NORTHERN TODAY 8 SPRING 2015 NORTHERN NEWS Q&A Professor of History College of Arts and Sciences History and Geography Faculty Dr. Ric Dias Hometown: Eureka, Calif. (a Eureka where kuchen is unknown). Family: Wife, Shelly; stepchildren, Danielle and Matt. My parents live in California; I have one sibling, a sister, who lives in Texas with her husband and kids. My mom’s mom is nearly 100 years old and lives in Oregon. Q. How long have you worked at NSU? A. I arrived in Aberdeen on Aug. 1, 1995, so I’m coming up on a milestone. Q. What brought you to NSU? A. This was my first tenure-track job offer. I received it while finishing my Ph.D. (from the University of California, Riverside), living at the time outside of San Francisco. Jerry Rosonke, department chair at the time, called me with the offer. I remember that conversation in 1995 vividly. Q. What’s the best part of your job? A. That’s hard to say. If I didn’t enjoy Northern students so much I wouldn’t have stayed these 19 years; they have been terrific. Likewise, if I didn’t enjoy my colleagues so much I wouldn’t have stayed either. And for a person like me, who has loved history since youth, I still feel lucky and grateful to get paid to do history. Q. What’s your favorite class to teach and why? A. History 361, The U.S. in the 1960s, which I am teaching this term, might just be my favorite course I’ve taught. It’s a stellar group of young historians in the class, and I’ve integrated 21st Century technology into the class, so I can use TV and movie clips, bits of speeches, music, and still images, all with high-quality audio and visual content, that adds a new dimension to the classroom experience. Q. What is the best career advice you have ever received? A. Jim Kretchman, like Ronsonke an NSU icon, who was nearing retirement when I started here, advised me to enjoy every minute working here, that it could be a great ride, but that it would go by very fast. I’ve tried to “live in the moment,” as they used to say in the ’60s, and he was absolutely correct on how I would feel about my job at Northern. Q. What advice would you like to share with students? A. You don’t have to love your time at college to succeed, but if you can find enjoyment in your classes, make some friends, be receptive to learning, and look for new experiences, your time in college might be life-changing and surprisingly enjoyable. I was so fond of my freshman year in college that I changed my career plans and determined to find a way to never leave college . . . and get paid for it. Q. Are you involved with any organizations outside of work you want to mention? A. The NSU Newman Center has been an important part of my life here. Q. Do you have any hobbies you want to mention? A. I am drawn to things mechanical, so I own two old vehicles that I work on, operate and throw money at: a 1951 Kaiser car and a 1962 International Metro van. I’ve integrated this hobby into my professional writing. I’m crazy about travel, which I do with the lovely Shelly, and this summer we will visit South Korea. And I am obsessed with food, so I judge food at the Brown County Fair and South Dakota State Fair, I frequently cook at home or outside our home for others, and we often have groups of international students come to our house to cook. Q. Is there anything else you want to include? A. My most recent publication is also my first bit of local history. I wrote an article on NSU’s Seymour Hall that appeared in the winter 2014 issue of the journal South Dakota History.
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