Minneapolis proposed turning the old burned-down Third Precinct police building into a democracy center and community space with the help of input from local residents.

Plans for the renovated Third Precinct building, renamed Minnehaha 3000 and set to open in 2026, include an early voting center, offices for election staff and a large community space.

The Third Precinct building was destroyed in June 2020 during protests following the murder of George Floyd. Since then, police in the Third Precinct have been operating out of a building in downtown Minneapolis. 

An open house held at the Minneapolis American Indian Center on Monday night presented the concept plans and project timeline to the public. 

Alexander Kado, the senior project manager of Minnehaha 3000, said community outreach revealed that people did not want it to be a police station again.

“Last April we asked, ‘Should police be in the building or not?’” Kado said. “We got a lot of feedback.”

The city is continuing to ask for feedback regarding the project, Kado said. Currently, the city is running a survey to figure out how to best utilize the community space.

At the open house, the city asked people to vote on what options they should explore for the space by placing a round sticker next to their preferred options. The choices included a museum, a community gathering space and a cultural center.

Similarly, another board asked people to choose what features should be included outside of the building, such as benches, public art and drinking fountains. 

The city plans on conducting focus groups this summer and hosting another open house in September to hear more from the community, according to Kado. 

The Minneapolis Office of Community Safety also had a booth with details about the location of the new Third Police precinct, just a few blocks away from the old one. 

According to Amanda Harrington, director of community safety design and implementation, the new precinct building is 78,000 square feet and will include social services like housing and employment services. It is expected to open in spring or summer 2025. 

“It’s one big building, not just a police station,” Harrington said.

The Department for Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging and the city attorney’s office also had booths with requests for community input about their plans to address racial equity going forward. 

The Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging booth featured posters showing their repair harm model. This model explained the different stages of a city after a situation like the killing of George Floyd, all the way from surface-level understanding to sufficiently changing the system to prevent future occurrences.

Michele Jackson, from the Department of Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, said they are asking people to read through the model and decide where they think the city is at in terms of repairing the harm done after the murder of George Floyd. 

“We need to recognize the harm done in the city and move forward in a way that impacts the community in a positive way,” Jackson said. 

As the Twin Cities fight against the infestation of an invasive beetle by removing Ash trees, new varieties of trees are being planted in their place.

Since planting began on April 8, Minneapolis has replanted around 9,600  trees of varying species to protect the city’s biodiversity from future invasive species or diseases, according to Ralph Seivert, director of forestry in Minneapolis.

The invasive insect, known as the Emerald Ash Borer, damages and kills native North American Ash trees by chewing through a tree’s trunk, which disrupts the flow of nutrients through the tree, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources website.

Angela Gupta, an extension professor in forest resources at the University of Minnesota, said the city’s removal of Ash trees is part of its prevention efforts against the spread of Emerald Ash Borers, which can cause damage and kill an Ash tree within six years.

Tree removal is expensive, which is why cities choose to remove Ash trees that are already affected along with others that could be infected later on, Gupta said. Additionally, Ash trees can become hazardous once infested with the beetle.

“Ash trees don’t persist dead on the landscape very long,” Gupta said. “They lose their branches and they fall over.”

According to Seivert, from 2014 to 2022, the city removed and replanted about 5,000 trees each year. These new tree plantings fulfill diversity guidelines and help prevent future invasive insects or plants.

“By having a mix of trees on a (street) block, you have a little more resilience in terms of if another pest comes along,” Seivert said.

According to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, each residential block must have at least two different tree species due to a policy that began after the invasive insect was discovered in Minneapolis in 2010.

The city also tries to plant trees that will withstand climate change, according to Seivert. Some common trees they plant include varieties of Oak, River Birch, Yellowwood, Buckeye, Amur Maackia and Alder.

“As you’re looking at how the climate might be changing, we’re always looking for trees that we can plant that might be pushing the hardiness a little bit,” Seivert said.

Ash trees removed before Nov. 1 will be replanted with different trees in spring 2025, Seivert said. Minneapolis considers its initial Emerald Ash Borer removal and replacement plan finished, however, it still has the money to replace removed trees.

“From the spring of ‘23 on, we are actually increasing the number of trees that get added to our inventory,” Seivert said.

Minneapolis has started planting trees in spots that may have had a tree removed a long time ago that was never replaced, adding to the city’s overall tree canopy, Seivert said.

Twin Cities twin plans

St. Paul Urban Forester Supervisor Rachel Jongeward said St. Paul has a similar plan to Minneapolis and has been replanting a new tree for every Ash tree it has removed for the past 15 years.

“We select species based on the site conditions and overall numbers throughout the city, and are intentionally planting a wide variety of species down to the city block to reduce localized monocultures,” Jongeward said.

Ash trees along blocks that are removed get replaced within one year, Jongeward said. Other trees throughout the city get replaced within five years, but this plan is changing.

“The goal is to reduce the backlog of open planting sites over the next few years and to be on a cycle of replacement within two calendar years of tree removal,” Jongeward said. “Meaning, if a tree is removed in 2026, we would grind the stump in 2027 and replant in 2028.”

Both the St. Paul and Minneapolis plans only impact trees on public property, according to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. Removal or treatment for Ash trees on private property must be arranged by the property owner.

