mugandonValley City  (CSi-VCSU) Valley City State University will dedicate the Don Mugan Career and Technical Education Leadership Center on Friday, Oct. 2, at 3 p.m. in the Rhoades Science Center auditorium (room 102) on the VCSU campus. The event is open to the public free of charge.

Speakers at the event will include Mugan Center co-directors Peder Gjovik, assistant professor and chair of the Department of Technology at VCSU, and Rick Ross, VCSU associate professor. Wayne Kutzer, director and executive officer of the North Dakota Department of Career and Technical Education, and Jamie Wirth, assistant professor and director of the Great Plains STEM Education Center at VCSU, will also speak at the event, along with several others.

The Mugan CTE Center will work in partnership with the North Dakota Department of Career and Technical Education to identify, recruit and train future career and technical education teachers and administrators. The center honors the legacy of the late Don Mugan, who taught at VCSU from 1973–2012.

Mugan originally accepted a teaching position in the industrial arts department at VCSU. He became chair of the science and technology department in 1990 and was a key player in the development of VCSU’s online program. A strong advocate of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines, Mugan led efforts at VCSU to establish the Great Plains STEM Education Center in 2010; he was named its first director. Health issues precipitated his retirement in June 2012 after 39 years as a teacher and administrator at VCSU; he died in April 2014.