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INTRO MUSIC

AVA KIAN: Hey everyone, I’m Ava Kian.

YOKO VUE: I’m Yoko Vue. And you’re listening to “In the Know,” a podcast by the Minnesota Daily.

KIAN: The University of Minnesota announced on March 12 that students will be returning to in-person classes for the fall semester on all five campuses. Following health guidelines, the university will still require everyone to wear masks and socially distance, as well as continue to provide access for COVID testing. 

VUE: Students have expressed different feelings about returning to campus; some are excited to return while others have fully adapted to online learning. I spoke with electrical engineering student Amethyst O’Connell about what virtual learning has been like for them and what they’re looking forward to with in-person classes. 

AMETHYST O’CONNELL: Virtual learning for me has been pretty gross. I have multiple disabilities that make it hard to learn virtually. I have autism, I have ADHD, and I have chronic migraines, which means that I don’t have executive functioning in normal times. 

VUE: One way that they have adapted is to have hobbies that don’t revolve around a screen. 

O’CONNELL: If I stare at the screen too long, I’m going to get a migraine, right. It used to be like the inverse — all my work was in-person, all of my hobbies were online. I had to flip that. I needed to get things that I could do that didn’t involve staring at a screen, like in-person stuff. So, I started cooking more but I also bought some musical instruments and I basically flip those two spaces so that I wouldn’t be constantly in pain.

VUE: Although Amethyst said in-person learning will be more beneficial for them, they are concerned about the physical exhaustion of navigating campus.

O’CONNELL: Like, I know that it will be better for me because I will be able to actually like focus, but in some respects it will be worse for me because again my joints are going to hate me for it.

I got rheumatologist tested for Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which is commonly comorbid with autism and they were like, “No, you can’t bend your joints enough to have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome,” but I have some sort of something and so moving physically on this campus is a pain. That’s gonna be a mess. I took off work for a while, kind of because of that and I’m returning to work and it’s kind of like “Ooh, my body does not like to actually move.”

VUE: Amethyst said that they hope professors will continue to be understanding of students as they adjust this fall.

O’CONNELL: I feel like to a certain extent, professors have been better about accommodating my disability during these times because of the collective trauma of everyone having to deal with this global pandemic.

Like I kind of wonder, are we going to keep any of the good things from the pandemic? You know, like, are professors maybe going to be more chill about deadlines? Probably not, but I really hope they are.

Continuing to maintain some of their chiller policies like taking late homework and that sort of thing, you know while people get situated again because it’s not like we’re bouncing back and we’re immediately like, “Yes, we’re great.”

VUE: Amethyst said that while wearing masks when you’re sick is common among Asian countries, it should be something to continue here as well. 

O’CONNELL: I really hope we continue to wear masks when we’re sick, but really I hope that people stay home when they’re sick. And I hope that we have an institution and a structure that allows people to stay home when they’re sick.

TRANSITION MUSIC

VUE: I also spoke with a sociology student who will remain anonymous throughout this story. The student, who is Asian, said she is afraid of being identified due to concerns about rising anti-Asian hate crimes. 

STUDENT: It’s been stressful to say the least. Learning online is a lot more rigorous personally than learning in person. I mean, I’ve adapted to online learning, but you know, kind of still missing that in person face-to-face element. 

VUE: She said that the pandemic has definitely changed her career path. While she was originally on the pre-med track, she wants to pursue a career in racial justice and advocacy work.

STUDENT: I originally was pre-med but… And when talking about like diversity, equity and inclusion, we’re like past the D we need to get to the E and the I; so I think it’s like doing that kind of work.

VUE: Her ideal return to campus includes fewer students in classrooms and for everyone to keep following safety guidelines. A resource that has helped her during the pandemic is the Asian Pacific American Resource Center, or APARC. The center focuses on the success of Asian American and Pacific Islander students in college and beyond. 

STUDENT: I’ve used a lot of resources from APARC and I used resources from being within the ASPIRE community. Leaning onto each other when things and times get rough.

VUE: ASPIRE is a peer mentorship program that APARC hosts to help first-year and transfer students transition into college and build community. The center held a processing space in collaboration with the Asian American Student Union a few days after the Atlanta-area shootings that killed eight people, six of them being Asian women.

STUDENT: I think I felt very safe. I felt very heard.

You know, each of us shared our sentiments and I think it’s what has kept me going. Even though it’s exhausting and everyone’s tired, to say the least, like words cannot do much at this time and we don’t need words anymore. You know, we need action. 

VUE: With the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans and the police killing of Daunte Wright, she said she’s nervous to be back on campus and going to events with primarily white attendees. 

STUDENT: I am definitely very on edge, you know, about going back because what has happened I don’t think unfortunately will be the end… personally being a woman and being a person of color, I think I have to be more cautious than I was before.  

VUE: She said that spaces such as the event held by APARC and ASU are needed and should continue. 

TRANSITION MUSIC

KIAN: Another student, Ashley Tilke, who is set to graduate next fall, talked to us about her online learning experience and how she’s feeling about returning to in-person classes. She said she’s been enjoying online learning because online courses let her do things at her convenience. 

ASHLEY TILKE: I’m definitely like a student that can run my own schedule, and it just works better for me to be able to do things at any time of day.

KIAN: Ashley said she struggled with time management during the pandemic, especially issues of procrastination. Because of this, she pushed her graduation back by a semester. 

TILKE: Some of the struggles of being online, it allows you to really make your own schedule, which I enjoy, but also when I’m going through my own things, I’m very lenient with my schedule. So, then I, you know, I don’t do my homework when I should and things like that, so a combination of all those things has kind of pushed my graduation, it’s what has led me to push my graduation date back. 

KIAN: In some of her classes, she connected with other peers using group chats.

TILKE: It’s not like we really talk every day or anything, but when we do talk, it’s like we can have lighthearted conversation too, and make jokes about the class and stuff. So in that way, it’s a little bit refreshing versus just sitting in front of a computer. 

KIAN: She says she doesn’t feel like she’s missing out on the in-class experience.

TILKE: I think I’m missing more, just being able to be on campus in general and like go to a dining hall or go to restaurants around campus or just see people walking around on campus.

I think we all miss it, even with, you know, some of the hardships that come with the way we were doing things before, I’d give anything to go back to some sense of normal life.

I’m in the U’s anime club and stuff. So also for me, it would be really, really amazing if we could go back to having in-person meetings because I miss seeing them, and we all stay connected like through Discord. That’s how we’re doing everything now. But, you know, I want to see their faces and watch things with them and stuff.

TRANSITION MUSIC

KIAN: Scott Libin, a journalism educator at the U, is also excited about seeing his students and other faculty members. 

SCOTT LIBIN: I miss the hallway conversations, the mailroom conversations, the unscheduled interaction with colleagues. It’s great to be able to just sit down in somebody’s office and talk face-to-face for 15 minutes, and I think all of us look forward to that. 

KIAN: One of the courses Libin teaches is a broadcast news class. Because of the hands-on and equipment-focused aspect of the course, he tried to meet once a week in person and once a week online this semester. So while he wasn’t completely isolated from in-person teaching, he hasn’t done it full-time since before the pandemic hit. 

LIBIN: I will say that teaching full-time in person is a different challenge. You know, you have to really, I think we owe it to our students to be at the top of our game for every class session and to be prepared

I’ll be a little rusty, but I guess I’m glad that I’ve continued to do some in-person teaching because I haven’t set those skills aside entirely, but again, to do something every day is different from doing it once or twice a week. And so like, anything else, you know, if you haven’t had your bike out since last fall, you don’t forget how to ride it. But it feels a little different the first time or two. And we, you know, we get used to those things.

KIAN: One thing he struggled with during remote teaching was being able to gauge where students were. 

LIBIN: A lot of students leave their cameras off. So you can’t, you get no feedback from them. You can’t read any nonverbal cues, and even with the camera on, it can be difficult. 

It’s hard to know how students are doing when some of them choose just really kind of a minimal level of engagement. And I can tell to some extent how much they’re grasping concepts in the curriculum from the work they do, but that still feels a step or two removed from an actual exchange.

KIAN: He did, however, appreciate some aspects of remote teaching, like the ability to include more guest speakers, have an easy commute, and the increased flexibility for many students. 

LIBIN: I might miss the convenience of commuting to my dining room table. I don’t miss the traffic or the parking, but there’s so much more that I do miss.

I don’t think any of us are going to get nostalgic about the pandemic itself. But I am going to miss clipping down the highway, you know, at 55 or 65 miles an hour, when someday I’m again, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, whether it be in my car or on a bus. 

OUTRO MUSIC

MEGAN PALMER: In other news: On Tuesday afternoon, Derek Chauvin was convicted on all three murder and manslaughter charges. It’s been a long week, and a long year for Minneapolis. We will see you next week.

PALMER: Music in today’s episode was provided by Graham Makes and FreeSound.org.

INTRO MUSIC

AVA KIAN: Hello everyone, I’m Ava Kian.

YOKO VUE: I’m Yoko Vue. And you’re listening to “In the Know,” a podcast by the Minnesota Daily.

NAT SOUND: “DEFUND LINE 3” CHANTS 

VUE: On the chilly morning of Friday, March 5, roughly 50 people rallied outside of the  McNamara Alumni Center in efforts to push the University of Minnesota to oppose the construction of the Line 3 pipeline. Three student groups, UMN Students for Climate Justice, Uprooted & Rising Minneapolis and Power in Unity UMN, called on the university to disclose their financial investments and divest from fossil fuels. 

STUDENT ORGANIZER: It means a lot to have this great of a turnout and we really want to get the attention of the regents so please make sure that you sign those petitions.

VUE: At the start of the rally, student organizers taped together black tubes in the shape of a pipeline. They then snaked that pipeline around one edge of McNamara and used charcoal paint to symbolize an oil spill. This rally was held on the anniversary week of the largest inland oil spill in the United States, which took place in Minnesota on March 3 of 1991. 

STUDENT ORGANIZER: Minnesota comes from the Dakota name for this region. Mni Sota Makoce, the land where the water reflects the sky. The Dakota, and numerous other Indigenous peoples whose cultural, spiritual and economic practices are intrinsically woven to this landscape, hold this land sacred. We recognize them as original stewards of this plant and all the relatives who had thriving and vibrant communities prior to disruption by settlers.

NAT SOUND: “WE WILL FIGHT” CHANTS

VUE: Line 3 was constructed by a Candian multinational company, Enbridge, in the 1960s. The pipeline transports tar sand oil from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada through North Dakota and Minnesota to its endpoint of Superior, Wisconsin. That pipeline had several spills, including one in 1979, 1991 and 2002. The company decided it was time for a new pipeline in 2013. Ever since then, there has been a battle between Enbridge, Minnesota environmental regulations, and Indigenous communities that oppose the pipeline. In 2016, the Public Utilities Commission called for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Line 3. In 2019, the Minnesota Court of Appeals found that statement inadequate and the Department of Commerce revised the statement. On May 1, 2020, the Commission approved the final EIS and construction began in December of 2020.

NAT SOUND: “STOP LINE 3” CHANTS

VUE: This opposition to oil pipeline construction is not new. Indigenous people have been fighting the construction of pipelines, like the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone Pipeline, for years. Activists oppose the pipeline because of the disruption of Anishinaabe land treaty rights, the environmental impacts of oil spills, and the health risks and effects on Indigenous communities among other concerns. One notable figure in the movement to stop Line 3 is Winona LaDuke of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe and Executive Director of Honor the Earth. She says much of her activism stems from her upbringing. 

WINONA LADUKE: Well I just do my best, you know. I was raised by a good family. My parents said, stand up for what’s right. My parents opposed the Vietnam War. So, you know, I was born of good cloth. My grandmother was a union organizer, and my father was an Indian organizer. So, you know, we’re good. I just knew that we were supposed to do the right thing. And, you know, we all gotta drink the water. I don’t know what issues everybody’s working on, but at some point, we’re all the same cause we all got to drink the water. 

KIAN: LaDuke is one of the founders of Honor the Earth, an organization that emphasizes the right to water. LaDuke and other activists say that even the threat of a pipeline oil spill is too much of a risk to water quality. Line 3 is set to run through over 800 wetlands and 200 streams and lakes, which concerns activists because this pipeline will transfer tar sands oil, an oil that is more difficult to clean up than others. 

LaDuke has been fighting various pipelines for quite some time. She was previously on the Environmental Justice Advisory group to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, known as MPCA. When MPCA granted Enbridge a key water permit for Line 3, she, along with 11 others resigned in a letter stating that they “cannot continue to legitimize and provide cover for the MPCA’s war on Black and brown people.” Just recently, Winona was arrested for what she called “trespassing on her own land,” with six charges against her. 