According to MPR News, tree removal in Minneapolis costs around $1,500.

In 2023, a grant became available for homeowners in Minneapolis to help cover the cost of Ash tree removal. However, there is no program for homeowners who removed or treated Ash trees before the grant became available.

Since 2013, Minneapolis has been able to condemn trees on private land, but not remove them, Seivert said.

Removing Ash trees has allowed Minnesota to plant a wide variety of trees that can have large benefits in the future, according to Gupta.

“We can plant things that are likely to do better for our future climate,” Gupta said. “We can plant things likely to not be invasive, and we can plant things that are likely to be good for the little critters that share the environment with us.”

The University of Minnesota School of Music faculty have been advocating to add more diverse music courses to their curriculum in the coming years.

While the School of Music (SoM) has expanded its offerings beyond its initial focus on Western classical music, faculty want to see more opportunities for students to learn about music from many other cultures.

According to Maja Radovanlija, a guitar instructor at the SoM, the field of music is changing and it is important to let students explore music beyond classical, written music.

“I think the most practical thing is there will be more jobs for them,” Radovanlija said. “It just opens up many possibilities for students.”

While there are opportunities for students to learn about non-Western music at the SoM, the current core curriculum for music majors is focused on Western classical music.  

Many of the required classes cover information about different types of music, and there is no non-Western music curriculum requirement for music majors. 

As it exists today, the core curriculum – specifically as it applies to the music theory degree requirement – gives students the choice to take classes on non-Western music after completing two semesters of fundamentals, said Patrick Warfield, the new director of the SoM. Warfield joined the SoM in May. These fundamentals refer to Western European music history and Western music theory.

These fundamentals refer to Western European music history and Western music theory.

Western classical music is music from Europe, such as Bach or Mozart. Western classical is a branch of Western music, which includes other genres like pop or jazz. Non-Western music is music from other places and cultures around the world, outside of Europe and other Western nations.

“Those choices include post-tonal analysis, analysis of 19th- and 20th-century art music, but also jazz theory and popular music theory,” Warfield said. “So students, while not required to take one of those courses, have an opportunity to move through those pathways.”

Areas for improvement

Warfield said the structures of music schools throughout the country were built around Western classical music.

“I would go a step further and say they were really around the re-creation of the classics of Western classical music,” Warfield said.

As a result, the SoM at the University was not originally structured to support education outside of Western classical music. It was not until later that music schools began to re-examine the way they operate, Warfield said.

“In some ways, the rumbling started in the eighties, but it didn’t pick up speed until 2010 or so, to think about how we re-align schools of music to be more about teaching students to participate in music as opposed to being experts in one corner of music,” Warfield said. “Every school of music in the country is struggling with how you do that.”

While the SoM has a full Javanese Gamelan, an ensemble made up of mostly percussion instruments, and has offered the ensemble in the past, the SoM has not offered the ensemble since spring 2021, according to University schedules.

“This vast, expensive, heavy instrument, that can accommodate dozens of students and could be a vehicle for teaching students about other ways of life, other ways of hearing music, is gathering dust in the basement,” said Matt Rahaim, a professor in the School of Music’s Global Creative Studies division.  “I think that’s a powerful symbol of the lack of investment in musics outside of the Western tradition here.”

The Minnesota Daily submitted a data request and reached out to the University to get the SoM budget but did not receive it in time for publication.

The SoM has not historically been focused in teaching non-Western music, according to Rahaim. As a result, Rahaim is the only tenure-line professor in ethnomusicology at the SoM. 

“I end up stretching to teach as many things as students want,” Rahaim said.

According to Rahaim, the current curriculum for music majors is narrow and does not sufficiently include education in non-Western music. There are currently six professors who teach global creative studies within SoM, nine including musicologists/ethnomusicologists. Ethnomusicology is the study of music from all over the world within its social and cultural contexts.

“The institutional commitments of the School of Music are extremely focused, even compared to other schools of music, on the Western classical tradition,” Rahaim said. “I think that should change.”

Other leading schools’ music programs – such as the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Indiana University and Wesleyan University – offer a broader range of opportunities for students to learn about non-Western music, according to Rahaim. 

UCLA has the largest ethnomusicology program in the country. According to Roger Savage, a professor and chair of ethnomusicology at UCLA, the history of ethnomusicology and the creation of the Herb Alpert School of Music (HAS) starts with a change to the department structure in the 90s. 

The restructuring resulted in the creation of three different music-oriented departments located in two different schools, according to Savage.

“Herb Alpert provided extremely generous funding to create a school of music,” Savage said. “This took some time, because initially it was called a virtual school, and it sort of existed in virtual reality. Institutionally, these departments still were housed in separate units.”

The HAS was formally established in 2016. However, the resources UCLA has to fund its music programs are greater than what the University of Minnesota currently has access to.

The SoM does, however, have an endowed fund that was created “in order to support instruction in popular musical styles by the” SoM, according to Clayton Smith, Interim Director of Development at the College of Liberal Arts. The Johannes Riedel Fund for Non-Classical Music was endowed two years ago and named after the former SoM professor.

