The University of Minnesota is expected to announce a new program starting in the fall designed to make library course materials more accessible and affordable.

The program, known as Course Works, will provide students with access to their required course materials for all classes at a fixed rate per semester. 

Paige Rohman, senior assistant at University Services, said the University created the program to address concerns about students lacking necessary course materials. 

“There’s been an increasing concern that not all students have all the material they need to learn in their classes,” Rohman said. “For some students, it is about cost, but we also know that having access to course materials is the key to successful learning.” 

The University plans to send out an email notification about Course Works mid-summer following the approval of the University’s annual budget in June, according to Rohman. Students can view the newly-launched website for more information about the program. 

Rohman said students will have two options when purchasing course materials. 

According to Rohman, students can enroll in the Course Works Complete program to gain access to all their textbooks for all their classes, which will cost $279 a semester and be billed to a student’s account regardless of their major or the type of courses they are taking. An alternative option students can choose is to enroll in the Course Works Select program, which models the current Inclusive Access program. 

The current Inclusive Access program is limited to materials for certain courses, while the Course Works Complete program will automatically include all courses, according to Rohman. Students do not have to opt into either of these programs, but then they will have to purchase materials individually. 

“One advantage of this approach is that financial aid can apply to that cost,” Rohman said. “If a student is buying [materials] from Amazon or the bookstore, they either have to have money or a credit card. That’s not always the case for some students who are under-resourced.” 

Other universities across the country utilize a similar model, which has been around for about seven years, according to Neil Olness, director of University Bookstores on the Twin Cities campus. 

“UC Davis was the first major school to go with the program, and UW-Stout had a program years ago, but it was more of a rental program where you pay a flat fee and get your physical materials as a rental,” Olness said. 

Olness added the University conducted a survey last fall sent to students at all campuses about the accessibility of course materials. 

“At the Twin Cities campus, 75% of students said they prefer digital [materials],” Olness said. “It’s something unique with a nonprofit, independent bookstore that we can partner with the library to help drive down those costs and get course materials in the hands of students on day one.” 

Shane Nackerud, director of affordable learning for the University Libraries, said students will appreciate that they no longer have to go to online platforms to buy physical books since their materials will either be provided digitally or available for pickup at the bookstore. 

“It should ease the minds of students and make the start of their semester easier,” Nackerud said. 

James Cook, the academic affairs committee director for the Undergraduate Student Government (USG), said this new program will provide flexibility for students to choose how they want to access their materials. 

“The biggest thing that called us to get involved was our calling as student representatives to provide feedback to the administration and to the people who are working on this,” Cook said. “We are very much trying to ensure that there is a student voice in the process.” 

Cook said students have mixed feelings about the current accessibility of course materials. 

“We’ve heard from students, such as STEM majors, who are paying large amounts of money for their texts due to publishing funds,” Cook said. “I sincerely hope that in the future there can be more done to ensure the overall costs of materials for students go down.”

He said students jump through hoops to get course materials through online websites and hopes the process will be seamless. 

One significant change Cook said students will notice is less traffic at the University bookstore at the beginning of the semester. Rohman said students will only notice a change with the vendor that works with the University to provide course materials. 

“I hope this will allow the Bookstore to divert time and resources to other things besides the intake of requests for books,” Cook said. “I’m hoping it will allow for more flexibility in their day-to-day operations.” 

Unity Health, a pre-health student organization at the University of Minnesota, collaborated with four other organizations to host a fundraiser in mid-February for humanitarian aid in Palestine amid the region’s conflict with Israel. 

Unity Health raised over $700 toward United Mission for Relief and Development, an international nonprofit organization providing disaster relief and recovery services for people around the world. Unity Health’s fundraising campaign amassed a reach of over 5,000 individuals on and off campus to raise awareness about the conflict. 

Unity Health collaborated with the Arab Pre-Health Association, the Undergraduate Physiology Society, the University’s Psychology Club and the Minority Association of Pre-Medical Students for their “Pre-Healths for Palestine” fundraiser. 

Prayag Rajagopalan, a third-year neuroscience student and co-events coordinator for Unity Health, said while it is good that most pre-health organizations focus on networking opportunities, there is a lack of effort to educate people on health issues around the world.

“There’s less emphasis I feel being placed on educating people on health issues worldwide or even inside this country,” Rajagopalan said. 