LADUKE: New pipelines aren’t safe. Just look at the Keystone XL that broke within a year, spilled 400,000 gallons. And, no pipe is the safest pipe and good jobs are better than dirty jobs. 

KIAN: In 2008, another pipeline company, TC Energy, planned to expand the already existing Keystone pipeline, which ran from Alberta, Canada, to various places in the United States. After over 12 years of proposal changes and severe opposition, President Biden signed an executive order to stop its construction in January. Many activists are now looking at the federal government to do something similar for Line 3. 

LADUKE: First of all I’m concerned about the devastation of our land. You’re watching something tear apart, your forest, right in front of you, all your sacred sites. 

KIAN: The proposed route crosses over 40 wild rice watersheds. To activists, this means that potential oil spills may harm the sacred wild rice habitat. 

LADUKE: So, that’s pretty big trauma. I don’t know how much the health policies gonna be or the mental health counseling out of Line 3, probably quite a bit. I hope the governor’s ready.

KIAN: The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission in May of 2020 approved the pipeline, convinced that it was safe and would provide a boost to the state’s economy.

Enbridge executives insist the pipeline is safe. They say the pipeline construction will bring a $2 million boost to the Minnesota economy, add jobs and increase property tax revenue in the counties the line runs through. The President and Chief Executive Officer of Enbridge, Al Monaco, has a net worth of $18 million. To LaDuke, this signifies the inequities between the pipeline owners and Indigenous people. 

LADUKE: I tried for seven years to make the system work. Didn’t miss a hearing. Intervened at every turn, testified when asked, two minutes, five minutes, three minutes. And the system doesn’t work. Turns out that Enbridge can buy the Public Utilities Commission and apparently a good deal of the state with the idea that they’ve got a safe pipeline now.

I’d like the system to work. I didn’t want to get arrested either. I didn’t want to get charged. It looks like Governor Walz doesn’t think that the civil rights of Minnesotans are as important as the economic rights of a Canadian multinational to make a couple more billion. 

KIAN: She believed the state of Minnesota is more interested in gaining money from the pipeline project, rather than protecting civil rights. LaDuke said that around 200 to 300 activists, or water protectors, protested at the site of pipeline construction in the winter season. Local police have geared up in response, purchasing riot gear and tear gas – though no tear gas has been used on protesters. According to the Intercept, the sheriff’s office of Beltrami County sent Enbridge an invoice for the equipment. It is unclear if Enbridge has reimbursed the department.

LaDuke said that the front lines of the Line 3 protests are much more peaceful than what took place during the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, though the police presence is still considerable. During the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in North Dakota, pipeline owners and law enforcement used rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas against protestors.  

LADUKE: Still pretty brutal looking at cops, it’s minus 20, and you’re looking at a line of cops with no idea, except for that, they’re going to violate your constitutional rights.

KIAN: I guess I’m wondering what you think needs to happen to stop this construction. Who makes these calls, and who is in charge at the end of the day?

LADUKE: Well, the Army Corps of Engineers should revoke the water crossing permits. There was no federal environmental impact statement done on this pipeline. They just use the flawed EIS of the state of Minnesota, you know, no spill analysis. The spill hits Lake Superior, like that didn’t matter. No climate change analysis or impact, no cultural analysis. Ojibwes just didn’t count in that one. So the EIS was a shoddy one. Shameful for the state of Minnesota to issue one. And the Minnesota pollution control agency, they issued a whole bunch of permits after they had the contested case hearings and you got to testify for two minutes by phone if you could get in. The whole system was a sham, the whole system was a sham. So we’re hoping that somebody will stop it. Probably the feds [are] our best hope. 

KIAN: She says the mistake is Governor Walz’s. And what she’s asking for is a just transition, a climate justice term that seeks to phase out industries that harm workers, community health, the climate, and ultimately seeks to provide a transition to a harmonious relationship with the Earth. 

LADUKE: The fact is that Governor Walz, you’ve made a mistake. You made a mistake and now let’s just undo it. You shouldn’t have listened to those guys. You should go for jobs and a just transition. Cause we’re going to be fighting over rocks and pipes for the rest of my life. That’s what’s going to happen unless we make a better decision, and I think now will be the time to go for a just transition.

KIAN: I asked her what the ideal alternative to a pipeline would be. 

LADUKE: We all could have written the plan. Quit moving stuff around so much. Get some electric cars. After all, the rest of the world is going electric. Cars and trains, move stuff less, get some hemp batteries so you ain’t using lithium batteries on those cars….Get some microgrids, get some renewable energy like the eight fire solar panels that make up here on White Earth to reduce your heating bills. Turns out cold as heck, but solar’s better, about 25 to 30% better if it’s cold and, get some organic agriculture, grow a lot of hemp to sequester your carbon, got some great plans for the state of Minnesota, all ready to roll… In fact, we just had our farming conference, so we’re ready to grow more food. And in fact, we’re installing more solar. So we’re doing it. I think that a lot of people could learn from the tribes. Leech Lake, putting up solar and Red Lake, just put up, uh, I don’t know, 300 kilowatts, and they’re looking at 13 megawatts. Invest in the tribes. We have vision.

LADUKE: Why be the last tar sands pipeline in the world when you could be a leader in the just transition, Minnesota? That’s the team I’m on, the home team. 

KIAN: The protests extend beyond northern Minnesota, where the pipeline construction is taking place. On March 5, second-year student and intern at MN350, Karly Beaumont rallied for the University to take a stand against Line 3.

NAT SOUND: “WHOSE SCHOOL? OUR SCHOOL!” CHANT

KARLY BEAUMONT: Two simple demands. Number one, we want Joan Gabel and the Board of Regents to stand in solidarity with the Stop Line 3 movement. Second, we want the University of Minnesota and the Board of Regents, and Joan Gabel to disclose exactly how much money they have invested into fossil fuels, then divest from that infrastructure and reinvest that money into community-controlled funding. 

I think we focus more on the Board of Regents because they have a little bit more power in what occurs than Joan Gabel does. They make a lot more decision-making than I feel like a lot of people expect. I think people expect it’s just the president, but it’s really the Board of Regents that do a lot of that.

NAT SOUND: “POWER OF THE PEOPLE” CHANT

KIAN: The calls for accountability at the rally echoed those of Indigenous activists around the nation who have historically opposed the construction of pipelines.

BEAUMONT: We need to be talking about tar sands, Line 3, Indigenous people have been fighting this pipeline for over seven years, and it’s finally getting more media attention, and we can call on to fight it, and we can call on our Board of Regents to take action and really stand in solidarity.

KIAN: The conversation around pipelines is happening across country lines, and the reach has expanded thanks to the new comfort in online platforms like Zoom. After the in-person rally, a student group at Macalester hosted a virtual rally attended by students across the United States and Canada.

BEAUMONT: The University of Southern California just last month announced that they were divesting. And so getting to learn from those leaders, especially cause I’m a second year, there’s still so much to learn about organizing work. It’s just been really inspiring. I feel like, and there’s just so much traction and movement right now. And I just feel like we have a real shot at getting this done.

STUDENT ORGANIZER: We are investing a billion-dollar endowment into fossil fuels, and we are not divesting or disclosing what our investments even are. So we are just as unpleasant as everyone else in the Walz administration is. It is time that we take a stand against the Enbridge pipeline and actually get rid of our dependency on fossil fuels. 

NAT SOUND: RALLY CLAPS

KIAN: Karly went up north that weekend with about twenty others, to participate in a front-line water protectors event in the Minnesota town of Palisade. 

BEAUMONT: A lot of what we do is based off of what did we learn from them…  And so just making sure that we follow in the footsteps of what is okay with the folks that are on the front lines, especially because this fight is not new. It’s been going on for the past seven years. It’s been headed by people like Winona LaDuke and the Anishinaabe.

KIAN: She says the movement’s energy is picking up, especially considering President Biden’s call to stop further construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. 

BEAUMONT: He is the single most important person to target right now because he has the power. So back in January, one of the first things you probably know is that he stopped Keystone XL from further being constructed. And so I feel like the energy around him is huge. I feel like there’s many petitions going around. There’s enough calls being made. And so it’s just a matter of getting enough attention, getting enough pressure to be like, alright we know you have the power, it’s the Section 404 powers, and you just need to revoke those and end them. And that will be the end of Line 3, just like Keystone XL.

KIAN: Construction is already underway on Line 3. Of the pipeline area in Minnesota, more than 40% is built. Still, activists and water protectors have held their ground throughout this winter, and are expecting more protesters come spring. 

OUTRO MUSIC

MEGAN PALMER: In other U News: Richard Pitino will no longer be the head coach of the men’s basketball team; four new regents have been elected to serve on the Board of Regents; and the University is planning to resume in-person classes in the fall. We’ll see you next week. 

INTRO MUSIC

YOKO VUE: Hello everyone, I’m Yoko Vue. 

AVA KIAN: I’m Ava Kian. And you’re listening to “In the Know,” a podcast by the Minnesota Daily.

VUE: We’re halfway through the spring semester and graduation will soon be upon us. As students celebrate in the ways that they can, they will also be entering a new chapter in their lives. Graduate school or getting a job are top priorities for many. 

KIAN: As the pandemic gripped the country, the unemployment rate in the United States was at 6.7% in December of 2020, more than double what it was in 2019. The highest unemployment rate was 14.8% in April last year.

VUE: For this story, we put together an online survey to get a better sense of how University of Minnesota seniors are feeling as graduation approaches. In our survey of 26 graduating students, about 73% have not secured a paid position in their career field after graduation. Nearly 81%  agreed or somewhat agreed that the pandemic has impacted how they feel about graduating, with mixed feelings ranging from anxiety to excitement. 

CHRISTINA HARISIADIS: It’s still like the completion of like years of hard work, but you know, it just— it doesn’t feel as rewarding in certain ways, which like, I hate to say because I know how much school I’ve been in. I know how much money has been spent on this education, but the sentiment just doesn’t necessarily transfer in that way.

FUECHAI VANG: It doesn’t really, really feel as satisfying because like, this is my last year here and there wasn’t really much of an experience on campus.

VICTORIA SERVETAS: I guess I’m a little upset that the world is so shut down because I’m thinking, oh, if I don’t have a job, I could just travel. Like that’s what everyone wants to do after school anyway. But that seems like that’s not possible either. So it’s kind of frustrating because I want to get a job. Like, just start immediately since there’s nothing else to really do. But I also am feeling a little, you know, worried about starting the rest of my life right after school.

KIAN: You just heard from Christina Harisiadis, Fuechai Vang and Victoria Servetas. We will hear more from them about their post-graduation plans and worries as they prepare to graduate this spring.

TRANSITIONAL MUSIC

VUE: Christina Harisiadis is a senior majoring in strategic communications. She was looking forward to walking across the stage at Mariucci but as plans for commencement have not been solidified, she is thinking about other ways to celebrate.

HARISIADIS: I’ve been brainstorming because if we don’t formally walk at graduation like I probably will still have someone stand at the end of Northrop or the mall or something and I’m going to walk and my dad can record that and that’ll be really exciting.

HARISIADIS: I’m a big family person so being able to celebrate that moment with my family and being able to, you know, have that joy in some capacity I think is really great.

VUE: Christina was one of the students that filled out our survey, and she said she has strong feelings of uncertainty around finding a job. 

HARISIADIS: Honestly, I feel like when I thought about the job search, that was something that I was kind of like, do I want to be working right now just because it is a very weird time and like it’s very much so not what, kind of like I said in my survey, I expected when graduating.

I ended up diverging from that path and applied to grad school. So that’s more the path that I ended up looking at and then I’m considering right now I ended up getting accepted to the program that I applied to.

VUE: That program is the mass communications master’s program at the Hubbard School, but graduate school was not on her mind until the end of fall 2020. 

HARISIADIS: I wrote a thesis in the fall and I was like, I really liked that experience and I would love to be able to continue that. Grad school isn’t something that I considered previously, but now it’s very much so on the table for me and so that decision was made, to apply, days before Christmas.

VUE: For Christina, graduate school means she gets to keep gaining new knowledge in her field, which she finds exciting. 

HARISIADIS: I’m very much still in this role of learning and like taking in new information and investigating things and so I think in that way, like in my head, it very much still makes sense to continue that body of work and I would love to further explore the questions that I had after my thesis, my undergrad thesis, and be able to take that into grad school and build an even larger body of knowledge that I could eventually take into the professional world.

And so I think that with research and grad school, that could be another opportunity or a way of approaching the work that I eventually want to do in the future.

TRANSITIONAL MUSIC

KIAN: Fuechai Vang is a senior majoring in accounting. He has secured a summer internship and is planning to go to graduate school for a Master’s of Accountancy next fall. I asked Fuechai what he’s looking forward to with this summer internship. 

VANG: So this is an accounting internship at an accounting firm and this is my first actual experience out there in the field. 