The fund includes opportunities for non-classical guest artists or lectures to come to the school and work with students’ “musical competencies,” according to Smith. The fund’s goal is aimed at increasing those competencies, as well as increasing students’ ideas of what is possible for a music career.

Concerts of Syrian oud and Indian sarangi music, as well as Ojibwe, Lakota, and Saanich song, have been funded by the fund.

“The Riedel Fund is the most substantive change in the funding of World Music at UMN in over 20 years,” Rahaim said. “It’s notable that the Riedel Fund was founded by a conscientious former student, compelled by a broader vision of what a School of Music can be. It’s thrilling to think of how this School of Music could grow with proper funding.”

Importance of funding

UCLA was able to found the HAS with a $30 million donation from the Herb Alpert Foundation in 2007, according to Savage. Without this funding and push to create a physical school, the music programs – including ethnomusicology – would have remained separated in their previous colleges and departments.

According to Warfield, UCLA is ahead of other music schools in terms of having more options, in part due to their location and finances.

“When you completely blow it up and redo it, you have completely new opportunities,” Warfield said.

According to Rahaim, the ability of the SoM to offer a more expansive music curriculum is tied to the budget.

“If you want to know about an institution’s priorities, look at how they choose to spend the money they do have,” Rahaim said.

According to Warfield, the SoM only has a certain amount of money, including endowments and director’s discretionary funds, to pay for existing programs and any potential new courses.

“We’re running a pretty tight budget and there is not a whole lot of breathing room,” Warfield said.

Without large financial resources, a restructuring of the SoM to include non-Western music courses in the core curriculum would be difficult. When analyzing the budget for the SoM, it can be difficult to differentiate Western classical music curriculum from non-Western music curriculum, according to Warfield.  

This is because some classes, such as History of Western Music III, the last required course in the history of music requirement, include information on the history of African-American musical traditions and the globalization of music. 

Regardless, Warfield said he is still hoping to grow existing opportunities and create new ones for students to engage in a diverse range of musical traditions. 

“It’s right to push schools of music to move more rapidly, there are structural things that make it difficult to make that movement,” Warfield said. “I would not have come to the University of Minnesota if I didn’t already see some of that work happening and I wasn’t convinced it couldn’t happen more effectively.”

Existing non-Western music opportunities

The SoM does offer ensembles focusing on non-Western music, such as the  Gospel Choir, the West African Music Ensemble, Steel Pan Ensemble, the World Music Ensemble and jazz ensembles as ways students can get involved in non-classical music, said SoM ethnomusicologist and associate professor Scott Currie.

“In terms of playing, the students today have at least as many opportunities to engage with musics from all over the world as they ever have,” Currie said.

Currie added that COVID-19 caused problems for all the music ensembles on campus, but student interest in the non-classical ensembles has seemingly increased.

“I’m really encouraged by how fast student interest has bounced back,” Currie said. “Overall, the trend I think has been very positive and I think more and more students are seeking out musics outside the tried and true Western canon.”

Currie is also the director of the International Summer Institute for Reggae Studies. The program, which started in 2019,  covers Jamaican music history, ensembles performance in different reggae styles as well as seminars led by researchers and performers. 

Currently, students can take classes on the theory and practice of different African diasporas, South Asian traditions and more, along with other small seminars, Currie said.

“We embrace a fairly diverse set of musical traditions given the relatively small size of the faculty here,” Currie said.

When it comes to the core curriculum, students have the opportunity to fulfill different degree requirements with classes in jazz theory and improvisation, as well as an academic emphasis on ethnomusicology and electives in world music or modern music. 

When he was initially looking to become the director of the SoM, Warfield said the existing opportunities for students to engage in all types of music signaled to him the school had room to grow.

“There’s a pretty robust space beyond the most typical European music opportunities already existing, they weren’t always elevated all that well but were interested in moving forward,” Warfield said.

Moving forward

Warfield said going forward, if the SoM wants to provide new and diverse courses for students, the biggest concern will be finding the money to pay for these courses. However, the SoM also needs to amplify better the opportunities that already exist for students.

“I would say my biggest concern is, I would have a hard time paying for the courses I’m required to offer. I think more is going to be challenging,” Warfield said.

The SoM is meeting with community groups to get more involved in the Twin Cities music community – groups such as VocalEssence, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra and the Cedar Cultural Center – according to Warfield. 

“My big interests are around community engagement,” Warfield said. “I think young musicians, young artists, so much of their lives is around performing for and with people out in the world, and the more they can do that while they’re students the better prepared they are to jump in.”

The world of music is very large and there is always a lot going on and changing, Rahaim said.

“To call yourself a musician in the 21st century requires this broader sense of empathy, understanding, listening, the ability to play with musicians who go beyond what’s written on the page,” Rahaim said.

According to Currie, educating students in a diverse range of music is important beyond the classroom.

“There’s really nothing I’ve ever seen in life besides maybe food that brings people together [like music],” Currie said. “People are very attached to the music they consider their own, and if you respect that and ask them about it, you’re already halfway to a relationship.”

This article has been updated.

Correction: The original article incorrectly cited the source for its information regarding the Javanese Gamelan. The information came from a University schedule.

