BVU Board Chair Reflects on Education, Service, and Gridiron Gratitude
Dr. Norman Nielsen steps down as the Chair of the Board of Trustees after eight years of service. Nielsen, who will remain a member of the Board, looks back to when his journey with BVU began more than 60 years ago.
Dr. Norman Nielsen reflected on all that Buena Vista University has meant to him on the eve of his stepping down as BVU Board of Trustees Chairman on June 30, thus concluding a remarkable eight-year tenure, one of the longest in recent BVU history. He will remain as a member of the Board of Trustees as Mike Pierce ascends to the Chairman’s role.
Nielsen came to BVU as a transfer student 61 years ago this fall. He attended the University of Northern Iowa (then known as Iowa State Teachers College) as a freshman from Jewell High School, intent on playing football and basketball. An injury set him back in Cedar Falls. He would transfer to Webster City Junior College then find his way west to Storm Lake after being recruited by Merritt Ewalt, who coached the Beavers in men’s basketball at the time.
Nielsen, however, excelled on the gridiron for the Beavers, who went 8-1 in his first season. Standing at 6-feet tall and weighing 195 pounds, Nielsen, who played on both sides of the line, was named the squad’s Most Valuable Player following his senior campaign in 1960, quite a feat for someone who didn’t play high school football.
“I’ve had a wonderful time as the Chair and I’ve kept busy in that role. It was extremely rewarding to see the Forum renovation through and watch as that project, along with a number of key initiatives in the Strategic Plan, helped bring about some enrollment gains as well as some new programs.”
Dr. Norman Nielsen
“I started some as a junior in basketball, but I told Merritt that I couldn’t foul out in football,” Nielsen says with a laugh. “I was small for a lineman in football, but I really enjoyed the contact and the mental part of the game.”
He also played some baseball for Coach Jay Beekmann.
Following his graduation, Nielsen taught and coached at nearby Alta High School for one year as his wife, Marian (Jaycox) Nielsen earned her degree in education. The couple then taught at Webster City High School for the bulk of the 1960s. And that’s where they started their family with the birth of son, Jeff, in 1969. Nielsen served as principal at Northeast Hamilton High school in Blairsburg from 1969-71, where he and Marian welcomed the birth of daughter Julie.
The Nielsens relocated to Belle Plaine from 1971-79 as Norm served as superintendent of schools. He was then hired as a vice president at Kirkwood Community College and remained there until his retirement, serving as president from 1985-2005.
He came out of retirement for a 10-month span in 2006-07 to serve as Chancellor at Houston Community College, helping direct 70,000 students across six campuses.
Then-BVU President Fred Moore and E. Wayne Cooley ’44, a member of the BVU Board of Trustees, asked Nielsen to become a Trustee in 2006. Jim Haahr, a 1962 graduate of Buena Vista University, served as Chair at the time.
During his time as Chair, Nielsen would oversee $15.1 million renovation of Siebens Forum, a project funded entirely by BVU benefactors. The effort would transform BVU’s signature space before transitioning to a second phase, the renovation of Ballou Library, which concludes later this summer.
“I’ve had a wonderful time as the Chair and I’ve kept busy in that role,” says Nielsen. “It was extremely rewarding to see the Forum renovation through and watch as that project, along with a number of key initiatives in the Strategic Plan, helped bring about some enrollment gains as well as some new programs.”
Nielsen is anxious to see how future success stories play out across campus and for the hundreds of students BVU serves annually through its online, hybrid, and graduate school programs.
“We will have to work hard to keep attracting students, but we can do it,” he says. “With our endowment and the faith of our of alumni and friends, we have shown our ability to educate, and we remain in a strong position, despite the current climate.”
BVU will succeed, Nielsen says, and he’ll do everything in his power to help see it through, building on leadership provided by a committed BVU Board of Trustees. Incoming Chair Mike Pierce, a Storm Lake native with BVU family ties extending across three generations and Interim President Dr. Brian Lenzmeier, whom Nielsen has known for more than a decade, will assure BVU’s future success.
“Mike Pierce will do an outstanding job directing the Board of Trustees, who’ve almost become like family to me,” Nielsen says. “You can’t find a better group of people, all of them highly respected as leaders in their fields, people who are constantly thinking and doing what’s best for our students and the future of the University.
“I met Dr. Brian Lenzmeier when he was a Professor of Biology, then worked with him when he was Chair of the Faculty Senate, and got to know him even better as Provost,” says Nielsen, who served as an Interim President himself, at Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids. “Brian knows BVU and the landscape so very well. He’s just as committed to our students now as he was when he was teaching them every day and directing their labs in the Estelle Siebens Science Center.”
Professors like Lenzmeier, Nielsen says, helped him find his way some six decades ago on this campus.
“Were it not for sports initially, I probably wouldn’t have attended college,” said Nielsen, who still sees his old coach, Merritt Ewalt, on every return visit to Storm Lake. “I got an education at BVU and it served me well. It provided for me the foundation for a rich and fulfilling career spanning 50 years in education. My work with my alma mater has seen me, in many ways, working to keep us at the forefront, serving in a capacity I never envisioned when I was a student.”
The lifelong educator and former two-way Beaver football starter pauses, then concludes, “I’m 81 years old and I’m still learning about education and about BVU. I enjoy it immensely.”