The University of Minnesota Crookston is all about hands-on learning. This approach was on full display last spring when students in a project management course created, managed, and hosted an event to raise money for the Camden and Maxwell Dean Memorial Scholarship. 

Megan Pederson, the course instructor, used the project to help students apply the concepts learned in class. “I really love doing hands-on experiential learning,” she says. “Students really connect with it.” 

As the class considered ideas and causes to support, she brought up the scholarship, which honors Camden and Maxwell Dean, the children of two Crookston alumni. Camden, age 9, and Maxwell, 19 months, were killed in a car accident on March 25, 2018. 

Pederson, who is also a Crookston graduate and went to school with the boys’ parents, started the scholarship. “I was pregnant with one of my children when they were in the car accident and lost the boys. I wanted to do something for them. One thing that made sense was starting a scholarship,” she says. “People are going to read the boys’ story and go do good things in their honor.”

In partnership with multiple campus departments and outside businesses, 11 students organized a morning of activities for families in the Crookston community. 

The students planned activities, secured donations and prizes, sold tickets, did the accounting, and worked the stations at the event. 

Altogether, they raised $11,438 to bring the scholarship closer to being fully endowed. 

“The students did a fantastic job in finding the skills and strengths they have naturally and using them to help serve others,” she says. “If students can figure that out, I really feel like we’ve done our job."

Support the Camden and Maxwell Dean Memorial Scholarship.