Correction: The original article gave the wrong title to Rahaim. He is a professor in the School of Music’s Global Creative Studies division.

Correction: The original publication of this article included an incorrect quote from Rahaim. Instead, he said “To call yourself a musician in the 21st century requires this broader sense of empathy, understanding, listening, the ability to play with musicians who go beyond what’s written on the page.”

Correction: The original article had taken a quote from Rahaim out of context. Instead, he said “If you want to know about an institution’s priorities, look at how they choose to spend the money they do have.”

Clarification: The original article included sparse information regarding the fundamentals of Western music curriculum. It often includes Western European music history and Western music theory. 

With more dry conditions this summer, professors and researchers at the University of Minnesota have witnessed the effect of this weather on crops firsthand.

The U.S. Drought Monitor tracks dry and drought conditions around the United States. As of July 27, the monitor shows most of Minnesota has abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions.

Eight counties are experiencing extreme drought conditions. These counties include Fillmore, Olmstead, Mower and Dodge counties in the Southwest; Anoka county in the North Metro; and Benton, Sherburne and Stearns counties in central Minnesota, according to the Drought Monitor.

This is the third dry summer in a row, according to Jeff Strock, a professor of soil science in the Department of Soil, Water and Climate in the University’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS).

“One year of drought kinda hurts a little bit. Two years of drought is worse. Three years of drought can be even worse depending on how bad the conditions are consecutively year-to-year,” Strock said.

Dennis Todey, Director of the Midwest Climate Hub for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said the dry weather is a little change overall when compared to the long-term expected change in the region. 

“The long-term change throughout most of our region is actually increasing precipitation and changing time of year,” Todey said.

Todey added these drought conditions are a result of less precipitation mid-summer as well as an overall lack of moisture.

“The situation we’ve had the last couple of years is we have not been able to get as much moisture from the Gulf of Mexico up to us,” Todey said.  “When we have had moisture, we haven’t always been able to tap into it.”

However, these dry summers the last three years were preceded by four wetter-than-average years from 2016 to 2019, Strock said. Strock began conducting research on irrigation plots in Lamberton, Minnesota in 2016. 

“I could watch our yields in our irrigation plot, and I watched the yields decline every single year, because it kept just getting wetter and wetter and wetter those years,” Strock said. 

According to Strock, effective drainage is important for getting rid of excess water.

“Imagine being a corn plant or a soybean plant or a wheat plant, and your feet were getting wet all of the time,” Strock said. “It would hurt you.”

Soil type is an important factor in how farmers manage drought in Minnesota, Strock said. Heavier soils soak up more moisture into the ground than sandier soils, making crops on heavier soil more prepared for drier conditions. 

“I have been through some areas of Minnesota that have sandier soils, and the sandy soils, if they are not irrigated, they look stressed,” Strock said.

Proper and responsible irrigation practices are key for successful crops, according to Vasudha Sharma, an assistant extension professor in the Department of Soil, Water and Climate at CFANS. 

“In the central region we have very sandy soils, so crop irrigation provides insurance,” Sharma said.

Sharma researches irrigation at the University, specifically focusing on central Minnesota, where some of the driest weather has occurred. She said her agricultural research fields span from growing crops with 100% to 0% water from irrigation. 

According to Sharma, the growing season this year did not start off well in central Minnesota.

“We never, in my five years [at the University], we never irrigated in May,” Sharma said. “But this year we did irrigate one time in May to make sure there was proper emergence.”

They began irrigating the fields again in June, Sharma said. However, when rain finally came, it was not exactly what the crops needed.

Sharma added timing is key when it comes to precipitation and watering crops. This year the crops in central Minnesota did not get much precipitation in the first part of the season when crops, like corn, need it most. 

“It’s dry, dry, dry, you won’t get any rain, and when we get that rain it’s too much at one time that we don’t need that much,” Sharma said.

Farmers understand Minnesota’s climate is changing, according to Sharma. They are ready to do what they need to in order to maximize their harvest.

“They want to hear what we are doing on our research farms,” Sharma said. “They are very eager to adopt or implement new irrigation technologies.”

The University of Minnesota announced it will be changing their building access policy to be accessible by U Card only in an email sent to students, faculty and staff by Senior Vice President for Finance and Operations Myron Frans on  July 13.

Frans said the Department of Public Safety at the University began reviewing building access requirements for 70 of the 140 buildings currently open to the public.

“We are working to balance necessary access for members of the University community and keeping appropriate buildings available to the public with security practices that promote the safest possible environment,” Frans said in the email.

Bill Paulus, associate vice president of facilities management,  talked with representatives and occupants of these buildings for recommendations and feedback in order to build the new policy. Facilities management looks after the buildings on campus and has been involved in setting up these discussions.

Facilities management’s operational functions will not be impacted by this review, according to Paulus.

“The primary role for Facilities Management in this process has been keeping the Facility Roles Program database current so the right academic and administrative contacts can be included in each of these building-by-building discussions,” Paulus said in a statement email to the Minnesota Daily.

The building access review is part of the University’s work to improve safety on campus, Erin Brumm, parent of a University student and board member of the Campus Safety Coalition (CSC), said. She added she advocated and supported the University updating their policy for a long time.

