Project
, a nonprofit focusing on suicide prevention and crisis intervention for LGBTQ youth. Additionally, among those surveyed who reported living in very accepting communities, the suicide rate was less than half as those who reported living in very unaccepting communities.
Such figures reflect the importance for LGBTQ adults on campus to be more open about their identity and support the students, according Bridget Brooks, an instructional designer and the current chair of the LGBTQ Staff and Faculty Association’s Board of Executives.
“I think being visible, if it saves one person’s life, it’s worth it,” Brooks said. “And it’s worth anything that could ever possibly happen to myself if someone else’s life is saved. So that’s why we need to be visible.”
The LGBTQ Faculty and Staff Association was created in the summer of 2021 after Maliskey, at the time the assistant director for the Hillyard Center and LGBTQ Initiatives, brought together a group of 10 faculty and staff.
According to Maliskey, the LGBTQ Staff and Faculty Association began as an informal network of LGBTQ staff and faculty who met to have conversations and build a community
Even though there’s a large number of LGBTQ faculty and staff on campus, previous activity was almost exclusively the territory of students, according to Buri. This meant that until the association was formed, there wasn’t any formal organization for faculty and staff.
“Now with this organization, we meet with the students a lot and participate in a lot of the things that they do,” Buri said. “So it’s a way for us to be visible and supportive of them as well.”
Maliskey said the association has not only increased the community’s visibility on campus, but it has also been able to connect students with faculty for research and academic support. If a student wants to engage in queer and trans research, Maliskey is able to connect them with faculty in the group who do that kind of work.
Another part of the association is the Out List, a voluntary list of currently 25 staff and faculty members who have chosen to openly identify as LGBTQ to amplify the community’s visibility and networking opportunities on campus.
“We all hold different identities,” Maliskey said. “No matter where you’re at, you can find somebody to connect with.”
Visibility has been an essential part of the UND LGBTQ community’s longevity, according to Buri. It’s also helped change minds and create a more tolerant climate on campus for the community.
“When you’re visible you’re not just a number or a statistic anymore,” Buri said. “And people know you and all of a sudden it kind of changes the dynamic, how they think.”
Despite an unclear future for the Pride Center and the LGBTQ community in general, Buri said he maintains hope.
“I think that it’s going to take all of us working together, but I think the future is bright,” Buri said. “We’ll get past whatever obstacles we have and we’ll do OK. We always have.”
BRECKENRIDGE — Coaches, teammates, friends and family gathered in the south parking lot of Breckenridge High School for another state tournament sendoff.
Corbin Abner Lee / Wahpeton Daily News
This year, it was Troy Berndt taking the ceremonial convertible ride. He is headed to St. Michael-Albertville High School for the Minnesota Class A State Track and Field Meet on June 4-6.
Corbin Abner Lee / Wahpeton Daily News
He will be running in the third heat of the 400-meter prelims, scheduled for 4:52 p.m. June 4. There are seven athletes in each heat, 21 total, and nine will advance to the finals at 6:20 p.m. June 5.
The top two finishers in each heat advance, along with the next three best times. Berndt’s personal best time of 50.67 has him seeded 13th, but the 10th-, 11th- and 12th-seeded runners are less than five hundredths of a second ahead of him. The eighth- and ninth-seeded runners are also close, at 50.33 and 50.39, respectively.
Berndt dropped nearly seven-tenths of a second from his previous personal best at the Section 6A West Subsection Meet on May 21, running 51.35, and shaved another 0.68 seconds off at the Section 6A Championships on May 28 with a time of 50.67. If he keeps lowering his time, he will have a shot at reaching the podium against the best runners in Class A.
Corbin Abner Lee / Wahpeton Daily News
Results and photos will be available online immediately following the race June 4 and in the June 10 print edition of the Wahpeton Daily News.
Corbin Lee is a sports reporter for the Wahpeton Daily News and Richland County News-Monitor. Corbin can be reached by calling (701) 291-3551 or emailing corbin.lee@wahpetondailynews.com.
On this day in 1971, Rugby repeated as North Dakota’s high school sand greens golf champion behind medalist Dwight Stempson’s winning performance.
Here is the complete story as it appeared in the paper that day:
Rugby Repeats As Sand Greens Golf Champion
RUGBY, N. D. — Rugby repeated as North Dakota high school sand greens golf champion here Wednesday, posting a four-man total of 293 strokes for 18 holes.