As a group, Unity Health expressed fear about speaking out about Palestine due to incidents of retaliation on and off campus, according to Rajagopalan. 

The group’s fear was the reason they spoke out about the situation and collaborated with other groups to do so, according to Ojaswini Thodupunoori, a third-year neuroscience student and president of Unity Health. 

“One of the biggest concerns when going into this whole thing was us trying to assess every single angle of this [situation],” Thodupunoori said. “Our board decided that, ‘Hey, this might impact how other people perceive us as an organization,’ but we wanted to put our voices out there to stand on the right side of history.” 

The group wanted to collaborate with other pre-health organizations because of the fear of speaking out about Palestine as a single group. Thodupunoori said having support from other organizations to help develop flyers or do tabling events helped with the group’s outreach.

“If we were doing it solo with only our group, we wouldn’t have been able to achieve the outreach or even the fundraising that we did,” Thodupunoori said. 

Ryan Fauglid, a strategic communications major, helped make social media posts that reached non-health students. People approached their tabling events and left extra donations, according to Thodupunoori. 

“The idea was that we make pre-health students more aware of the historic healthcare crisis in Palestine itself because many students already have some familiarity with the oppression of Palestinians,” Fauglid said in an email statement to The Minnesota Daily. “Since this is a global issue, we wanted to find a way to encourage students to take action in tangible ways, specifically boycotting and donating.”

Katie Nguyen, a third-year biology student and co-events coordinator for Unity Health, said the group began collaborating with most of the student organizations this semester and they were also fearful to speak out. 

“It was comforting to know that other people were in similar positions as us in terms of where they supported this Palestinian humanitarian crisis, but didn’t have the means to do so,” Nguyen said. “Having a collective effort allowed us to have more outreach and resources and have more people support the planning process and execution.” 

Unity Health’s fundraising campaign began by creating educational social media posts about Palestine and holding a week-long baked goods fundraiser, according to Nguyen. 

“Most people view this issue with a perspective of politics,” Nguyen said. “With organizations on campus, they tend not to involve themselves with topics like this, when this crisis isn’t really about politics, it’s a humanitarian crisis.” 

Rajagopalan said it is common for people to see members of Congress talk about Palestine as a conflict, but he is glad more people are seeing it as a humanitarian crisis. 

“This is a larger thing that we’ve recognized as a humanitarian crisis,” Rajagopalan said. “We do need to realize that people are getting hurt.” 

Nguyen said she feels comforted knowing there are people who support Palestine and were able to donate towards humanitarian aid. 

“When people perform activism, they think about protests and rallies,” Nguyen said. “It was nice to see people who still believe that this was a humanitarian crisis and know what’s happening in Gaza is a terrible thing.” 

Fauglid said the fundraiser allowed the group to address the injustices in Palestine from a pre-health point of view. 

“The people of Palestine are facing a historic and inhumane health care crisis,” Fauglid said in the statement. “We knew that we had not just a moral, but an ethical obligation to do all in our power to raise awareness of this historic injustice and provide support by leveraging our own skill sets and connections as pre-health students at the University of Minnesota.”

Thodupunoori said people telling their stories and giving thoughts on the crisis educates the group about where most students stand on the situation. 

“It was really nice to hear that some people were really thankful for what we were doing, making it easier for them to donate or talk about this topic,” Thodupunoori said. 

Among over 54,000 students enrolled at the University of Minnesota, numerous staff and faculty are deaf or hard of hearing. 

Students and staff who are hard of hearing have different experiences around the University than people who are not hard of hearing, such as enabling captions in lectures and reminding non-disabled people about being hard of hearing.

Leah Dolezal, a senior teaching specialist for the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) and a doctoral student, was born deaf and uses sign language to communicate. 

Dolezal said there are not as many deaf graduate students as there are undergraduate students, which is something she hopes CEHD’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Task Force will mitigate. 

“It’s hard being the only deaf student in the program in a world that’s not really built for deaf students,” Dolezal said. “If a student is from China or Korea where English might not be their first language, it seems like they can do more. It’s hard not to view it as a race, where they seem to get through the content faster than I do.” 

Dolezal said she started her doctorate in the fall of 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She added it was a learning experience to attend school online with accommodations such as interpreters, who have not experienced being in doctorate-level classes. 