I’m pretty excited to just actually learn and apply what I’ve been doing in school instead of actually just having to study, cram, do tests, study, cram and then forget eventually. So hopefully I can apply this. 

KIAN: While he’s excited, Fuechai also feels the virtual internship lacks personal interaction and connection, something it would have had if it were in-person. 

VANG: Even the experiential program I had last year was also virtual, because the COVID scare happened in March or so. So in the summer, everything was virtual and I didn’t get to go in person and do all those events and activities with the actual company. They told me I could have went on a boat cruise. I was like, “Oh wow. I missed out on that.” But basically, it misses out on a lot of personalization. 

So it’s kind of hard to just get something that’s more guaranteed and get your own personality out there for them to see you, what your worth is.

KIAN: Fuechai also worries about whether he will enjoy working in accounting full time, considering the financial and time investment that goes into getting a degree. 

VANG: I’m so scared when I do learn what I’m doing, I end up not liking it. And I committed my whole time in college and this internship for this. So I guess everyone’s always scared of that, but I guess for me, it’s just always been scary because I’ve decided this since day one and I just stuck with it because I wanted to believe in it. And I went into the class for the first time and I ended up liking it because it was my major. So maybe I brainwashed myself into liking it, who knows. So I’m just really scared that I ended up not wanting to do this later on. And I committed all this time and money into being in this field. 

KIAN: Graduation holds particular importance to Fuechai’s family and himself, as he says it paves his way towards success in the future. 

VANG: Graduation, it’s just, it’s always been an expected thing for me and my family. I’m the only son in my family. And I guess in that kind of household, that kind of traditional household, they really expect a lot from you, especially to go out there and be successful and provide. So I guess this is just the first stepping stone for me. And there’s going to be more expectations after this, but at least I had that first stepping stone down and I guess that’s one thing, one less thing I have to worry about when it comes to my family. 

KIAN: And what Fuechai thinks is different about this graduation, is the impact that a graduating class leaves on a community.

VANG: Usually when you think of college, you’re not just paying for the classes and the credits and everything you’re paying for the whole experience and opportunities and networking that you can create here about yourself within all the diverse communities on campus. And I think that’s just something that really is missing from that graduation feel. That you didn’t create or get involved in anything within your last year. So I’m really not sure how to feel. I guess it’s kind of bittersweet, but hey, at least I’m graduating, but what did I leave behind? 

TRANSITIONAL MUSIC

KIAN: Victoria Servetas, a senior, is studying industrial and systems engineering. She also thinks about all the missed opportunities due the pandemic. 

SERVETAS: It definitely doesn’t feel like something that I’m doing like as a college or as a major anymore. We’ve definitely kind of lost that connection with our peers, definitely it’s fizzled out over virtual communication. So I’m a little sad, you know, walking around campus sometimes I’m like, “Oh, like what could have been” like walking to class and just, you know, having that experience again. So I am feeling a little bit, you know, like sad about that. But kind of just excited to get out of this, you know, out of the pattern of just sitting at the computer all the time, hopefully having an in-person job or just like in-person opportunities or just meeting new people would be nice.

KIAN: She’s in the process of interviewing for a job. Like many other graduates, the pandemic has impacted her post-graduation job search.

SERVETAS: A lot of the companies that I’ve been talking to and getting interviews with, have been talking about how they’ve been wanting to fill the position, but they’ve been on like hiring set limits. So it’s just been kind of adding to the stress that already would be there of not graduating with a job. Just thinking that maybe, you know… the world isn’t really sitting on the right stage right now. 

KIAN: Victoria says while there are jobs available in her field, the pool feels relatively small. She says that her friends who aren’t in engineering are settling for jobs not necessarily in their majors. 

SERVETAS: A lot of the kids in my major, haven’t had jobs yet either. So we’re all kind of worried because we feel like we’re applying to the same jobs and we know the competition is relatively similar since we have the same experience. So that is a little worrisome. I feel like though for engineering the opportunities have still been a little bit like out there, but my friends and other colleges, they have other plans of working kind of oddball jobs this summer, if they need to. They’ve kind of already realized that might be the case as they still keep looking for jobs. 

KIAN: She’s been looking at jobs in the manufacturing field and is optimistic about an operations manager role at a Target distribution center. 

SERVETAS: Right now I’m interviewing for a job that could either be a four-day 12-hour shift or a three-day 12-hour shift and that might include overnights. And I never even thought I would ever even consider that. But now that I’m graduating in a few months, I’m like, okay, anything that will get me, like experience,  I’ll do it. Might have to change up what I thought life looked like if I become like living at night, but, you know, taking anything to get to kind of just start my career.

KIAN: While this job isn’t necessarily her ideal position, she feels lucky for the opportunity, given the state of the job market for other majors. She has one more interview with the Target recruiter.

SERVETAS: So I feel pretty good about it and it is like a really good opportunity… So I feel like, down the line, it’ll turn into, you know, maybe less of a commitment to change my whole entire lifestyle. But I think that right now, just like any opportunity from hearing about people in other majors where the industry kind of closed down right now, I feel like just taking something and being like, accepting of what there is, is kind of just the best way to move forward. 

TRANSITIONAL MUSIC

VUE: Recruiters and employers are echoing students’ thoughts about the job search right now. We spoke with Nou Chang, a talent recruiter with the city of St. Paul, and Naweed Ahmadzai, a university engagement coordinator for Hennepin County, about what recruitment looked like pre-pandemic versus right now. 

CHANG: Definitely recruitment during the pandemic is different. And if I said different, it’s still an understatement. Prior to COVID, we were doing an in-person type of event, we were able to go to the career fairs, be able to be on employer panels, meet with students, do informational interviews in person, right. And so, therefore, during the pandemic, a lot of those activities have actually been shifted to the virtual world.

AHMADZAI: Right now with the virtual setup that we have for our virtual site visits, it’s actually a little bit easier in a way. You know, there’s a link. You could be at your bedroom, you could be in a class, you could be wherever you just join and you’ll be able to get information, just right away. But again, it is going to be challenging. It is hard to speak sometimes to a group of people where their videos are off, you know, and you feel like you’re just speaking in a place where there’s no response, you know, if you’re making quirky jokes or anything like that, nobody’s going to laugh at it.

KIAN: Naweed said that because of the strong relationship between recruiters and schools, he has still been able to recruit for positions despite the pressures of the pandemic. 

AHMADZAI: Different schools, they know how to get to their students. It falls on us to basically communicate those opportunities to connect with students and offer the ways that we can connect with the schools virtually.

KIAN: He also said that because of the increase in accessibility through remote sessions, they are seeing more students attending compared to previous years. 

AHMADZAI: For a virtual site visit that I did for the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, whenever we were having students come in, there was about 15 to 20, but when we offered it virtually, we actually had, I think it was like around 25 students show up. That just shows that when we get rid of some of those barriers to getting to somewhere, then the numbers can go up. But as far as the engagement itself during the session, we don’t know exactly whether it’s good or bad yet

VUE: Nou said it seems that students graduating now are in a better place than 2020 graduates. As virtual work settings have improved, they have become the norm for students.

AHMADZAI: So now that we’re seeing this virtual setting to be the new norm for at least a little while more, those supervisors weren’t hiring, they were like, “Oh, I can’t deal with this right now. You know, I have to worry about my employees, you know, figure out how they’re gonna do their work on off-site.” They’re coming back. You know, they see the value in interns, they see the value, like in college-level or graduate, high school and they’re coming back and, you know, we are giving them the support that they need in order to hire. Just to summarize we— the supervisors are learning how to work better with students better in a virtual setting in 2021 more than they were in 2020. 

KIAN: As professionals who regularly interact with graduating students, they both see students struggling to find jobs. 

AHMADZAI: There’s a lot of frustration also on the student’s side, which is very much understandable, you know. I would hate to be a graduating student right now looking at the job markets, especially, in a job that requires you to be on site.

I think it’s really important for students to still stay engaged with their favorite employers or to whoever aligns with their beliefs and core values because that’s important. Even if the recruitment is not happening right now for some of the positions just still continue engaging with us. And when the jobs are right, we will remember those folks who are interested for the long term and those are going to be the ones who are getting some sort of priority. 

VUE: Technology has changed the recruitment and hiring game. Both Nou and Naweed say that without the ability to do things like remote work, the economic situation would have been much different. 

CHANG: So some of the advantages that their graduates have today really is having that flexibility to potentially do remote work a hundred percent of the time or majority of the time. Whereas probably before we weren’t in the COVID environment where that wasn’t even an option that we may not necessarily want to consider, but with COVID, it really pushes organizations to think about, okay, can we do this remotely? 

TRANSITIONAL MUSIC

KIAN: To see how the University of Minnesota is assisting its graduating students amid the pandemic, I spoke with Katy Hinz, the assistant director for Career Counseling and Engagement in the College of Liberal Arts career services. 

KATY HINZ: I think, inherently job searching tends to be pretty stressful for many of us, overwhelming at times, and then you add a pandemic to it, right. And so it often exasperates like how that feels. And you know, some of what we’re hearing is just a lot of questions around how do I job search during this time?

KIAN: And are you seeing differences in how and what students are like worried about compared to last spring at the beginning of the pandemic versus this spring?

HINZ: I think a little bit, so some of what I would say is probably, you know, things have maybe settled a little bit in terms of the job market. And working from virtually has become more normal and for a lot of our organizations. And I think it’s in some ways, a lot easier or maybe there aren’t as many concerns from students. And we also just have more information cause we’ve been in this long and have stayed in contact with employers that virtual internships are happening, virtual full-time positions are happening. And in some ways that open up more opportunities because students can be looking at virtual experiences outside of where they’re geographically located. 

KIAN: Katy said that the career counseling center is seeing high engagement, as a high number of views on the center’s youtube page and increased enrollment in career courses. 

HINZ: A big message that I want to share is you’re not in this alone and to connect with people and to be able to process with others to know that your experience, often there’s someone else who’s going through that. That’s something that counselors this morning we’re sharing too, is that a lot of students are saying like, is this normal, or I’m scared or I’m nervous, or I don’t know what to do next. And sometimes these feelings of like, I’m the only one feeling this way. And as counselors, we know that actually we hear that from a lot of students that we meet with. And so it’s normalizing those feelings a little bit to be able to kind of work through that.

TRANSITIONAL MUSIC

VUE: As we look forward, we can learn from those that have walked the path before us. I spoke with Mahad Omar who graduated last spring with a degree in global studies. He is currently a small business intern with the Metropolitan Council but hopes to find something that aligns with his interest in human rights. Graduation held a lot of meaning to him as a first-generation college graduate. 

MAHAD OMAR: That, that was a turning point in my life one hundred percent because a lot of the work that I put in, to get to the place that I am right now, that graduation was that token, that certificate of accomplishment that I did everything that I’m supposed to and I’m on my way to bigger and greater things. 

VUE: Graduation was a mix of emotions for Mahad. 

OMAR: But I was hit with a lot of emotions. Like ‘Oh my god, I’m almost done,’ and like, ‘Oh my god, I’m not going to have a ceremony.’ Oh my god, like am I ready to be out there with a bachelor’s degree trying to put myself in front of employers? It was an area of different feelings, but I survived. I’m here now.

VUE: The Multicultural Center for Academic Excellence, or MCAE, is a center that serves students of color to achieve academic success through different initiatives. One of their most anticipated events is the Multicultural Celebration of Achievement that they host with the Office of Equity and Diversity. This event, more commonly known as MCAE graduation by students, is a celebration that brings together students from traditionally underrepresented populations to recognize their accomplishments and achievements, according to their website.

OMAR: Like being able to be part of something strong and interculturally intersectional through MCAE. Being able to wear your cultural guard, being able to be within a space of BIPOC folks that feel just like you, you know, at a PWI. I was really hoping to be in something like that cause I’ve been in the past three MCAE graduations before I graduated and I was just waiting for my turn.

VUE: When it came to virtual commencement, he was dressed as he would have for an in-person ceremony, but watching from bed.

OMAR: I was still a CA at Pioneer house so I couldn’t leave my building. So I was just watching virtual commencement and graduating from my dorm room while everybody else was not in the building, which was a surreal moment. Cause I was expecting to be like among thousands of people with family members, you know, like everywhere. I have decked out in my graduation fit with my stoles and accolades, my good haircut. I was ready for everything, you know, but then the reality was that I was dressed the part, but I was in my room inside of an empty dorm because I was working to make ends meet. And I was watching commencement, my own commencement from an empty building in my own room from my bed.

VUE: I also asked Mahad what his advice is for the 2021 graduates. 

OMAR: Like it is very hard to be in this kind of position, but it’s also the best opportunity for you to learn what kind of person you really are, and then figuring out how you want to pivot from there.

