Featured Student

Jake Nelson

History

For the past two years, Jake Nelson, 17, has been taking courses at Saint Paul College through a program called Post Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO), which allows high school juniors and seniors to take courses free of charge at many post-secondary institutions.

Attending college classes has been a big change for Nelson who, along with his four sisters, has been home schooled, mostly by their mom, until this point. "It's been great," Nelson says. "My schedule is flexible because of home schooling, so I can take more PSEO classes than I could if I was going to a high school."

Though there were other institutions offering PSEO courses closer to his home, Nelson chose Saint Paul College after hearing positive things about the school's History department from Kurt Kortenhof, the chair of the department. Nelson, a longtime history enthusiast, has worked with Kortenhof for the past several years on projects he did through the University of Minnesota's History Day program. Each year, more than 700,000 sixth-through 12th-grade students participate in regional history day programs nationwide (25,000 in Minnesota), preparing exhibits, performances, documentaries, and research papers based on a specific historical theme.

Nelson, who has participated in the program since he was in sixth grade, excels in doing research papers. Last year his hard work paid off when a paper he wrote in a Minnesota history course he's taking at the College was chosen by judges as Minnesota's entry in the annual National History Day contest in Washington, D.C.

The paper, which described how the federal government's policies toward Indians in the 19th century affected the lives of Ojibwa people living in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and upper Michigan, placed seventh in the nation out of more than 100 submitted entries. While Kortenhof has described Nelson's work as an "outstanding academic achievement," Nelson is equally effusive about his history teacher. "Kurt helped me a lot on the paper and with the subject of thepaper. I don't know how I would have done without his help."

Nelson is also grateful for Saint Paul College's willingness to sponsor his trip to the national competition. "Normally," he explains, "you have to pay for everything yourself, but Mr. Kortenhof asked the College Foundation's board if it would sponsor me and they said yes. So, really, it's the College that made all of this happen for me."

Nelson's experiences at Saint Paul College will help in his future. He notes that it's too early to say whether he'll study history once he settles on a degree path. But he is clearly passionate about the subject and particularly enjoys shedding light on aspects of history that are little known. "I liked the subject I wrote my paper on because it is such a moving story and a lot of people don't know it," he says.

"The Ojibwa Indians were forced to migrate for legal and political reasons—and many of them died in the process. It wasn't until citizens spoke up in their defense that the tragedy stopped, and I like how it shows that the good in people brought about change."

Meleah Maynard is a Minneapolis freelance writer.