“We decided after three years to have three interpreters [in classes],” Dolezal said. “It minimized my burden of trying to help the interpreters with explaining what is going on and what they need to know to be able to actually interpret the information correctly for me.” 

According to Dolezal, two interpreters typically work with one deaf student in each class, taking turns informing the student what is being said and allowing the interpreters to add information.

Dolezal added that most instructors are understanding of the accommodation but said there was one instance during a research panel where her interpreter request was denied. 

“It was really disheartening to walk around to all these people who had presented their research,” Dolezal said. “At the same time, I had to think, ‘I’m deaf, I’m working full time, I’m a mother of two as well.’ There’s a bit of a cultural aspect that is hard to fit into as a deaf student.” 

She added that some confusion happens when she requests an interpreter, where University officials will refer to the American Sign Language (ASL) department for interpreters rather than the University’s interpreting captioning unit. 

“I get a lot of requests for, ‘Can we use our ASL students as interpreters?’ Absolutely not,” Dolezal said. “It’s not the same thing. They are learning a language for themselves, not to become interpreters and interpret for other people.” 

As a senior teaching specialist for CEHD’s Department of Educational Psychology, Dolezal said she has never felt more at home, as there are seven faculty members in the department who are deaf. 

“I’ve taught for eight years at a public high school prior to this position, and I felt really soloed, there’s no other deaf professors or teachers,” Dolezal said. “[Here], I feel like I’m on the same page for teaching. I’m focusing on the target language of ASL and nobody is using their voice.” 

Michael Smith is a 77-year-old taking classes through the University’s senior citizen education program and has cochlear implants, which the Mayo Clinic says are an electronic device that delivers sound signals to a receiver implanted under the skin. 

Smith said people have misconceptions about hearing loss that cause a lot of confusion about how to interact with deaf or hard-of-hearing people. 

“Many people want to do the best they can to accommodate, but they don’t know how touchy the situation is,” Smith said. “For a lot of people and me, the reluctance is that some people will take over. You might say, ‘Will you speak a little slower?’ and instead they decide to shout or they’ll start doing sign language.” 

Smith added he considers hearing loss as not a disability but as a challenge. 

“There are some people within the hearing loss realm who will say it’s not an impairment, but that’s what it is,” Smith said. “I had a hearing life at one point that I lost. It’s a challenge whether you’ve conquered it or not.” 

Smith recalled a time when he had a music professor from Rochester who shifted from playing music to teaching music with one cochlear implant, where she used music vibrations to teach. According to Smith, her students were oblivious to the fact that she had hearing loss. 

“What she did was change her attitude from loss to gain, not by losing hope, but by what did she gain,” Smith said. “Much of it is really about a mindset change.” 

Vibrations are what Smith said helps him hear his environment when he does not have his cochlear implants in. He added that one example would be if he was wondering whether he had turned his dryer on, he would feel it for vibrations. 

Smith added that some people who have lost their sense of hearing are stronger in other senses, such as vision.

“I watch things more, even with my cochlear implants, than the average person does,” Smith said.

When it comes to taking classes, Smith said it is not his hearing loss that is a barrier in his classes but rather his age. 

“I would say that most professors and students are very helpful and accommodating,” Smith said. “I’m the ‘old guy’ here, and it sometimes gets in the way of actually having good interactions and discussions.” 

Elaea Purmalietis is a research assistant at the University’s Auditory Perception and Cognition Lab and will be pursuing her doctorate in psychology this fall. Unlike some deaf or hard-of-hearing people, she has a type of hearing loss that cannot be remedied with a hearing aid, which is designed to help amplify sounds at higher frequencies. 

Purmalietis is unable to hear lower-frequency sounds such as thunder, and no device exists that can resolve that issue. Purmalietis added that the absence of a device can make it more challenging for people to recognize the difficulties she deals with. 

“It’s not like I can show people, ‘Oh hey, I have a hearing aid,’ or they could see a device from behind and be able to figure out what was going on,” Purmalietis said. 

She said she is not trying to be rude when she ignores people trying to get her attention, but rather, it is difficult for her to hear what is happening around her, especially in crowded settings. 

“A big part of my growth as a person throughout undergrad and into adulthood has been going with the flow,” Purmalietis said. “I have to not let it make me feel bad or isolated and I can let people know ahead of time that I have hearing loss.” 