OMAR: Take everything at your own pace, take care of your health, but also realize that we’re living in the age of technology. We can access a lot of information that we want via the internet. Why not use this time to figure out who you want to be and what kind of opportunities you have available to you for you to get yourself to where you want to be eventually.

VUE: March will mark a year of virtual learning and social distancing. Though it will take time to move forward and progress from this pandemic, we will take the lessons we’ve learned and continue to adapt. 

OUTRO MUSIC

MEGAN PALMER: In other U News: Palmer’s Bar in Cedar-Riverside plans to reopen after multiple community fundraisers; President Gabel expressed in an interview with the Minnesota Daily that fall instruction formats will depend on public health guidelines; and the state of Minnesota’s trial against Derek Chauvin will begin on Monday. We’ll see you next week.

PALMER: Music in today’s episode was provided by FreeSound.org.

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INTRO MUSIC

AVA KIAN: Hi everyone, I’m Ava Kian. 

YOKO VUE: I’m Yoko Vue, and you’re listening to “In the Know,” a podcast by the Minnesota Daily. 

KIAN: Last March, businesses, schools and other establishments in the United States shut down in-person functions, and people began to quarantine from their loved ones. Ten months later, some people are still taking COVID-19 precautions, but are now seeing pods of trusted friends and family more frequently. We were curious to see what students are doing with their pods, and what is holding their relationships together. 

I spoke with Kyle Hoang, a second-year business student at the University of Minnesota, who recalls how he felt seeing people in person at the beginning of the pandemic.

KYLE HOANG: When the pandemic first started, I was very strict about it. And I was the one who would tell people not to hang out. And I, myself, would not hang out. I would stay in my room all day. 

KIAN: More recently, however, Kyle has started seeing his close group of friends. He says he sees them on the condition that they are all a closed pod. 

HOANG: These were like the first few friends that I have met at the U, that I was able to be really close with. … Before the pandemic, I met them in person and everything. Like, we established that friendship in person, but we spend our friendship more online than in person. 

I remember when we first hung out — like the first time we decided to hang out — we were also nervous, because … we all had like high expectations and … some sort of guilt came over all of us, so we would all still wear a mask even when we hang out.

KIAN: Over time, the group became more comfortable taking off masks. To be extra cautious, Kyle and his friends take precautions before seeing their families.

HOANG: Last semester I didn’t see my family at all. … And so this semester is probably going to be the same. … If I do go back, it does make it complicated. I do try to wait it out for a few days before I decide to go back and see if I develop any symptoms. 

KIAN: Having gone through isolation and now heavy usage of technology for school and socialization, Kyle wants more interactions away from the screens. 

HOANG: I think personally, my mental health has gotten really bad, back when I was still isolating. … I feel like nowadays, the activities that I do with my friends are less wholesome.

I have gotten sick of Zoom, like study sessions. Zoom fatigue happens even when it’s still friends. I think it’s just some type of association I made in my brain. But I really hate zoom. 

Because every time I go on there, I wouldn’t be productive, and I would get grumpy and stuff. … It’s just not a good thing. Like, that’s not how I want to see my friends. 

KIAN: At the height of the pandemic, Kyle and his friends would watch movies or shows online or study together on Zoom. What bonds them, Kyle says, is studying. Having gotten used to online hangouts, seeing friends in person feels formal and unexciting at times.

HOANG: I don’t see them often. Recently, I do hang out with them, but it’s more like I have to go out of my way to plan for it. Like, “Oh, what’s your GCal, what — blah, blah, blah, blah.” And then, it’s like an invitation. It feels like an invitation to a party or something. It’s an extra step I have to do. So, I don’t hang out with them that often. I still study with them online almost every night. … It used to be a lot more spontaneous.

KIAN: Though Zoom and in-person hangs have their ups and downs, Kyle says he’s still able to maintain his friendships. 

HOANG: We don’t always have video calls or video chats. We would message each other and update us about any of our days. If we have a bad day, we tend to share it or rant it to our group chat. … It still feels like a bit less than in-person experience[s], but we still care for each other. …I think technology does — it doesn’t help us get the full friendship experience, but it does keep us there. 

KIAN: Kyle is looking forward to doing wholesome and fulfilling activities with his pod, like learning to knit. 

HOANG: I just know knitting seems really cool. I get to wear what I make.

We have also compiled, started to compile a list of TikToks that we can do together as a group, for either when we’re in person or for when we’re in different parts of the city.

I want to go to a lake with one of my friends and not to just swim, just to chill on the grass and have a picnic. And talk as if it’s not just like a catch-up, but like talk talk. 

NAT SOUND: TRANSITIONAL FADE UP AND UNDER TRACK BELOW

VUE: Many folks miss the summer weather when we could socially distance ourselves while meeting up at a park or lake. During these winter months though, movie nights have been a staple for Isabella Kemling, who’s majoring in mechanical engineering and Spanish.  

ISABELLA KEMLING: I spent a lot of my time with my roommates, we do a lot of like movie nights, little Bachelorette nights there. Then I’m also dating someone. So I spend a good amount of time with them and their roommates too. Those are kind of my main social circles that I’m seeing in person.

VUE: In addition to watching reality TV shows, cooking has been a bonding experience. Almost every Friday, Isabella is baking with her roommates.

KEMLING: One of my favorite moments is right before Halloween, we all made like an apple pie and cut out little shapes out of different kinds of pie crust. So we have the jack-o-lanterns and ghosts and stuff on there. That was kind of fun. We also do a lot of cookies with our baking too. One of my roommates is very into like cookies and cupcakes and cupcake decorating so we’ve done a few different themes for that or different kinds of decorations and things like that. 

VUE: While these relaxing activities can be fun, Isabella said taking precautions with COVID does put on more stress. 

KEMLING: I would say I’ve definitely been a little bit more anxious overall during this time, just with, like I said, it’s always kind of an extra factor when I’m choosing, if I want to like accept plans or go do something with people of like, what are the repercussions on me and my family or my roommates and their family? So I would say that’s been something that’s kind of at least always a little bit on my mind, that wasn’t there before it’s been causing some stress.

VUE: Safety is very important, but Isabella said it can be tricky to put her foot down at times.

KEMLING: I don’t feel comfortable seeing people if they’ve been going out, I don’t know, to large gatherings or bars when bars were open or restaurants a lot and things like that. Um and so I know I’ve struggled a little bit with like social repercussions of that sort of having to say, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to see you for 10 days or 14 days,’ or like, ‘Can you please get a COVID test?’ or things like that.

VUE: For the friends she can’t see in person, Isabella keeps up with them over video chat. 

KEMLING: But with people I’m not seeing, I think it’s a little bit harder to stay in touch without putting in like a really intentional effort to. I know there’s certain people that I used to see at least like once or twice a week, we’d go grab dinner or something like that and so kind of friends like that. It’s definitely, at least for me I’ve been working a lot on being more intentional of reaching out to people like that and seeing how they are.

VUE: This also includes family members that she hasn’t been able to see in person.

KEMLING: I would say it’s been really nice in some ways to have more video calls with people and even I don’t know, my family’s been getting like my cousins and my grandma like used to Zoom, so we can all kind of stay in touch with people like that who might not be safe to see. So, I think that’s been really, really helpful for sure. 

NAT SOUND: TRANSITIONAL FADE UP AND UNDER TRACK BELOW

VUE: For second-year student Roselin Victor, technology was a big part of keeping her friendships at the beginning of the pandemic. 

ROSELIN VICTOR: I found like a group of friends my second semester of freshman year, which I’m really thankful for. We were able to maintain the group, like over quarantine at the beginning of 2020, and over the summer and stuff. So I’ve been talking to them for most of quarantine.

VUE: Roselin is living off-campus with her family this year after breaking her lease on campus in the fall due to COVID concerns. 

VICTOR: Obviously with social media and stuff, people portray their best selves online. And so it’s hard to see people partying and all of that during a pandemic when you’re stuck at home with your parents and stuff.

VUE: She said that with COVID, technology is a double-edged sword when it comes to feeling connected. 

VICTOR: I think it’s helped people stay connected because a lot of like, … there’s like people that you would say hi to like on campus, but like, you don’t like FaceTime, so it’s been good to like, maintain that by like sending each other TikToks or whatever, like small things like that.

VUE: Roselin joined the Indian Student Association last March, and through Zoom, she was able to stay close to the members, and the group was able to hold their events virtually.

VICTOR: It was kind of stressful at the beginning, because, obviously, we had no idea what was going to happen with COVID and when it was going to end and if we can even do anything virtually, but I think we handled it pretty well. We tried to stay engaged on social media. We tried having, like, we had a virtual fall show, which was like a YouTube live stream, which went pretty well. It was just kind of hard to have engagement, but I think we did the best to our ability.

VUE: While it was warm in the fall, Roselin and her friends would study outside. But after breaking her lease, she hasn’t been on campus as frequently and instead is hanging out with her friends mainly with Facetime and group chats. 

VICTOR: Well, usually what happens is we were just talking about our days or like, if something dramatic happens, talking about that. For ISA, we have board bonding sometimes where we play games or we just honestly talk about life and like school and show ugly pictures of ourselves from when we were little and things like that.

VUE: A unique way Roselin maintains her friendships is by running errands with friends in a COVID safe way.

VICTOR: One of my friends, Srilekha, she’s actually the president of ISA. She lives like 15 minutes away from me, and we started going to the grocery store together because, like, we’re both going to go to the grocery store anyways. So, it’s not that big of a risk.

KIAN: We’re in a really weird time. Most students are busy with online school and are doing their best to keep up with their friendships. Not everyone is comfortable seeing their friends in person. Those who do that we’ve spoken with take precautions by only visiting a pod of friends and getting tested before seeing others outside the group. Though the winter can be hard, these students are looking forward to having in-person student group events, less screen time, and more socially distanced hangouts outside once the weather gets better. 

FADE UP & UNDER OUTRO MUSIC 

PALMER: In other U news: Humphrey School fellow Dr. Bonnie Jenkins has been nominated to Biden’s administration as a national security undersecretary; Republic on West Bank has officially closed, with plans to reopen in another location in the future; and new research from the U shows that using CBD while pregnant can have long-term effects on children. We’ll see you next week. 

PALMER: Music in today’s episode was provided by FreeSound.org.

MEGAN PALMER: Welcome back, everyone. We here at the Daily hope you enjoyed your winter break and got some well deserved rest and time off. It’s been a long couple of weeks. The state of politics in the United States was fraught with the anticipation of Inauguration Day and a dramatic change in leadership. Nevertheless, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were inaugurated yesterday to serve as the leaders of the United States. In today’s episode, we reflect on the four years under Donald Trump’s leadership and look at his impact on university students and activists. We also speak with students about their hopes for the next four years under Biden’s administration. 

INTRO MUSIC

AVA KIAN: Hey everyone, I’m Ava Kian. 

YOKO VUE: I’m Yoko Vue, and you’re listening to “In The Know,” a podcast by the Minnesota Daily. 

KIAN: Biden was sworn into office yesterday, making him the 46th president of the United States. With this change in leadership, it’s the perfect time to look back on Donald Trump’s policies, to see how his decisions impacted the lives of so many people. I spoke with Ellie Stimmel, the President of Students for Reproductive Freedom, to better understand what Trump’s presidency meant for reproductive rights.  

ELLIE STIMMEL: Students for Reproductive Freedom is kind of an organization under Planned Parenthood… so definitely … Trump’s administration has impacted our work a lot. 

Last year, we were doing a lot of work with Title X trying to keep that funding, and they ended up slashing that funding for Planned Parenthood, so that also affects like all health care that people can receive like usually birth control. You can get it for free at Planned Parenthood, now they have a sliding scale. So, it really does impact, like who is receiving all these benefits that Planned Parenthood is able to give. 

KIAN: In August of 2019, the Trump administration created a new rule prohibiting Title X clinics from referring patients for abortions. In response, Planned Parenthood withdrew from Title X, causing them to lose around $60 million a year in federal funding. That loss of funding has made Planned Parenthood’s services less accessible, as services like birth control are now on a sliding scale. But Trump’s decision also affected the activities of Students For Reproductive Freedom. Ellie says that the group lost some of the funding for outreach events they previously would have received in the past years as a chapter of Planned Parenthood’s student organizing branch. 

STIMMEL: I do think that some of our goals have altered, and our timelines have been altered because of the administration…. It has definitely been a lot of like defensive work and like trying to maintain our funding.

Last year and the year before, we could have spent more time with these current initiatives we have, like the Plan B, STI testing, and menstrual drive and things like that. But, instead, we were focusing on more national campaigns like Title X.

KIAN: Ellie said this took away time from more important work the group could have been doing. Still, she says the future for reproductive rights is bright. She was on the Planned Parenthood National Committee to endorse Biden. She and other reproductive rights organizations were on a Zoom call with then presidential candidate to establish a connection and discuss goals. 