“A lot of these policies are old,” Brumm said. “The policy from 2017 might not be the best policy in 2023.”

Brumm added recent incidents at the other institutions as well as the University, such as the shooting at Michigan State in March and the deceased person found in Appleby Hall in April, contributed to why she believes the policy change is necessary.

“I think what happened at Appleby Hall really punctuated the problem,” Brumm said. “I don’t know if that policy would be addressed otherwise.”

Libraries, museums and Coffman Union will remain open to the public, according to Frans’ email. Brian Peck, parent of a University student and president of CSC, said striking a balance between safety and openness is important.

“We need to make it safer, while still ensuring that it’s open as a public university,” Peck said. 

Peck added CSC has advocated for stricter building access to University administration and it was “something that really needed to be addressed” in light of safety concerns and stories of non-University personnel squatting in University buildings. 

“Students will not notice much difference since U Card building access is already common for buildings on the Twin Cities campus,” the University’s public relation team said in an email to the Daily.

Brumm said she is encouraged by the University’s new policy and other work done to improve public safety on campus.

“I think things are moving in the right direction, things are starting to come together,” Brumm said.

Even though Pride Month is over, resources for LGBTQ+ students at the University of Minnesota are available year-round. Students have access to educational resources, gender-affirming care and opportunities to build community.

One of the places LGBTQ+ students can find these resources is the Gender and Sexuality Center for Queer and Trans Life (GSC).

Mycall Akeem Riley, the director of GSC, said the mission of the center is to make open and safe spaces, as well as resources, available to LGBTQ+ students and faculty and the larger Twin Cities community. 

“I know that college spaces are a time where people can begin to really interrogate, think about their own identities,” Riley said. 

The work of GSC is vast, according to Riley, and has a “limitless number of avenues.” They work with students, faculty and administrators across the University. One of the many ways GSC works across the University is its partnership with Boynton Health, Riley said. 

“Every semester, we kick off the semester with a collaboration with Boynton Health,” Riley said. “This year, we are providing folks with monkey-pox shots, as well as COVID boosters.”

In addition, GSC can provide students with binders, packers and other gender-affirming care, Riley said. They also facilitate ways for students to get involved with fellow LGBTQ+ students on campus and in their community.

“We have spaces and community groups that uplift marginalized communities within the LGBTQIA+ community,” Riley said.

GSC also has a dedicated lounge space in the basement of Appleby Hall open to students throughout the semester, as well as a small food pantry open to the public. Riley said it is important to have spaces dedicated to supporting LGBTQ+ students in ways more than simply providing space.

“As we have reimagined how cultural centers exist nowadays, especially after and while in the pandemic, I think folks are looking for a lot of hands-on support,” Riley said.

GSC also works with Housing and Residential Life (HRL) to support the Lavender House, the LGBTQ+ Living Learning Community (LLC) on campus, Kristie Feist, Assistant Director for Academic Initiatives and Student Engagement for HRL, said in an email to the Minnesota Daily.

“Lavender House provides a community living space where students can explore their identity while learning about resources and support networks available on campus,” Feist said. 

Lavender House, located in Comstock Hall, was first offered as an LLC in 2007, according to Feist. Since then, the LLC has grown.

“We have had as many as 70 students, but this year we expect over 100 students assigned to the Lavender House and expanded the LLC capacity to accommodate the increased interest,” Feist said.

Along with GSC and Lavender House, there are queer student groups, such as the Queer Student Cultural Center, as well as courses and a minor in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender studies available to students.

“We work to build and bridge communities that welcome and affirm people to be their whole selves, honoring their multiple identities and lived experiences,” Andria Waclawski, assistant director of public relations for the University, said in an email to the Daily.

More information about resources for LGBTQ+ students can be found on the UMN Pride website page.

University of Minnesota Executive Vice President and Provost Rachel T.A. Croson announced in December 2022 Jamie Prenkert would replace Dean Sri Zaheer of the Carlson School of Management (CSOM) at the end of spring semester.

Prenkert, previously a professor and executive associate dean for faculty and research in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University-Bloomington, assumed the position July 3. 

Prenkert’s experience and commitment will make him a strong addition to the University community, Zaheer said in an email statement to the Minnesota Daily.

“During the transition, my confidence in Jamie has only grown,” Zaheer said. “He will lead this community forward, and I will be cheering loudly from the sidelines in my roles as teacher, scholar, and mentor.”

Prenkert sat down with the Minnesota Daily to talk about his new position and his goals for CSOM. 

Minnesota Daily: It was announced in December 2022 that you would be appointed the next Dean of CSOM starting July 3. What was this period between December and July like for you? What did you do during this time to prepare for your new role as dean?

Prenkert: “A lot. I had a really demanding full-time job at the Kelley School of Business at IU and that didn’t go away. I had very supportive colleagues there but there was a lot of work to get done. And of course, it was really important for me to really start to acclimate here, both personally and professionally, because I’m moving my family. So the spring semester was tremendously busy. The provost supported me having four trips here over the course of that time, for multiple days to a week, in February, March, April and May. I got to meet a lot of people – really spent a lot of time listening and learning. It sort of helped me feel more knowledgeable and positive about the place, but there’s no substitute for sitting with people who are going to be colleagues, who are going to be leaders alongside and having that opportunity to learn and discuss with them. It’s been a busy, exciting, stressful, super informative time.”