Purmalietis said the University Disability Resource Center (DRC) helped her a lot with getting appropriate accommodations throughout her undergraduate experience and plans to continue to use their services as she pursues her doctorate. 

“The University of Minnesota is really fantastic at providing accommodations like having a captionist in your lectures,” Purmalietis said. “That was never an option for me earlier in my education, so it made a lot of the information much more accessible.” 

Purmalietis said she struggled with deciding whether to pursue a career centered on hearing loss, but she chose to pursue research to get a better understanding of what it is like to live life as a hard-of-hearing person. 

“All of the different sensory systems play a role in how we make sense of the world,” Purmalietis said. “It’s really important to have an understanding of that.” 

For Dolezal, her degree will enable her to spread information and wisdom to other deaf people. She added she hopes the University will become a top institution for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. 

“My Ph.D. process is incredibly tough. You have to be good at English and ASL,” Dolezal said. “A big part of my support is the deaf and hard of hearing program here at the University. It’s a small department, but the heart is so big.” 

People across the country observed a rare solar eclipse on Monday with a path of totality, which provides the maximum viewing experience, spanning over 15 states. 

Most of Minnesota observed a partial eclipse, with about 75% of the sun covered by the moon, according to MPR News. Other areas in the Midwest, such as Ohio and Indiana, were in the path of totality with all of the sun covered. 

NASA’s definition of a solar eclipse is “when the Moon gets in the way of the Sun’s light and casts its shadow on Earth.” This phenomenon left specific regions on the eclipse’s path of totality dark for a few minutes, according to NASA. 

Despite only a partial eclipse in Minnesota, some students at the University of Minnesota had plans to watch it. 

Meg Chyna, a second-year astrophysics student and the outreach coordinator for the Astronomy Club, a student organization centered on astronomy, said the eclipse is cool regardless of its totality. 

“Even seeing a partial eclipse is rare since it happens infrequently,” Chyna said. “I want to emphasize that, ‘Hey, this cool thing is happening,’ and not that it ‘could be cooler.’” 

Chyna said the Astronomy Club hosted an event at the Tate Hall Observatory where students, faculty and members of the public had the opportunity to learn about and view the eclipse. 

She said this event received funding from a NASA partner program she is also a member of. The program’s goal is to reach out to underfunded astronomy groups with resources to assist with their events. 

“They sent a lot of eclipse glasses and a variety of teaching materials,” Chyna said. “They sent a bunch of foam balls so I can create a model demonstrating how the eclipse works for those who might not be quite familiar with it.” 

Despite cloudy conditions, Chyna said they viewed the eclipse from the observatory.

While some students observed the eclipse from home or on campus, other students — such as the University’s Stratospheric Ballooning Team — traveled to Indiana to view the eclipse from the stratosphere, or the second layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. 

James Flaten, an aerospace engineering professor who oversees the team, said the team made balloon boxes with sensors and cameras allowing the team to view videos of the eclipse from space. 

“We have a student who is responsible for running the ground station that will pick up the video stream from the balloon,” Flaten said. “He’s going to try to actually get stuff on the internet in real-time while the thing is flying.” 

Jesse Cook, a third-year aerospace engineering student who is part of the team, is the student responsible for the ground station. It consists of a satellite dish controlled by a joystick, which will broadcast the eclipse. 

“If we can keep it pointed at the payload while it’s flying, we can get the video in real-time,” Cook said. 

The idea to watch the eclipse in this way was originally spearheaded by a team from Montana State University, which used similar technology to broadcast the 2017 eclipse, according to Cook. He added that ballooning is a collaborative effort between several other universities. 

“Montana is the one that’s circulating a lot of information and leading a lot of lessons,” Cook said. “A lot of teams are new to ballooning, so we all help each other out, collaborate [and] make sure we have the resources we need to succeed.” 

The team will create a website to upload their eclipse footage for people to view, according to Flaten. He added that the project is funded through several NASA educational channels which aim to get people interested in the work they are doing. 

“Doing this with 36 teams from Texas all the way to Maine, we will have more coverage than has ever been collected before,” Flaten said. 

Flaten said he has been ballooning and providing knowledge about spacecraft to others since 2007. 

“We will see the eclipse, even if the weather is not great,” Flaten said. “In the payload boxes, we’re making measurements of the environment and understanding how the environment changes when the sun gets eclipsed.” 

Ashton Posey, a fourth-year aerospace engineering student on the team, said he works on researching how to get technology to work in the atmosphere. 