STIMMEL: We wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just an endorsement because, you know, we obviously aren’t going to endorse Trump. We really want to make sure that he knew what our goals were, and we want to make sure that we had a seat at the table. 

The panel was actually like pretty surprised at how genuine he was and how he seemed he seemed very receptive to our message, and it made me very optimistic, and I know there’s obviously so many other things that him and his administration are thinking about right now, but I do think that relationship that we have built with him and that the national Planned Parenthood has built with him is going to be very important in the future. And I’m really hoping that our goals can come to fruition, and hopefully, we can get that Title X funding back. 

KIAN: Trump’s administration posed serious challenges for advancements in reproductive rights, but the road does not end with Biden as president, Ellie said. 

STIMMEL: I do think that regardless of whether it’s a Democratic or Republican president that we still need to continue to push for these initiatives, because reproductive health is often…put on the back burner, especially with everything happening right now. 

KIAN: Trump’s influence on reproductive rights impacts the more than 2 million patients Planned Parenthood serves. Trump moved to defund clinics that offer reproductive care, like abortions. But his influence extends beyond policy. His words and actions on the matter stuck with Ellie throughout his presidency. 

STIMMEL: I think the way that Trump has acted and the way that he’s spoken really made a lot of survivors feel like they had no voice, and that’s obviously not true, and especially after the #MeToo Movement that was shown … I think it’s harmful. 

I think like as a survivor myself that was like a very harmful to me and just … the ability of this man who is fear-mongering, who was bigoted … of him to lead the free world. And for him to be able to say all these things without consequence is such a slap in the face to women, especially when survivors often are telling stories, and we’re labeled as liars, when he is the biggest liar of all, it’s just — it really is a slap in the face. 

VUE: For Nadia Aruri, Trump’s painful words and attacks have also stuck with her. Nadia is currently a board member of the Students for Justice in Palestine, or SJP.

NADIA ARURI: He really aggressively attacked people — congresswomen like Rashida Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. And made a lot of accusations of antisemitism and, in particular, that is really damaging to our group, to organizers, especially for people like me and other young women of color in the group to kind of see, you know, this visual of this powerful figure attacking people who speak out and it’s scary for a lot of people when you see that. 

VUE: She clearly remembers waking up and asking Siri who won the presidential election.

NAT SOUND — SIRI AUDIO: “Donald Trump won the 2016 United States presidential election.”

ARURI: And my heart just dropped. I started crying and then I realized like my mom walked in, she was, she just like looked at me and I just looked at her and she was like, you don’t have to go to school today if you don’t want to.

I remember I went into school the next day, and just like hearing the kids talk about it just like made me sick to my stomach. 

VUE: The Muslim ban in 2017 was a decision that hit close to home. 

ARURI: My family is from Lebanon and from Palestine, and those aren’t two—those are not countries that were on the ban, but as a whole, I think that decision really made almost every Muslim person in the U.S. feel scared.

VUE: She also recalls the move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in December of 2017. There were protests against the move of the embassy and SJP endorsed a protest against the capital move in Saint Paul that was hosted by Women Against Military Madness and Anti-War Committee.

ARURI: What moving the embassy is pretty much doing, it was kind of like a power move to recognize that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. 

NAT — NEWSREEL — TRUMP: “Therefore I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”

ARURI: Which is obviously harmful to Palestinians because not only does it deny all existence of our country and of our land and of the people there that have lived there for so long…but, you know, it was obviously going to have a huge reaction.

VUE: The U.S. embassy officially opened in Jerusalem on May 14, 2018. This year coincided with the 70 year anniversary of Israel’s independence as well as the 1948 Palestinian exodus, or Nakba. 

ARURI: Which is basically the Arabs that in 1948 were evicted from their homes and became refugees. 

VUE: The New York Times reported that 58 Palestinian demonstrators were killed and more than 2,700 were injured during protests on the day the embassy opened. There were also protests here in the United States and Nadia took part in Boston, where her family lives. 

ARURI: I didn’t really understand the significance of it at first. And I think a lot of people thought about this decision in terms of what it means for politics and what it means on an international and diplomatic level. But for me, all I really cared about was, is my family going to be okay, watching the news. It was one of the most heart-wrenching times in my life that I can remember that it felt traumatic to be Palestinian living through that.

To turn on the news and, you know, see people arguing about your family’s right to exist. To see the images of, you know, 50, just the numbers backing out ten dead, 20 dead, 30 dead, 40 dead, and I remember just texting with my sister during that, and I was just said like I’m so depressed and then she just said we all are because that’s really what was happening during that. 

And in particular it hurts, right, cause it hurts as someone who, you know, never lived in Palestine, who wasn’t born there, to see the country that I was supposed to call my own, the United States, being the cause of all this pain. 

VUE: SJP hosted an event last month looking at the relationship between Biden and Israel that showed an unfavorable record with Palestine, Nadia said. 

ARURI: I mean, still going to be bombs dropped on the middle East, still gonna send billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, no matter who the president is, whether it was Biden or Clinton or Trump. So, you know, looking forward, we can just hope that a different environment is created, um, in regards to, you know, student activists and things like that.

KIAN: As Nadia mentioned, student activists want the Biden administration to foster an environment that encourages activism. And that same message strikes true for Lotus Roodi, an environmental activist and member of Compassionate Action for Animals, who recalls the chilling feeling when Trump was elected in 2016. 

LOTUS ROODI: Way back in 2016 when I was still in high school … and he was elected … I still remember the day very, very clearly … I just remember my first worry was for the environment and for the planet. I was just really worried like “What’s going to happen in these next four years with the planet? What’s going to take place? What’s going to change?” And then of course, all the fears for all the other stuff set in, but that was like this immediate thing that my mind jumped to. 

KIAN: Looking back, Lotus says they were expecting much worse. 

ROODI: It has not been good by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s better, like we haven’t had a climate apocalypse yet, which is better than what I was anticipating. 

KIAN: While there was no climate apocalypse per se, Trump’s rhetoric about climate change and his policies have certainly harmed the environment. A couple things come to Lotus’s mind when thinking about Trump’s negative impact on the environment. 

ROODI: 100 pieces of legislation, if I’m remembering correctly, have been either tampered with or have been changed to be… more relaxed, or they have been eliminated entirely. One of those was the Endangered Species Act… Which is very concerning because… 1 million species around the world are currently endangered or vulnerable…And the funds for this program that were meant to protect the species to… monitor their population to… reintroduce them back into the environment to try to preserve some of that diversity. Those funds have now been gutted. And there is not nearly as much funding as it was before.

KIAN: While these policies and decisions were being made far away from Lotus in Minneapolis, they could see the Earth changing from their very own window. 

ROODI: The Brown Christmas…I think we’ve had one or two of those in the past four years and … I’m starting to think, winter is not going to be winter anymore. We’re not going to have a Minnesota winter anymore. And as miserable as Minnesota winters are, that’s the way Minnesota is supposed to be. And if we don’t have a really, really cold Minnesota winter, what does that mean? This isn’t normal. … This isn’t some faraway thing. This is something that’s happening right here, right now.

KIAN: Though Lotus cared about keeping up with environmental policy, watching the Trump administration relax regulations was disheartening, and sometimes they had to turn off the news.   

ROODI: It was almost like Trump was some sort of political cheese grater. And he was just eroding at the … he was eroding at the protections that the environment has and giving more leverage to the corporate world to do whatever it seeks to do, to make more money to get more capital, to get more profit at the expense of the environment.

And that’s not really that easy to watch … There was a long period where I just didn’t pay attention to that because there’s not really a whole lot I could do about it … So, I was just kind of sitting there getting upset. Which isn’t a good place to be ever, so I just turned off the news and stopped watching, but it was very painful to see that.

KIAN: The road forward is clear to Lotus. Facing the aftermath of Trump’s presidency, they feel the nation has learned its lesson and needs to change its priorities. 

ROODI: I think now, this is kind of a time where we’ve said, okay we’ve hit our limit… we’re going to have runaway climate change, and we’re going to have a bunch of things that we cannot walk away from if we don’t change this, we need to change our attitude, and I think a lot of young people have taken that into account. 

KIAN: And for what’s to come with Biden in office, this student wants people to remember that we are still in a climate emergency and to keep up the urgency. 

ROODI: What I’m afraid of is that Biden gets nominated, and let’s say in this scenario the kind of the Trump following kind of dies a slow death and it kind of fades into obscurity… what I’m afraid of is that people will become complacent again.

And that we’ll kind of forget that these things are emergencies and I think that’s-that’s  the fear of a lot of people I know… I’m afraid of that for the environmentalist movement. I’m afraid that if we’re not seeing headlines saying, “this has been rolled back. This has been rolled back. This has been rolled back.” We’re going to think everything is fine. And the fact is… even with Biden in power and even if everything is blue across the board. We are still in a climate emergency, and we are still in an environmental emergency. Habitat loss is still a huge problem. Pollution is still a huge problem. And these things are not going away because of a shift in power. We need to actively be moving through this. We can’t forget about it after Trump leaves. 

We need to have things that are permanent and that have long-lasting change.

KIAN: From speaking to Ellie, Nadia and Lotus, we’ve learned a lot about how students with different passions experienced the past four years under Trump’s administration. We got an inside look into their challenges as activists, individuals, and their hopes for this nation in the next four years. 

VUE: Most importantly, all three students expressed that Biden’s new role as the president does not guarantee progress but instead pushes activists even further to continue their work.

FADE UP & UNDER OUTRO MUSIC 

PALMER: In other U news: over winter break, Dinkytown Wine & Spirits closed its doors after 30 years; 12 regent candidates were recommended to the State Legislature for the upcoming regent elections; and the Minnesota Student Association has introduced a new bill tracker to monitor how state legislation affects students. We’ll see you next week.

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INTRO MUSIC

AVA KIAN: Hey everyone, I’m Ava Kian. 

MEGAN GERMUNDSON: I’m Megan Germundson.

HANA IKRAMUDDIN: I’m Hana Ikramuddin, a campus administration reporter.

KIAN: And welcome back to “In The Know,” a podcast by the Minnesota Daily.

GERMUNDSON: Last July, in the midst of protests against police brutality, the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, or MIAC, sent University of Minnesota leadership a series of specific requests. They asked the University to partner with the 11 Minnesota Tribal Nations and establish a system-wide tuition waiver and create an American Indian Policy Review Task Force that would review the University’s past and present policies, along with other requests. 

KIAN: So, in today’s episode we look into those requests with the President of the Prairie Island Mdewakanton Dakota Tribe and Vice-Chair of MIAC, Shelley Buck. We hear the University’s response from Senior Director of American Indian Tribal Nations Relations, Tadd Johnson, to get a better understanding of the University’s current relationship with the Tribal Nations of Minnesota. 

IKRAMUDDIN: One request in MIAC’s letter was that University leadership, including the regents and the president be required to take a Tribal-state and Tribal-University relations course and be required to meet with the Tribal leaders at least three times per year. They also pointed to the University’s failure to teach about Tribal economies and their history as a land-grant institution.  

NAT SOUND: ZOOM CALL TONE (FADE OUT)

SHELLEY BUCK: Yep. My name is Shelley Buck. 

We made these requests because we’ve been making these requests as individual tribes, for years, but we’re making this collective request. Cause it’s the time. It’s time. it’s past time. We are done being forgotten. We’re done seeing things happen to our people and finding that it comes back to education. Everything’s education. And my tribe learned years ago that the only way we were going to succeed as a tribe was to educate our people in the dominant society’s way. 

And if we truly want to be one Minnesota, then I think it’s time we start making these changes. And, I know for me, I’m a fighter, so I’m ready to make this happen. And, I’m pretty stubborn too. And I think we have a lot of tribal leaders like that in this state right now. So it’s time.

It’s time to get this done. It’s time that they work with us. We’re not asking for anything outrageous. We really aren’t. We just simply ask that past wrongs be righted. And, we work together. We’re willing to work with them on this. 

GERMUNDSON: As the Vice-Chair of MIAC, Buck was involved in the writing of the letter and resolutions that MIAC sent to the University. Last August, a month after MIAC sent the letter, President Gabel met with them to discuss their request. But Buck said it’s important for MIAC to hear directly from the Board of Regents, since they hold a lot of power within the University. 

Is there something specific that you would like to hear from the Board of Regents themselves? 

BUCK: I think I need to acknowledge the wrongs that were done to the Dakota people, especially in a state —  first acknowledge that our land was stolen from us.

And the university has profited from that land — still, quite nicely. And have them acknowledge the fact that is Dakota land that they’re on. 

IKRAMUDDIN: Among the Board of Regents, there was some confusion about MIAC’s letter. Originally, it was sent to Brian Steeves, who is the Executive Director and Corporate Secretary of the board. Some of the regents I tried to get in contact with didn’t know much about the letter at first. But, I ended up getting ahold of Regent Micheal Hsu, who told me MIAC’s letter was never forwarded to the regents until this week, almost five months after it was originally sent. The letter wasn’t forwarded until Tuesday.