Daily: Are there any projects or initiatives former Dean Sri Zaheer began that you would like to continue?

Prenkert: “I guess I should start by saying the process of transitions between deans can be quite variable, and this has been really great. Sri has been a tremendous partner in ensuring that both she has been available to me and that everyone that I’ve wanted to seek to interact with has been available. I just want to say I deeply appreciate that she was a partner in this transition process. One of the things she has accomplished, in an incredibly admirable way, is to be so well-connected in the local community. Specifically the business community and the broader Twin Cities area business community. That is important for the school, for the University and something that as someone new coming from out-of-town, I’m gonna have to work to both replicate that and grow those relationships. I think also there’s a strategic remaining plan for the school that runs through 2025. I think there was lots of good and thoughtful work that went into that and it’s a great starting point. Strategic plans are always guidance and living works in progress, so I think working from that and looking forward is going to be an important thing.” 

Daily: How do you intend to rebuild the relationship between the Dean’s Office and faculty after Zaheer’s comments in 2021?

Prenkert: “I can’t really say anything about those particular comments, I wasn’t here. But what I can say is that it has been really great to meet with people and have confirmed that people at the Carlson School are smart, dedicated and really care about what it is that they do. That was what I had had a window into when I came to interview and it has just been deeply clear as I’ve had the opportunity to interact with people. I think one of the core commitments that I have as an academic leader that I think is really important is to really want to, and to have as a guiding principle, developing people, really allowing people to be the best that they can be, to work and to become the most excellent versions of themselves that they can be. That’s sort of something that’s both a principle for me and I find a lot of fulfillment in being a part of, creating those environments for that to be the case and finding ways for people to do that. There’s a colleague of mine who was a faculty colleague at Indiana, also was a friend and a neighbor who tragically passed away last year, and he had a motto that really resonates with what I just said, but have sort of adopted as my own: ‘People matter most.’” 

Daily: Have you received any hopes or concerns from students or faculty about CSOM? If so, how do you plan to address them?

Prenkert: “I think in the opportunities that I’ve had to interact with a broad range of people and one of the things I’m looking forward to is continuing that. I think that constructive feedback is always a really important part of learning about a new institution, a new place, a new group of people that you’re working with. I’ve been gratified that I’ve been met well in that process. I’ve been really processing what I’ve heard. Continuing in that is important to me and I’m taking all of that as I formulate the goals and initiatives we’ll be working on, taking those into account. Really, what I want is that the Carlson School is going to be the best place to learn and to teach, to research and discover, to find fulfillment in work and learning, and really serve all of the constituents that we have to the best of our ability. I think hearing people in the way that you ask about is an important part of that.”

Daily: What’s the best way for students to reach out to you or your administration?

Prenkert: “I do think that one of the things that I’ve learned, particularly in the process of getting to know this place better, is that there are really excellent student leadership and government organizations. I intend to be engaged in those groups, so one way for students to ensure that their voice is heard is to work through those organizations. That’s sort of an institutional answer, I think students should feel free to reach out to me if they want to reach out. Now, I do want to say that it may be the case sometimes that if I get contacted that way, that I will loop in someone. We have people all over the building who are experts in particular areas. I will loop in someone who is a far more expert or appropriate person or office or resource to address those things. I wanna ensure that students understand that is not a sign of pushing off or disrespect, it’s a sign of deeply appreciating what has come and putting them into the position to get the best service they get.”

The Institute on the Environment (IonE) at the University of Minnesota awarded a $1.1 million grant to fund eight sustainability projects focused on community partnership and collaboration.

IonE announced the 2023 Impact Goals grant awards on Twitter on June 5. The eight projects follow a two-year timeline and have funding of up to $200,000 for each project.

Melissa Kenney, Director of Research and Knowledge Initiatives at the IonE, said the funding for this grant came from a combination of the IonE’s resources, University investments from MPact 2025 and a donation from the Seeding The Future Foundation.

That donation is why they’re “able to catalyze so much work for that level of resources,” Kenney said.

Each of these projects focuses on sustainability efforts and achieving a carbon-neutral Minnesota. To qualify to receive the grant, each project had to collaborate with a community partner who was part of the research team, according to Kenney.

“A number of our projects had a couple of community partners that we’re working with them to help to define the problem and think about potential pathways for solutions,” Kenney said.

One of the grant recipients was the Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships (RSDP), which is involved with three of the new projects: carbon credits for food recovery, full circle, developing stakeholder-informed guidelines for net-zero energy affordable housing development and powering healthy food systems and carbon neutrality on a campus farm.

RSDP is a University extension that works on community-driven sustainability projects throughout Minnesota. 

Andi Sutton, the executive director for the southeast branch of RSDP, said they got involved with the grant because the IonE had more funding opportunities than RSDP could provide for these projects.

“Usually RSDP grants are around one year in duration, are around anywhere from $2,000 to $12,000, are really helping to catalyze and create relationships, but they’re not at the scale of what’s possible with this Impact Goals grant,” Sutton said.