Led by medalist Dwight Stempson’s medalist 36-35 — 71, the Panthers were eight strokes ahead of runnerup Stanley, which had a 301. Following were Garrison 311, Beulah 315, Leeds 322, Ashley 323, Bottineau 328, Pembina 329, Tioga 332, Parshall 341 and Hettinger 342.
Stempson and teammate Bruce Carlson each had one-under par 71s, but Carlson was unable to be at the regional and wasn’t qualified for individual honors.
Rounding out the Rugby totals were Delwin Wilson 40-37 — 77 and Dennett Hutchinson 35-39 — 74. Gary Kirchoffner, 41-39 — 80, was Rugby’s fifth entrant with the best four-of-five scores counted.
Runnerup Stanley was led by Steve Springan’s 34-38 — 72 and Joe Springan’s 36-38 — 74. Their two-man total of 146 strokes was good enough for the doubles title. Two strokes back with a 148 was the duo of Stempson and Wilson. Stan Saathoff and Mike Stepina of Garrison each had 76s for a 152 total and the Ashley combo of Steve Maier (76) and Dave Kretschmar (78) was fourth with a 154.
Stempson was the driving contest winner with a distance of 280 yards. Chris Knutson of Garrison headed the pitch and putt competition.
Kate Almquist is the social media manager for InForum. After working as an intern, she joined The Forum full time starting in January 2022. Readers can reach her at kalmquist@forumcomm.com.
Walhalla keeps the oldest buildings in North Dakota, fur-trade posts from the 1840s still standing near the Canadian line. Medora sits out in the Badlands, where a French aristocrat tried to build a beef empire in 1883. Garrison fishes one of the largest reservoirs in the country, and Jud has turned nearly every wall in town into a mural. The frontier era left marks across North Dakota that most of the Plains has paved over, and these ten towns still carry them. Each one holds a specific piece of the state’s history and geography.
Garrison
Garrison sits on the north shore of Lake Sakakawea, the reservoir the Garrison Dam holds back on the Missouri River and one of the largest reservoirs in the country. Anglers come year-round for walleye, northern pike, and chinook salmon, and the lake also draws boaters, campers, and shoreline hikers. In town, the open-air Heritage Park Museum preserves a one-room schoolhouse, a railroad depot, a country church, and a homesteader cabin from the turn of the last century. Fort Stevenson State Park, three miles southwest, marks the site of an 1860s military post with an interpretive guardhouse, a marina, a campground, and lakeside trails. Garrison leans into its self-declared title as the Walleye Capital of North Dakota with Wally the Walleye, a 26-foot fiberglass fish on Main Street.
Mayville
Mayville State University anchors this Red River Valley town in Traill County. The public four-year college opened in 1889 as one of the six original state normal schools authorized at North Dakota statehood, and its calendar still drives the town through Comet athletics, theater productions, and the annual Festival of Trees. Island Park, set along the Goose River where it runs through downtown, holds the town’s main recreation space with picnic areas, playgrounds, and a community pool. The volunteer-tended Rainbow Garden along the riverbank mixes themed plantings with folk-art sculptures. The Mayville Water Park runs its pool and slides from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Lisbon
Lisbon grew up along the Sheyenne River in Ransom County as a Northern Pacific Railroad town, and its 1889 Opera House, now restored and on the National Register, still hosts theater and music. Brick storefronts from the same era line Main Street. Just south of town, the Sheyenne National Grassland protects 70,000 acres of tallgrass prairie, the largest publicly owned tallgrass prairie in the country, with trails open to hikers, riders, and limited hunting. Prairiewood Vineyard, about six miles out, grows cold-climate grapes and pours tastings on weekends.
Fort Ransom
Fewer than 100 people live in Fort Ransom year-round, deep in the wooded Sheyenne River Valley. Fort Ransom State Park preserves the site of an 1867 Army outpost built to guard settlers and the wagon route toward the Black Hills, and it now offers camping, paddling on the Sheyenne, and cross-country skiing. The park’s Sodbuster Days each September run horse-powered farming, threshing, and traditional-craft demonstrations, and the Sheyenne Valley Arts and Crafts Festival fills it over the Fourth of July weekend. The town anchors the Sheyenne River Valley Scenic Byway, a 63-mile route through some of the most varied terrain in the state.