Other members also said that they didn’t receive the email until Tuesday. I was able to talk with Regents Darrin Rosha and Randy Simonson who also confirmed that information. Both of whom said they would like to see conversations on the letter going forward.

The reason Brian Steeves sent out the letter this week, informing some board members of its existence, was because I asked Regent Hsu for a comment about MIAC’s request. Other University administrators have been more responsive.

KIAN: Tadd Johnson is the Senior Director of American Indian Tribal Nation Relations, and also a professor of American Indian Studies, and a member of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.

As the figurehead for University-Tribal Nation relations, we asked him about his initial thoughts regarding MIAC’s letter.

JOHNSON: Well, actually I think it probably, it’s the beginning of a very constructive dialogue that has long been needed between the Indian tribes of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota. And, I think there’s a lot of history there.

President Gabel not only met with the 10 tribes that are members of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, but on November 4th, she and I met on Zoom with, the one tribe that’s not a member of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council. And she wanted to make sure that she met with all the tribes. And so, it’s not easy to schedule a tribal leader or an entire tribal council, and it’s really not easy to schedule a president, but she wanted to do it. And so, we did it and she’s going to appear in front of the tribes again on December 18th.

KIAN: In response to some of MIAC’s requests, Johnson said the University plans to conduct their own research into some of the tragic historical events MIAC referenced. 

JOHNSON: Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “we’re all entitled to our own opinions but we’re not entitled to our own facts.” And so, when President Gabel was meeting with the tribes, she agreed that let’s work together to get to the bottom of these issues that the tribes have had with the University over the years. And so, we’re seeking grant funding for the tribes to do their research. And we’re seeking grant funding for the University to do research and we want to work together hand in hand with the Tribes on creating, you know it’s the beginning of truth and reconciliation. And I think the first thing we need to do is fact-finding.

They see the benefit; the Tribes see the benefit. And I worked for Tribes for years. They- as a Tribal member and as a former Tribal attorney, the utility of working with one of the world’s great universities is a real obvious.

KIAN: We asked Buck if there’s a plan for MIAC to conduct their own research or collaborate with the University as Johnson mentioned. Buck had a different attitude than Johnson about who should be conducting the research. 

BUCK: That I don’t know for sure, but I don’t know why we need to do it when it’s the university that’s the one that caused the problem. They should be the ones that have to figure it out.

GERMUNDSON: One recent change within the University was their announcement of MPact 2025. It’s an entire university-wide plan, which one part of it is targeted toward strengthening relations with Minnesota’s Tribal Nations. In an email that shouted out Native American Heritage Month, President Gabel said that the University had “collaboratively developed goals and metrics” with MIAC for this plan. However, Buck wasn’t familiar with the MPact. 

BUCK: I don’t know if I know, I remember hearing about it, but I don’t know. I remember actually getting a copy. 

KIAN: Yeah. I guess we’re wondering if that plan was ever discussed with MIAC? Was there a partnership in creating those goals? 

And I mean, we saw this email as we were thinking of where the story would go and it was just shocking to see her mention it, but not really provide much elaboration on. 

BUCK: And unfortunately that’s what we have gotten throughout the years from not only places like the U, but other areas where we work with people on and there’s a lot of talk.

And there’s a lot of good things that people say, but it’s the, follow-through, it doesn’t come. And, it’s pretty frustrating. And I think we have the set of Tribal leaders throughout the state that are just fed up with it all. And we’re ready to make sure those changes get made regardless of what that means we have to do.

GERMUNDSON: We went back and forth with Buck about MPact before sending her a link to the University’s 35-page plan. 

BUCK: Yeah. I have not seen this.

KIAN: So it’s sounding like there might not have been consultation with MIAC prior to creating it?

BUCK: Unless, they did a presentation and I don’t know if I actually no, I don’t remember this at all. No, this doesn’t look familiar at all. 

But that doesn’t mean others haven’t seen it. I just haven’t seen it. 

GERMUNDSON: In light of the clear miscommunication surrounding MPact and collaboration with MIAC, we also asked Johnson why it’s difficult for the University to establish and maintain communication with the tribes.

JOHNSON: It takes awhile to do stuff around here. So, they- the previous administration kind of dip their toes into Tribal consultation.

President Gabel is diving in full, head first and really wanting to get in and have a true, meaningful conversation with the tribes.

And I feel that there’s a forward momentum in the state, because of Governor Walz and Lieutenant Governor Flanagan, and then kind of the whole new, number of Native American, largely women, that have gotten elected to office, appointed to the bench. And so, there’s a great deal of leadership, by women on reservations, several Tribal leaders are now women, which when I began my career, that was very unusual. 

KIAN: Buck expressed a similar sentiment to Johnson when asked about the change in leadership at the University. 

GERMUNDSON: You know obviously this has been a long time, coming and you’ve had brief discussions or discussions before about changing University/Tribal relations, but you said that you, you felt hopeful still, so I’m wondering, what makes this, why is it different now?

BUCK: Well one, the university now has a female in charge and I think, as females, we listen a little differently. We think a little differently. I think we’re more open-minded. In general. you can’t put us all in the same group, but, but I think that helps. 

And also, I just think the whole atmosphere around us, not just for native people, but for all people, Black, indigenous, people of color, there’s just a different change that feels different. It’s no longer something that we’re just trying to do. It’s something we are doing and we will do. And there just seems to be such a unique will to make things change finally. And not just oh, let’s get our voice out there. Let’s get this done. And it’s no, let’s, this will get done. There’s no more, let’s try, it’s let’s do. And I always say, when we’re done asking, we’re starting to demand. 

GERMUNDSON: Although both parties are excited to have established a communication with each other, Buck says MIAC needs more than just dialogue.

BUCK: We’d like a clear plan on where we go from here. We always as tribes get a lot of lip service and I know we’re all, especially the 11 tribes in this state. I know we’re tired of the lip service and we’re ready for some action. Tribal consultation is more than just, coming up with something, sending it to the tribe, saying, okay, we have our Tribal consultation. No, true tribal consultation involves tribes at the seat, having a seat at the table from the very beginning and as being part of that creation of those policies, those procedures. And we hope that there’s some clear pathway into that from this meeting and the meetings to follow.

KIAN: Johnson agrees that Tribal consultation requires more than a simple meeting, but he maintains that the University is on the right track. 

JOHNSON: It’s simply this: it’s meaningful consultation. When I was a young lawyer, we would do a meeting with the Bureau of Indian Affairs or local County. And then it was kind of the pat the Indians on the head meeting. And it’s like, okay, sure. We checked the box where we talked to the Indians. That’s not the way it is anymore. Now most Tribal leaders have Amy Klobuchar, Tina Smith, Tim Walz, Keith Ellison on speed dial. And that happened because the tribes, people started recognizing the tribes as sovereign nations, which is what they are, and started listening to their problems and their issues.

And now that the University has started going down this road of listening to tribes when we are developing programs, or policies that impact tribes even remotely. I think the best thing we can do is have meaningful dialogue, meaningful consultation where they talk and we listen. The tribes talk and the University listens and it’s as if that might be an overly simplified statement. But, it’s the only thing that works as far as Tribal relations and I’ve seen things change, over the last 30 years. 

GERMUNDSON: As it stands now, President Gabel is planning to meet with MIAC again in December, which Buck says she’s looking forward to. 

KIAN: It’s clear that President Gabel is making Tribal Relations a priority more than other University leaders in the past. But it remains to be seen how the University will fully respond to MIAC’s requests and move forward with a plan of action. 

GERMUNDSON: Thanks to Hana Ikramuddin for helping us report on this. 

IKRAMUDDIN: You’re welcome!

FADE UP & UNDER OUTRO MUSIC 

PALMER: In other U news: the Malcolm Yards affordable housing project in Prospect Park is moving forward after securing money from Hennepin County; Student Legal Services is working on cases for students who were kettled on I-94 during the post-election protests; and a new popcorn shop has opened in Dinkytown. We’ll see you next week.

ADVERTISEMENT FROM OUR SPONSOR: ACR Homes has essential jobs and internships for students. Find peace of mind and job security with their flexible and rewarding part-time jobs by caring for the needs of people who have disabilities. Because ACR Homes offers paid training, your compassion for others and desire to make a difference is more important than your previous experience. To apply, contact universityoffice@acrhomes.com or visit their website at www.acrhomes.com.

MEGAN PALMER: Hey y’all, and welcome back to another week. Before I introduce our story, I have a favor to ask. “In The Know” reporters Megan and Yoko are hoping to do a story on student mental health in the coming weeks, and they want to know how you are doing in your own words. So grab a recorder, or even just your phone, and send us a brief voice memo. Let us know where you at mentally in the midst of such a historic semester. How are you feeling? What’s keeping you up at night? What are you struggling with? When you’re done, please email your audio diary to us at intheknow@mndaily.com. That’s i-n-t-h-e-k-n-o-w AT mndaily.com. And just a heads up, if you choose to record on your phone, hold it up to your ear as if you’re making a normal phone call to get the best quality. Thanks!

NAT SOUND: TRANSITIONAL RHYTHM (FADE UP AND OUT UNDER TRACK)

AVA KIAN: In 1925, the School of Nursing rejected Dorothy Waters from completing her residency because of her race. In 1929, the university denied Frances Mary McHie admission to the School of Nursing, with a rejection letter from University President Lotus D. Coffman claiming that a Black student would not be permitted to care for white patients. And in 1933, Ahwa Fiti was admitted to the School of Nursing and lived in the nurses’ hall; however, William T. Middlebrook recommended excluding her from the nurses hall because her presence would “create a precedent which might be embarrassing to us at Pioneer Hall and Sanford Hall.” These three students are only some examples of discrimination against Black students in healthcare at the University of Minnesota. 

These racist origins are not unique to the University of Minnesota. Many healthcare discoveries are rooted in racism. For example, the work of James Marion Sims, who is known as the “father of modern gynecology.” Sims, whose name appears in several medical textbooks, practiced his surgical techniques on enslaved women. Medical textbooks acknowledge him as a “surgical innovator”and often fail to criticize his practices, according to a 2011 study.  

As a highly-regarded research institution, the University of Minnesota’s healthcare services are a cornerstone of the state. The U’s research and medical centers serve people from all over Minnesota. But an under-discussed part of these accomplishments is how medical institutions contribute and perpetuate inequalities.

Medical students at the U are advocating for changes in how the University addresses racism tied to healthcare fields. A student group, White Coats for Black Lives, is trying to increase diversity and awareness of racism in the medical field, specifically in their curriculum. More recently, the student group held a protest calling for the expulsion of the medical student who defaced the George Floyd Mural. 

We wanted to talk to healthcare educators about how the U is responding in the field of medicine during calls for racial justice. To do this, we spoke with Barbara Peterson, the Inclusivity, Diversity and Equity Committee Director for the School of Nursing, to see how the nursing school responded after the killing of George Floyd by a then-Minneapolis police officer.

BARBARA PETERSON: We offered three immediate listening sessions.

All students, all staff, all faculty were invited to those listening sessions. We opened those sessions with a statement of our firm rejection of racism and our firm rejection of institutional racism that persists in our society. And then we offered an opportunity for anyone to just share and talk about how it has affected themselves personally, the community in which they live and their understandings about how this can happen.

KIAN: The School of Nursing held an event focused on institutional racism and racial disparities in healthcare, in response to the health inequities for BIPOC during COVID-19. The day promoted reflection among students to address structural inequalities and their impact on health outcomes. 

PETERSON: From that reflection then builds action and so Nasra and I are trying to lead people in reflective action

And it’s true nursing has an institutional racist past, as healthcare has, and has really had to reckon with that.

NASRA GIAMA: I would say like it’s almost like an onion, like I’m peeling the layers…

KIAN: That’s Dr. Nasra Giama. She’s the Assistant Director of the Inclusivity, Diversity, & Equity Committee at the School of Nursing. 

GIAMA: …like unpeeling the layers so like we have the layers that we put on it we protect ourselves and we think we’re protecting ourselves not addressing very difficult topics like this, but just creating the space and letting people would be able to have a conversation was really helpful.

KIAN: To peel the onion she mentioned, the school is examining issues in their curriculum.

GIAMA: So one of the things we did the summer was take a deep dive into our curriculum and look at what are we teaching our students, how are we talking about race, ethnicity, culture, health disparities and some of these keywords anti racism, how are we talking about it and what courses are we talking about this?  We also started reaching out to our faculty that’s teaching those core courses. And figuring out how are you addressing this, what have you done, what has worked. And then slowly working our way into looking at the textbooks.