Sutton is involved with two of the three projects RSDP is a part of, including carbon credits for food recovery and the net-zero affordable housing project, in which RSDP is partnering with the Community Action Center (CAC) of Northfield.

According to Sutton, prior to the Impact Goals grant, CAC and RSDP had a pre-existing relationship. CAC previously received a grant from RSDP, which helped connect them with the Center for Sustainable Building Research to generate the first net-zero affordable housing designs in 2020.

RSDP had the opportunity to support further projects with CAC, Sutton said. CAC proposed two projects. One connected to the previous net-zero affordable housing work they had done and a second project focused on carbon credit food recovery.

“We knew that was a very exciting idea that would need a longer term, different kind of research relationship,” Sutton said. “We started working with them on a proposal focused on the net-zero housing, but that particular project is so multifaceted that the RSDP proposal was a teeny tiny slice of a multi-armed, big idea that CAC had.”

Because CAC had previously worked on the net-zero housing project, a research team was already in place, according to Sutton.

“I kinda got everyone in a room and we started brainstorming, ‘Let’s imagine what’s possible with two years and $200,000,’” Sutton said. 

The research projects funded by the grant span both the Twin Cities and Duluth campuses. One of the projects based at the University of Minnesota-Duluth is assessing the role of Minnesota lake associations in improving water quality.

Afton Clarke-Sather, the geography and environmental sustainability department chair at the Duluth campus and associate at the IonE, is the program investigator for the project.

According to Clarke-Sather, the project came about from the work of Anna Peterson, one of his master’s students in the Water Science Resource Program, and her work on the effect lake associations had on water quality in Minnesota.

Lake associations are community organizations that address the specific needs or issues affecting lakes or rivers. There are over 500 known lake associations in Minnesota.

Clarke-Sather said they are partnering with Minnesota Lakes and Rivers Advocates, an organization that works to preserve water quality and keep away invasive species from lakes and rivers throughout Minnesota.

Community partnerships are an integral part of the IonE grants, Clarke-Sather said.

“[IonE]’s trying to have research be useful for the everyday person and not bound up in the ivory tower,” Clarke-Sather said. “I think it’s a real strength of the program.”

A judge found there may be evidence the University of Minnesota School of Music (SoM) had discriminatory hiring and promoting practices based on gender, but a decision not to promote Professor Karen Painter had not been discriminatory in a court order released on May 1.

The lawsuit concerned Painter’s attempt at promotion to full professor in 2018, in which she was ultimately not promoted. Painter alleged she was not promoted due to patterns of gender-based discrimination in the SoM. 

The ruling found even though Painter and her lawyers found enough evidence to allege gender discrimination, there was not evidence of discrimination in her case and in turn lacked sufficient evidence proving discrimination for the case to go to trial.

The final judgment was entered on May 22. Judge Francis Magill ruled a summary judgment against Painter’s in her lawsuit against the University. 

A summary judgment is the ruling on a lawsuit made only by the judge.  There is no jury trial.

Painter, a professor in musicology at the SoM, filed the lawsuit in 2021. She  alleged the decision not to promote her was due to gender discrimination and retaliation because she supported students to report instances of sexual misconduct and gender-based discrimination within the SoM to the University’s Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Office (EOAA). 

Painter began working at the SoM as an associate professor in 2007 and was granted tenure in 2011.

The promotion committee did not recommend her promotion to full professor in 2018, stating that her publications did not yet meet the SoM’s standard for research. They also cited Painter had lower teaching evaluation scores and confusing feedback from students.

The committee voted 14-1 to not recommend Painter to full professor. Then Executive Vice President and Provost, Karen Hanson, formally denied Painter the promotion.

Responses to the ruling

According to Joseph L. Daly, emeritus law professor at Mitchell Hamline Law School, the promotion of professors is a subjective process where several different factors are taken into consideration.

“Basically the judge said, when you first look at the case it may look like gender discrimination, but upon deeper understanding, it’s a subjective thing,” Daly said. “And statistically, the faculty voted 14-1 against promoting her, and that usually means something.”

The SoM had a “troubled track record,” Magill wrote in the order, when it came to the hiring and promotion of women professors, with only seven women being hired or promoted to full professor in the thirty years leading up to this lawsuit. There are ten full male professors.

“The University of Minnesota is dedicated to the principles of equity in the workplace,” said the University in an email statement to the Minnesota Daily responding to the lawsuit. “We appreciate the Court’s ruling, which dismisses Professor Painter’s claims and finds that a trial is not warranted.”

Daly said while the judge ultimately ruled in the University’s favor, the University still has to deal with the evidence of gender-based discrimination.

“I think they’ll be pretty careful the next time a woman comes up for promotion because the statistics themselves look not good for the music department,” Daly said.

According to Daly, the promotion of professors is a subjective process where several different factors are taken into consideration.

Additionally, Daly said it was surprising the lawsuit was granted a summary judgment and no jury trial would be held since there seemed to be “some evidence that there was a case for gender discrimination.”

Painter said she is appealing the judge’s ruling.

“I am aware of students and faculty who faced discrimination and sexual harassment at the University and in the School of Music,” Painter said in a statement emailed to the Daily. “I believe that my lawsuit will help to correct these problems.” 