Devils Lake
Devils Lake takes its name from the Dakota “Mni Wak’áŋ,” or Spirit Water, and sits beside the largest natural lake in North Dakota. Between 1993 and 2011, floodwaters more than doubled the lake, swelling it from roughly 70 square miles to over 200 and swallowing roads, farms, and woodland as it rose. Today it holds one of the most productive perch and walleye fisheries in the Upper Midwest. Graham’s Island State Park, on the western shore, is the main access point, with cabins, a campground, a swimming beach, and boat ramps. Fort Totten State Historic Site nearby preserves an 1867 military post with sixteen original buildings restored to tell its story through 1890.
Medora
Medora is the gateway to the south unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, set in the Badlands of western North Dakota. The Marquis de Mores, a French aristocrat, founded the town in 1883 and named it for his American wife, Medora von Hoffman; his Chateau de Mores hunting lodge still stands as a state historic site with the family’s original furnishings. The Maltese Cross Cabin, near the park visitor center, is the cabin Theodore Roosevelt used during his 1880s ranching years, the period that shaped his later conservation work. Each summer the Burning Hills Amphitheatre stages the Medora Musical, a Western-themed show running since 1965 in a natural bluff theater over the Badlands. The North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame keeps permanent exhibits on ranching, rodeo, and Indigenous horse culture.
Walhalla
Walhalla, founded in 1845 on the banks of the Pembina River, is among the oldest towns in North Dakota. The Kittson Trading Post, built by American Fur Company agent Norman Kittson, stands at the Walhalla State Historic Site and is often called the oldest building in the state; the nearby Gingras Trading Post, the 1840s home and store of Métis trader Antoine Blanc Gingras, holds an equal or older claim. Pembina Gorge State Recreation Area cuts the deepest canyon in North Dakota, carved by the Pembina River, with trails for hiking, biking, and ATVs. Frost Fire Mountain runs downhill skiing and snowboarding in winter and an outdoor theater season in summer.
Valley City
Valley City earns its nickname, the City of Bridges, from the eleven bridges that cross the Sheyenne River and its tributaries within the city limits. The Hi-Line Railroad Bridge, finished in 1908 and listed on the National Register, runs 3,860 feet across the valley and stands 162 feet above the water, one of the longest single-track railroad bridges in the country. The town sits at the eastern end of the 63-mile Sheyenne River Valley Scenic Byway, and Valley City State University, founded in 1890, keeps the local calendar busy with Vikings athletics and the annual Hi-Liner Days festival.
Jud
Jud holds fewer than 100 residents in LaMoure County and is named for Judson LaMoure, an early state legislator. Since the early 2000s, residents and visiting artists have painted murals across nearly every building in town, including the post office, the grain elevator, the fire hall, and several houses, turning the place into a walkable open-air gallery of prairie wildlife, rural scenes, and abstract patterns. The annual Jud Art Festival each summer brings in regional artists and live music. Most travelers come for the murals and the sight of an entire town organized around one creative project.
Bottineau
Bottineau sits a little over ten miles south of the Canadian border as the gateway to the Turtle Mountains. Its mascot, the 30-foot fiberglass Tommy the Turtle, went up in 1978 riding a 34-foot snowmobile and is billed as the world’s tallest turtle statue. Pride Dairy on Main Street is the last small-town creamery still operating in North Dakota, known for its Juneberry ice cream. Lake Metigoshe State Park, about fifteen miles north, offers boating, kayaking, fishing, and winter ice fishing. Bottineau Winter Park, the largest ski area in the state, runs ten runs across 200 vertical feet plus a tubing hill, and Dakota College at Bottineau, established in 1906, anchors the campus side of town.
Where The Frontier Still Shows
What these ten towns share is how much of the frontier they kept. The Missouri River and Lake Sakakawea shaped Garrison. The Sheyenne River Valley runs through Fort Ransom, Lisbon, and Valley City. The Pembina Gorge holds Walhalla on the Canadian border, the Badlands hold Medora, and the Turtle Mountains rise behind Bottineau. Each one still keeps its 19th-century buildings and the kind of small-town institutions that have closed almost everywhere else.
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