KIAN: While Dr. Giama said the school’s public health books address racism and social justice, the competency-based books do not properly discuss race and also use white bodies as the medical standard. Most textbooks feature lighter skin tones in their imagery, which disregards the experiences of BIPOC patients. 

GIAMA: Our competency based books don’t necessarily talk about them, and they talk about ‘culture’ as a catch all for everything race/racism/difference, anything like that they use that word to talk about it. And we know that’s not the way to go about it. I think changing that is going to take a lot of work for us to advocate for as people who are using these textbooks.

PETERSON: The thing that’s the hardest, I think, to identify is the normalcy of the white body. And that, that’s been the most persistent.

KIAN: The textbooks also negatively present racialized groups. Dr. Giama said anytime students read about a non-Caucasian group, it’s because they have a higher risk for this or that disease. And that can negatively impact how these future healthcare workers see their non-white patients. 

GIAMA: If all they’re seeing about a racial group, they can walk away with thinking for example, a person or, you know, X group has a high rate of hypertension, diabetes, alcoholism, STIs, every single thing… look at it that way. And that’s all you’re going to walk away thinking, especially if you don’t have any personal relationship with people. If you’re coming from rural Minnesota, and that’s all you grew up in, and you’ve never seen a person of a different racial/ethnic group and that’s all you’re reading about, you’re going to go in with a very biased, negative prejudice way and that’s going to seep into your practice with the questions you ask your patients. That’s one thing that I hope that I can affect in my practice and in any influence that I have in being in this office is really trying to change the narrative and present a more inclusive way of caring for people of color especially our indigenous and African or black population in this country.

KIAN: The medical school holds a similar responsibility, considering the history of institutionalized racism in medicine, current healthcare disparities, and the recent defacing of the George Floyd mural by a University of Minnesota medical student. To better understand how the medical school addresses institutionalized racism, we spoke to Dr. Ana Núñez, Vice Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the medical school. 

Dr. Núñez began her role at the end of August. She was appointed to address inequities, bias and discrimination in clinical programs, recruiting, curriculum and research. Specifically, her job is to find the programs addressing these issues and connect those programs together.

NÚÑEZ: If we want to have meaningful sustainable change, it’s kind of like the iceberg thing: The top of stuff is easy, but the deep seated things as to why we keep doing not what we want. — that’s the stuff that we have to get through.

KIAN: And for what the university has been doing well, she pointed to the students, faculty and staff of the Broadway clinic in North Minneapolis.

NÚÑEZ: After George Floyd’s murder had smashed windows, the pharmacy was raided, things were sort of really in disarray. And the very next day the folks there, the students, the faculty, the staff were all out in the parking lot. And they were sort of providing sort of food and beverages for folks. They were checking to make sure that people were okay and within one week they were back to business, they were back in terms of sort of caring for people. 

If you want exemplars in terms of how to get it right, those are exemplars, those are really impressive. That is not the standard across the United States. If we had those standards, then we probably would nationally have a lot less problems in terms of health disparities.

KIAN: She also acknowledges the textbooks need to be changed to better represent everyone, and added that curriculum reviews are already underway.  The change for textbooks is being pushed from outside, with students and new medical literature.  

NÚÑEZ: For our students and medical students, you can’t just rely on a book that could sort of represent something five years old, your responsibility is to be inquisitive, find some literature that talks about what’s the evidence today and how is this. 

KIAN: By literature, she means new articles that evaluate present conditions rather than textbooks which are updated less frequently.  

NÚÑEZ:And a lot of the conferences that students hold and the speakers they bring in, reflect the people that are writing those new articles. So the textbook is, unfortunately, sort of a dated thing, but the literature actually represents sort of closer to sort of reality. 

KIAN: To examine those racist healthcare standards, the medical school has looked to student groups. 

NÚÑEZ: We have some amazing student generated groups: the medical education reform coalition, the task force for change, they’re student initiated groups for that very purpose in terms of “Let’s look at the things that we thought we know about kidney disease that actually had sort of racial overtones. What are the things we know about lung disease and function that we’re not getting right, so ferreting those out by the students who are living through it to sort of say, “Wait a minute, time out, let’s explore this, what does this mean, what is the evidence?” 

KIAN: Curriculum reviews are underway in attempts to transform the future generations of healthcare professionals, but racial biases, structural inequities and disparities are still prevalent in healthcare. Student advocates, along with University leadership, are looking to further increase representation, enrollment, and inclusion in healthcare to improve health outcomes among under-served communities. 

FADE UP & UNDER OUTRO MUSIC

PALMER: In other U news: a group of anthropology students is pressuring Weisman Art Museum to return sacred objects to the Mimbres people of New Mexico; University researchers have discovered that jumping worms are spreading across the state and causing significant environmental harm; and longtime Dinkytown favorite Purple Onion has closed its doors after 30 years. We’ll see you next week.

ADVERTISEMENT FROM OUR SPONSOR: ACR Homes has essential jobs and internships for students. Find peace of mind and job security with their flexible and rewarding part-time jobs by caring for the needs of people who have disabilities. Because ACR Homes offers paid training, your compassion for others and desire to make a difference is more important than your previous experience. To apply contact universityoffice@acrhomes.com or visit their website at www.acrhomes.com.

MEGAN PALMER: Hey y’all, and welcome back to another week. Before I introduce our story, I have a favor to ask. In The Know reporters Megan and Yoko are hoping to do a story on student mental health in the coming weeks, and they want to know how you are doing in your own words. So grab a recorder, or even just your phone, and send us a brief voice memo. Let us know where you at mentally in the midst of such a historic semester. How are you feeling? What’s keeping you up at night? What are you struggling with? When you’re done, please email your audio diary to us at intheknow@mndaily.com That’s i-n-t-h-e-k-n-o-w AT mndaily.com. And just a heads up, if you choose to record on your phone, hold it up to your ear as if you’re making a normal phone call to get the best quality. Thanks!

PALMER: Now let’s get back to the story. Last week was the first presidential debate, one that’ll go down in history — and students have a lot to say about it. Here’s Ava and Ethan with the story.

AVA KIAN: Hi everyone, I’m Ava Kian. 

ETHAN QUEZADA: And I’m Ethan Quezada, and you’re listening to In the Know, a podcast by the Minnesota Daily.

QUEZADA: Last Tuesday, the long-awaited presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was not necessarily what many voters had expected. Young voters expected some level of disagreement and commotion — but not to the extent of what took place. In this episode, we’ll be speaking to student viewers to get their take on what went down. 

AMBI: CHRIS WALLACE DEBATE INTRODUCTION

KIAN: People watched 90 minutes of back and forth between the two presidential candidates. If you missed it, here are a few highlights… 

Trump refused to condemn white supremacy… 

CLIP FROM DEBATE: “WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO ME TO CONDEMN>” “PROUD BOYS.” “PROUD BOYS — STAND BACK AND STAND BY, BUT I’LL TELL YOU WHY…”

KIAN: … Biden said he opposes the Green New Deal… 

CLIP FROM DEBATE: “DO YOU SUPPORT THE GREEN NEW DEAL?” “PARDON ME?” “DO YOU —” “NO, I DON’T SUPPORT THE GREEN NEW DEA.” “OH, YOU DON’T! OH, WELL, THAT’S A BIG STATEMENT.” 

KIAN: … And the two candidates aimed a lot of personal attacks at each other, which meant the moderator Chris Wallace spent about half the time trying to quiet them down.

CLIP FROM DEBATE: “GENTLEMEN! I HATE TO RAISE MY VOICE, BUT IT SEEMS TO BE — WHY SHOULD I BE DIFFERENT THAN THE TWO OF YOU?” 

QUEZADA: We spoke to students because the issues at stake impact their futures. In 2018, the University of Minnesota earned the highest voter turnout across large public universities nationwide — with nearly 60 percent of university students voting. Liz Cecka, a junior who had already voted early in this election cycle, tuned in to the debate to stay informed.

LIZ CECKA: I think my expectations, um, were, in some ways met, and in some ways actually exceeded, my initial expectations were definitely that it was going to be chaotic. And I had very low expectations for you know, Trump being able to respect the moderator and kind of respect the, you know, general format.

KIAN: Maeve Finnegan, a psychology major, who plans to vote for Biden, found Trump’s performance predictable. 

MAEVE FINNEGAN: I was totally expecting Donald Trump to be like that. I was totally expecting him to like not be able to let Joe Biden get a word in and say some pretty like propaganda infused things 

FINNEGAN: Nothing about Donald Trump’s performance surprised me.

QUEZADA: Noah Harstad, a senior studying global studies and German, felt inclined to watch the debate because he knew it would be epic. 

NOAH HARSTAD: I was inspired to watch the debate, because I’ve always been, like, fairly politically active. And I knew it was going to be the debate of a lifetime. for lack of better words. And really, it ended up being that. 

KIAN: Both Noah and Liz were impressed with Biden’s performance. Neither of them knew about Biden’s speech impediment, finding out about it from social media after the debate. 

CECKA: I think Biden held up admirably under pressure so far. I also think that you know, there’s a lot going into this, he’s only human, and as has been discussed widely recently, he does have speech impediments that very well may well like come out at some point.

HARSTAD: One of the most interesting things that I learned after the debate was I didn’t realize Joe Biden had a speech impediment, um, which made his performance to me, I think, a little bit more impressive, because he was fighting through, he’s been fighting through the speech impediment his entire life, but he did such a good job of standing up to Donald Trump.

KIAN: What do you think he [Joe Biden] did well?

HARSTAD:  I really enjoyed the fact that he addressed the American people, like looked at the camera and said, You know, like, you people at home. And then he did a really good job of balancing how much he spoke, or tried to speak, I guess, and how much he let Donald Trump speak and make a fool of himself.

FINNEGAN: I think that Joe Biden was reasonable enough to get people to like kind of the undecided voters to kind of get on board with him. And I think he was really smart, he was like talking a lot to the camera because it’s kind of impossible to have a conversation with Donald Trump.  

QUEZADA: The chaos created several notable television moments and memes.

HARSTAD: “Just shut up man. That was… [laughs].  I like I screamed at the television when he said that. 

FINNEGAN: Initially, I was like, when he called him a clown and whatever, I was like, “Oh, he’s being like he’s stooping down to his level.”But then I like, after talking about it with some of my friends and my roommates, I was like, “Well, the level that Donald Trump is at, he has not stooped down to that far of a level and saying those things would be inappropriate and a normal debate, but that was not a normal debate.”

There was one that was like debate two is going to take place in a Chili’s parking lot. That made me laugh pretty loud

KIAN: Do you have any facepalm moments where you were just like, I wish I did not have to watch this right now. Or you just had to stop for a second?

HARSTAD: Probably about the whole debate. But, um, anytime Donald Trump would speak over Joe Biden, he literally sounded like what I would name my anxiety as. 

CECKA: The thing that I would describe as more of a facepalm reaction was the fact that you know, the moderator directly point-blank asked him about his taxes in 16 and 17. And he responded with like, “Oh, yeah, I paid millions.”  

CECKA: And the other thing that, of course, really raised my eyebrows was the fact that he had that whole, like, long debate with the moderator where he’s “like, tell me what to denounce” and then refused to denounce white supremacy. 

QUEZADA: When Trump told The Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, to “stand back and stand by,” Maeve interpreted it as the president asking the group to “arm the polls.” 

FINNEGAN: That makes me scared, just for people going to vote in-person on election day. I think there’s going to be some, it’s going to be a scary environment for sure.

KIAN: To cope with all these emotions, these students took to comedy, alcohol, and friends.  

HARSTAD: My three roommates and I all watched it together. It was kind of like a viewing party. It was the closest thing I’ve ever gotten to like, sport culture. We were all screaming at the TV.

All of my roommates were drinking. 

I hate for it to sound like I found the debate comedic. Because I didn’t find it comedic. I was super nervous the entire time, but you have to temper that anxiety with, you know, self care.

FINNEGAN: There was a lot of yelling in the first five minutes of us being like, “what’s happening?” and like laughing because it was just ridiculous from the start. 

CECKA: Something that my roommates that I do is: we just yell the word scream, instead of screaming, mostly to avoid annoying our neighbors. And that was what we all universally did. And we just loudly yelled, “scream!” And that kind of sums it up. I really, you know, I was just kind of shaking my head at the screen and being like, I’m, you know, I’m really sitting here right now. And I’m really watching this. And the only thing I have left to say is “scream.”

KIAN: Like if there were voters who were on the line? Do you think it served the purpose of being a debate to educate people?

CECKA: I actually do know a couple of people who like through my roommate who had said previously that they were voting for Trump and then since the debates Maybe not quite convinced yet, but definitely did speak negatively of him in the debate. And so I think it did serve its purpose in, you know, making people watch a lot more of the reality of these two candidates.