Despite Magill not ruling in her favor, Painter still sees the lawsuit as a win in the efforts to combat sexual harassment and discrimination within the SoM.

“We can and will change, and I am proud to have helped in that process,” Painter said.

Correction: The article has been updated to clarify who formally denied Painter the promotion. It was then Executive Vice President and Provost Karen Hanson.

The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus sits on the traditional lands of the Dakota people, but it is not the only land the University owns and operates that once belonged to Indigenous peoples.

As a land-grant institution, the University was given land through the Morrill Act, which designated federal lands to be used to create universities.

Through the Morrill Act, the University gained 94,631 acres of land in Minnesota. Most of the land was home to the Dakota people and was acquired by the federal government in the Treaty of 1851.

Due to the University being a large institution, present day relationships with Indigenous peoples vary, said Michael Dockry, a University professor in the Department of Forest Resources, associate faculty member of American Indian Studies department and citizen of the Potawatomi Nation.

“There are pockets of amazing relationships and where relationships are very strained,” Dockry said.

University President Joan Gabel was meeting quarterly with tribal leaders in Minnesota, Dockry said.

“What I heard after the first meeting was that no president had ever talked to the tribes before,” Dockry said. “So, that’s a huge step.”

Dockry said he thinks the University is moving in a positive direction in its relationship with Minnesota’s Indigenous groups through initiating projects like the Cloquet Forestry Center land return proposal and the Towards Recognition and University-Tribal Healing (TRUTH) project.

“It’s their land, whether it’s under the University’s title or not,” Dockry said.

Returning Cloquet to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa

The Cloquet Forestry Center is a research and education center that has been owned and operated by the University for more than a century. Now, the University wants to return the land to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. The center sits on land of the Fond du Lac band.

Dockry said he thinks this proposal is a “huge step forward” for the University.

“I think the proposal from the president to unconditionally return the Cloquet Forestry Center to Fond du Lac is one of those things that can really set an example here of how we lead and work with our tribal partners in a just manner,” Dockry said.

Gabel introduced the proposal in February at the Board of Regents Finance and Operations Committee meeting.

“It’s the right time to talk about the repatriation of this land, returning it to Fond du Lac, and what that would mean going forward,” Gabel said at the meeting.

Informal discussions with the Fond du Lac Band of returning the land began in fall 2019 at the Nibi miinawaa Manoomin Symposium, Gabel said. Formal discussions with Fond du Lac Band leaders began later at a board retreat to Cloquet in March 2020.

According to Gabel, the proposal was the first step in a complicated process and she could not speculate on a timeline for when the land would be returned.

“There are considerable steps ahead to address a variety of complicated issues, such as ownership of the land, public engagement and consultation, the continuation of research and a variety of other questions that come up for something this complicated,” Gabel said.

The University is continuing to have discussions with the Fond du Lac Band regarding conducting research at Cloquet after returning the land, according to Gabel.

“We very much appreciate Fond du Lac’s openness to potential agreements that would allow University research, education and outreach to continue on the land in some form,” Gabel said.

Dockry said there have been concerns from some people that research at Cloquet will suffer because of the land return, but he disagrees.

“I’m of the mindset that our research and education can actually get better because of this, because we will potentially form better relationships with the tribe,” Dockry said.

It is important the University continues to have conversations with the Fond du Lac Band and other tribal leaders to enact effective change, according to Dockry.

“The land back can help the University come up with concrete and just actions for how the institution itself has dealt with tribes in the past,” Dockry said.

Beyond the land return, there have been other initiatives at Cloquet to collaborate with Indigenous groups, including the project to re-introduce controlled burns to the forest, Dockry said.

The University and the TRUTH project

The TRUTH Project began in 2020 in response to resolutions written that year by the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, which called for the University to build better relationships with the 11 Tribal Nations in the state.

An Garagiola, a research assistant for the TRUTH project and a descendant of the Bois Fort Chippewa, said the project was a collaboration between the University and Tribal Nations around Minnesota to push against revisionist narratives in the history of the University.

“It wasn’t simply to tell a story — it’s purposeful,” Garagiola said. “It’s to push the institution to create lasting and generational change that will bring about a more equitable institution and landscape.”

The project investigated why the University was able to make so much profit off the land they received from the Morrill Act, Garagiola said. Some of the research and findings include ways in which past Boards of Regents have abused their power to propagate the genocide and removal of Indigenous peoples.

“It was really eye-opening and overwhelming at times to see the way the University was able to really take advantage of conflicts of interests the regents had,” Garagiola said. “They really abused that power.”

Garagiola said coming to terms with how everyone at the University benefits from atrocities of the past is the first step to healing.

“If we think about a wound, right, if we keep it covered, then it’s going to continue to fester,” Garagiola said. “It needs to be aired out to heal. And it hurts to do that, but that’s where the healing begins.”

Garagiola said the project lays out the findings and recommendations the University can implement to improve existing relationships with Tribal Nations across the state as well as begin to address its contributions to atrocities committed against these groups.

“We see it as hopefully the first step of many,” Garagiola said.

More information on the TRUTH project can be found on its website.