The Northern Plains Ethics Institute at NDSU recently added a pair of advisory board members to its leadership group.
Kate Cook has spent more than 30 years working in special education. Cook holds a doctorate in special education with an emphasis in behavior disorders and autism spectrum disorders from the University of Kansas. She spent the last 14 years working in Kindergarten through grade 12 as an autism specialist. In addition to teaching within the public schools, she has held faculty positions at multiple institutions of higher education and worked at the state level with the Missouri Board of Education.
Cook has numerous publications in professional journals and has co-written several book chapters and books. Cook enjoys volunteering with the NDSU daycare at the Wellness Center, Bison Strides and watching all NDSU student sporting events, performances and activities.
Mike Gjesdahl is the founder and owner of Gjesdahl Law, P.C., one of the nation’s largest family law firms. His firm is dedicated to helping families through transitions of all kinds. Through its assisted reproductive technology and adoption work, it helps couples form families. In the process, it meets the bio-ethical issues of the day. A for-profit firm with a helping heart mission, Gjesdahl’s office confronts the discomforting access-to-justice truth each day. Social justice issues are woven into its days, too, as, for example, its lawyers extricate women and children from lives of domestic violence and control, then watch them blossom. Ethical issues related to gender, cultural bias, personal identity, sexuality, financial fairness, and care of children bubble in the firm’s cauldron.
Gjesdahl is both warrior and peace-maker. He has tried over a hundred cases and argued over twenty appeals. But he has found negotiated resolution in over a thousand cases, has served as mediator in over another hundred and has been the driving force in bringing collaborative negotiating to North Dakota. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in public administration and his Juris Doctorate from the University of North Dakota. He’s held many leadership positions, including president, First Lutheran Church, Fargo; chair, State Bar of North Dakota’s Ethics Inquiry Committee Southeast; and president, Homeward Animal Shelter
The Northern Plains Ethics Institute promotes democratic participation in ethical issues affecting the Northern Plains and beyond.