HARSTAD: I have a few family members that were super disgusted by how the debate went, some family members that I’m trying to convince to vote for Joe Biden. And I think if the performance remains like it was in the first, it could be a really good tipping point for a lot of like, central to right-leaning people to vote left.

FINNEGAN: I think that it was smart to have them. I think that if we didn’t have debates, there wouldn’t be as much hearing from the horse’s mouth. I guess from what they’re actually saying,

And so I think it’s important that we have them and that even if they are a complete mess and shit show… I think that it’s okay to like, I think that we need to see that.

QUEZADA: Reflecting on the debate, Liz thinks Trump’s strategy is different than it was against Hillary Clinton in 2016. 

CECKA: What I remember most from those debates was that, yeah, there were still a lot of, you know, weird comments from Trump and things like that, but it was less desperate. 

And the fact that you know, for all his flaws, Joe Biden is a functional presidential candidate that, you know, Trump had to face off with, he was just kind of throwing everything out of the bag at him. And it was not necessarily a coordinated attack.

KIAN: How do you feel about how he [Trump] might have treated Biden versus Hillary? Did you notice any differences in the debate from this year to 2016?

CECKA: I think that there were a lot of comments that it was easier for him [Trump] to feel comfortable making because she was a woman, which is its own separate issue, that, you know, are harder to throw at a white man.

QUEZADA: Liz referenced when Biden told Trump to “Shut up,”…

CECKA: I saw some social media posts afterwards that were commenting on the fact that like, Biden kind of got away with that as a white man. And that was something that potentially, like Hillary probably also wanted to do in the 2016 debates and didn’t necessarily have the foothold to get away with saying that.

KIAN: For future debates, people think the style and rules need some adjustment. 

HARSTAD: I think they should get just a blow horn to, you know, stop the candidates from speaking. But aside from that, I think just really being hard on the two-minute time limit, and like, making sure that the candidates stop speaking.

QUEZADA:  Though the debate left much to be desired for these students, they’re still ready to vote. 

HARSTAD: More than ever, it’s imperative that college people vote. Because 

We are a very underrepresented age group. And we could really tip the scales in positive ways.

FADE UP & UNDER OUTRO MUSIC

PALMER: Before we go, here’s what else is happening on campus: concerns about policing and campus safety marked the first MSA forum of the semester. In Greek life, the Panhellenic Council ended their partnership with the Interfraternity Executive Council, citing a relationship that perpetuates racism, heteronormativity, sexism and sexual violence. And Gopher athletes and athletic staff have been given November 3rd off to participate in the presidential election. We’ll see you next week.

ADVERTISEMENT FROM OUR SPONSOR: ACR Homes has essential jobs and internships for students. Find peace of mind and job security with their flexible and rewarding part-time jobs by caring for the needs of people who have disabilities. Because ACR Homes offers paid training, your compassion for others and desire to make a difference is more important than your previous experience. To apply contact universityoffice@acrhomes.com or visit their website at www.acrhomes.com.

MEGAN PALMER: Hey y’all, and welcome back to another week. As we settle into the semester, many University services are being offered differently than before the pandemic. Virtual services, such as therapy through the Boynton clinic, are presenting new benefits and challenges for patients and providers alike. Here’s Ava and Ethan with the story.

AVA KIAN: Hi everyone, I’m Ava Kian.

ETHAN QUEZADA: I’m Ethan Quezada, I’m an intern reporter and I’m a recent transfer student here at the U —you’re listening to In the Know, a podcast by the Minnesota Daily.

KIAN: Campus culture has already changed immensely, from students having a curfew to changes in student housing and class instruction formats. In today’s episode, we’ll be speaking to students about their telehealth experiences at Boynton Mental Health Clinic amid the pandemic. We’ll also talk to interim director of the Mental Health Clinic at Boynton Health and a therapist at Boynton, to get a full look into the accessibility of telehealth.

AMBI: ZOOM RING

QUEZADA: The transition into telehealth in March was difficult for some students who had been used to in-person therapy. Margot Reddy has received therapy at Boynton – both during the pandemic and before.

MARGOT REDDY: And at first, it was really hard at first I was I like kind of stopped seeing my therapist because I didn’t really want to have to deal with it, especially because I actually was in New York during the pandemic, because that’s where I’m from. But then my therapist actually reached out to me. She messaged me, she’s like, “Hey, we haven’t spoken in a while, are you okay?” and I started seeing her again.

QUEZADA: Melissa Fellrath, another returning student to the Boynton Mental Health Clinic, expressed the differences between virtual therapy and in-person. In Mel’s case, the cancelation of in-person sessions even led to a change in their therapy style.

MEL FELLRATH: I tend to do a lot with my hands and she can’t really see that over to zoom. So that kind of makes like a barrier in her understanding, like what’s going on. And then there was like a certain form of therapy that we were going to do. But that requires us to be in person. So we kind of had to switch what we were going to do.
AVA: A big critique of telehealth from students is the failure to capture body language.

REDDY: I feel like especially because I’m a psychology major. I feel like a lot of what therapists do is read body language and if you know I’m sitting behind my computer and you can only see my face like, they’re missing pieces to it. So like they can’t really read how I’m feeling based on how I’m acting so much.

QUEZADA: According to both Margot and Mel, an important detail in determining the efficacy of virtual therapy is the level of comfort they have with their therapist. They imagine that for students who are new this semester to Boynton’s services, it may be more difficult to open up over Zoom.

FELLRATH: Yeah, I think I was lucky enough to have gone there and have met my therapist several times in person, but I feel like if I didn’t have that chance it’s really difficult to like have that connection with her.

REDDY: Because I’ve already known my psychiatrist and my therapist for a while. It wasn’t as uncomfortable and they kind of knew me already. I feel like if you’ve never met a therapist before and then you’re starting over, zoom, like that’s a really, really uncomfortable situation.

KIAN: It seems that virtual therapy’s efficacy greatly depends on the individual’s preferences. Virtual therapy has proven effective for some, including Mel.

FELLRATH: I’ve actually found it a little bit easier. Just because you’re not actually in the same room.

KIAN: While Margot actually prefers a less comfortable setting to express herself.

REDDY: I think that they probably have made it easier for me because it’s like, oh, I don’t have to go take the bus or go take a walk to have a therapy session. But I also feel like in some ways. I’m obviously more comfortable in my house. So if I’m struggling with something, I feel like I’m not able to really express the struggle that I’m feeling because I’m in a comfortable setting.

QUEZADA: The Mental Health Clinic’s transition to using telehealth services happened back in March, upon the university implementing remote learning. We spoke to their interim director, Mattew Hanson, to see how the clinic responded to the sudden changes.

AMBI: BOYNTON PHONE LINE – “THANK YOU FOR CALLING”

MATTHEW HANSON: It was very rapid and during that time, we had to develop processes, procedures, policies around providing telehealth, effectively, safely confidentially to students.

KIAN: As students moved back to their hometowns last spring, Boynton’s ability to use telehealth depended on the state regulation for healthcare licensing, which typically prevents providers from giving care across state lines.

HANSON: We have a lot of students who were not from Minnesota. And at that time, there was a number of conversations that we had about whether or not we could provide care for them. them being students that were across state lines, you know, in Wisconsin or Iowa or the Dakotas or Illinois or any of the states where students do come from when they attend the U of M.

With the pandemic came a series of executive orders across the country from each of the Governor’s, many of whom provided latitude within their telehealth policies to be able to provide care for students because they knew that, you know, people should be staying home at that time

So we’ve been having to pay very close attention to each of those states to make sure that we’re still in compliance with the state statutes and rules of those local governments.

QUEZADA: According to Matthew, therapists quickly familiarized themselves with new technology, and new ways of communicating behind a screen.

HANSON: So it took us a little while I think to get accustomed to the way of delivering services. By, you know, looking at a camera and modulating voices in a different way and, you know, attending to emotion and affect. It’s a little bit different in the zoom space, but it’s proven to be effective from our standpoint and students seem to get, get what they’re needing from it too.

KIAN: Another roadblock towards implementing telehealth was the accessibility factor. Matthew says some students can more easily access healthcare now that it’s remote, but for others it’s hard due to slow internet or lack of service.

HANSON: I think in many ways for many students, accessibility will be increased. You know, people can Talk, they can, you know, have a session on their phone.

For other students, though, that accessibility probably has gone down. students that don’t have good internet connection, you know, might not have reliable cell service, might not be in a safe environment where they can have a telehealth therapy session.

KIAN: Overall, accessibility depends on the individual’s family situation and the level of support available when seeking help.

HANSON: You know, I’ve heard stories to have students that had to, you know, like, find their way to a closet in their house because they didn’t really have a secure room or a safe room that they could go to, you know, family situations just differ a lot. And some families are very supportive of one another and some are less supportive of one another and creating space for somebody to receive mental health care just might not be acceptable or, or available. So it’s a bit of a mix, I would say. On paper, it feels like it should be much more accessible, but that’s one of the ones where the devil might be in the details.

KIAN: Following the university’s decision to move classes to remote learning, Boynton saw a significant drop in appointments. The number of appointments nearly cut in half from 731 the week of March 2, to 371 during the first week of remote learning.

HANSON: We saw a big change in March. And a lot of that change early on came from the interstate limitations. So you know, we do see a lot of students from Wisconsin, fewer from the Dakotas and fewer from other states. So Wisconsin is our biggest pool for sure of non-Minnesota residents. So we saw a pretty significant drop at that time. So I think when a lot of students returned home, I think things made their needs may have changed a little bit.

QUEZADA: During the early stages of Boynton’s telehealth implementation, the mental health clinic continued to offer some walk-in services for students in crisis. The number of therapists on staff remained the same, and the clinic continued to operate at nearly full capacity.

KIAN: During the transition to telehealth, Ana Zedginidze, a therapist at the Boynton Mental Health Clinic, said the biggest challenge to successfully using telehealth was…

ANA ZEDGINIDZE: I mean, technology, technology, technology is just. I can’t emphasize that enough because we use an electronic healthcare record system, you know, there’s a few different steps in terms of gaining access to that in a secure way. So just setting that up was just a huge challenge.

KIAN: While telehealth was a way to keep people apart, and keep them from getting sick, it’s also been a way to keep seeing students who are sick.

ZEDGINIDZE: One of the things that surprised me, Like a benefit of telehealth popped up is we’ve been actually been able to see students who are like quarantining or showing symptoms or isolating and that’s something we would have never even been able to do.

KIAN: Ana even said that telehealth actually allowed some students to overcome the stigma of seeking mental health help.

ZEDGINIDZE: And even since the pandemic. We’ve seen a lot of new students who are seeking services and have really used the pandemic as kind of an introduction or starting point to try therapy and mental health services. So really, it felt more of like it almost like with the stigma of seeking mental health kind of became a barrier that we’ve seen some students overcome and have used this pandemic as an intro.

QUEZADA: Matthew says that despite being virtual, Boynton provides a level of care similar to that of pre-COVID, unlike other fields of healthcare that heavily rely on seeing patients in person.

HANSON: I think that we’ve been able to do standard practice pretty effectively. I haven’t noticed a big change in that. It does seem like mental health care is probably one of the vehicles for health care that’s the most amenable to telehealth, you know, we have colleagues here in in the, in the clinic in the larger clinic in Boynton, you know, an eye care or physical therapy, you know, the dental clinic was shut down for clear reasons when the pandemic happened.

ZEDGINIDZE: It was a hard experience. We have to still wear masks, make sure we’re socially distant. I would say it’s more difficult to see a student in person without seeing half their face than it is to meet with us over zoom. I rely a lot on your facial reactions and your smile or whatever it might be. And it’s harder to see that. And it’s harder to pick up on some of that when we’re sitting far away as well. So to me as a provider. I appreciate that. I can see your face. I can’t see your full body language maybe, but I am still in tune to at least your facial reactions as well. And that’s important.

REDDY: I think that temporarily. It’s fine. But I think that in the long term, more people are going to actually suffer from mental health issues.

KIAN: As a result of telehealth use during the pandemic, health care providers are planning for the use of telehealth technologies, even in a non-COVID world.

ZEDGINIDZE: So I actually think that Telehealth is here to stay, no matter what happens with COVID.

I think because it does reduce barriers for students to have to be here is a strong reason why we will continue it. Another piece is that a lot of our students leave for breaks and summer and often interrupts their care in terms of mental health. And just knowing that we might be able to see students through summer and through breaks. I think would be another reason why we would continue telehealth past COVID.

FADE UP & UNDER OUTRO MUSIC

PALMER: In other University of Minnesota news — campus’s Weisman Art Museum is set to reopen on October 1st. The Minnesota Student Association has launched a task force in the wake of the pandemic to examine student food and housing insecurity. And as the window for completing the 2020 census draws to a close, the neighborhoods around the U remain the lowest reporting in the city of Minneapolis. We’ll see you next week.