Suzzanne Kelley has worked at NDSU since 2015. She teaches the classes that make up the Certificate in Publishing offered by the school, which include an introductory class, a practicum, and field experience in publishing.
Kelley got her bachelor’s degree at the University of Texas at Austin with the intention of teaching middle schoolers. “I didn’t go to college until I was in my late twenties, but when I got there I was pretty much in love with everything I was learning,” she said.
As she interacted more with her fellow teachers and received the National Endowment for the Humanities, Kelley was inspired to get her master’s degree at the University of Central Oklahoma. She got a master’s in history and museum studies, and after receiving her degree she started an internship at the state journal. “I had a great experience with copyediting at that journal, but I also got to do editing for a Chinese studies journal…and an Oklahoma politics journal,” she said. “I got to have these great experiences of working with different people, editors and topics.”
Kelley came to NDSU to get her PhD in history and graduated in 2010. “NDSU had just started their history PhD and so I was one of the group of three that were the first to graduate the program,” she said. As part of her degree she got a publishing certificate as MSUM, and she then worked as a freelance historian until the publishing professor at MSUM retired and she was asked to take her position.
Kelley taught at MSUM for six years, until she was hired by NDSU to reboot the press in 2015. “NDSU press was first established in 1950 in an attempt to record the different aspects of history in our region…so from 1950 to 2015 it published maybe one book a year, because there was never anyone hired who could manage it and be thinking about expansion.”
Since she has been passionate about books and reading since she was a child, Kelley jumped at the chance to work with the press and to teach publishing classes at NDSU. After she started managing it, the press has printed more books than it did in all of the years it operated prior to 2015 and now produces about ten books a year.
One thing that Kelley has been working on at the press has been increasing the number of books it produces that have been written by Indigenous authors. The press chooses books to publish that share experiences and voices from the Great Plains to preserve the history of the region—even if it is difficult history, like a book sharing the stories of lynchings on the Plains or one about Indian boarding schools that was recently published.
By Kelley’s estimate, around 20 graduate and undergraduate students have earned a publishing certificate since she started working on the program. “The goal is that they learn about the history of the business publishing, as well as the practice,” she said. Students are able to work on different projects that align with what they want to get out of the program, and get the opportunity to see how a book is published—from selecting the manuscript to writing the cover blurb to working with graphic designers on what the cover will look like. Students that help with a book’s production get to be credited for their help on the book’s copyright page and receive copies of the book for their portfolios.
As someone whose teaching philosophy is focused on building relationships with each of her students, one of Kelley’s favorite memories from teaching is when the changes in classroom culture due to Covid started to go away and students began to genuinely engage again. “Last semester we really got back to where students were engaged and where they really want to be here learning,” she said. “It’s so important to me that people can speak freely and be heard…I love it when I walk into my classrooms and students are jabbering away about something. That willingness to be joyful is what makes me feel good about being here.”