“I do the research into coding this flight hardware together and making sure that it all works,” Posey said. “I’m super excited to go to Indiana not only for the eclipse but for the general project that’s happening on the whole path of totality.” 

The team’s data will be analyzed by a graduate student team from Montana and will be used to study disturbances in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, Posey said. 

“There’s an engineering side and a science side,” Posey said. “On the engineering side, we build hardware that we want to fly up and then maybe do some investigation or see a pretty video. The science side is going out to these locations and launching balloons.”

Solar eclipses are rare, and NASA said the next time the U.S. will experience a solar eclipse will be on Aug. 12, 2045. Minnesota will not be in its path of totality, but people in the state will be able to view the partial eclipse. 

There are over 4,000 students who attend a graduate program at the University of Minnesota. 

Students pursue different concentrations and stick to schedules that allow them to work on schoolwork while making time for social activities and self-care. So what is a typical day like for a University graduate student? 

The life of a law student

Mollie Ahsan is in her final semester as a graduate student at the University’s Law School and follows a simple schedule. 

With three in-person classes this semester, she said she is in class three days a week from Monday through Wednesday while her Thursdays and Fridays are spent catching up on the week’s work. 

“By the time you get to 3L (final year), most of the classes are on things you really want to be learning about,” Ahsan said. 

She is taking courses on employment discrimination and race in the law, along with an immigration seminar. While Ahsan enjoys all of her courses, she said the one that is the most interesting is race in the law due to the format of the class. 

According to Ahsan, the discussion-based class implements a solutions-oriented mindset, allowing students to think of ways to ensure the law does not harm traditionally marginalized communities. 

“We read more contemporary books rather than textbooks,” Ahsan said. “We really discuss the ways in which law and race intersect because it’s not really talked about a ton in law school.” 

Outside of class, Ahsan said she is an editor for the Minnesota Law Review, a law journal created by the school. She participates in the Law School’s immigration clinical program, a program designed to give students hands-on experience working in law. 

Her clinical placement is at the James H. Binger Center for New Americans, where she just finished working on a big case. 

“A bunch of us went to the Supreme Court in January for the Campos-Chaves [v. Garland] oral argument, which is the case our clinic worked on,” Ahsan said. 

Having the opportunity to work in clinics is valuable to Ahsan, who said they help get her experience. 

“We have a ton of clinics and a lot of different areas of law, and a ton of attorneys who are willing to work with students,” Ahsan said. “You’re engaging with an actual client, you’re engaging in their files, and you’re doing most of the writing.” 

Ahsan said she is currently observing the Muslim holy month Ramadan, so she had to adjust her daily schedule to accommodate her religious obligations.

She added she usually arrives at campus around 10 a.m., where she will work on homework before her first class begins at 1:25 p.m. She coordinates plans on when to leave campus with her husband, who is pursuing a doctorate degree in computer science.

“It’s definitely hard to be in school during Ramadan,” Ahsan said. “I do my homework after iftar [meal to break the fast], so I shift my working goals. During the day, I do a lot of reading and writing.” 

Despite her busy schedule, Ahsan said she makes sure to prioritize social time with friends and family with get-togethers and weekly events. 

“Sometimes, you have to literally put it on your calendar and be like, ‘These three hours, I’m not touching work,’” Ahsan said. 

Studying while in graduate student government 

Tina Jeon is a second-year international graduate student in the learning technologies program in the College of Education and Human Development. 

Jeon is the director of programming for the Council of Graduate Students (COGS), where she plans social events for graduate students, along with Welcome Week and Graduate & Professional Student Appreciation Week events targeted at graduate students and their families. 

Jeon said many international graduate students like herself are coming to the U.S. for the first time and have to adjust to a new environment and build connections at the University. 

“That’s why we’re always trying to do social events for them, which a lot of students attend,” Jeon said.

COGS has several teams working together to create advocacy campaigns to address issues that affect graduate students, according to Jeon. Their executive team meets once a month before their general assembly meetings to discuss updates and upcoming events. 

“There’s an advocacy team within COGS where we do quick surveys on what kinds of issues graduate students are facing and what they want us to address this year,” Jeon said. 

Some issues COGS identified that affect graduate students include housing, compensation, and student health and wellness, according to Jeon. 

“We try to keep an open channel for students to address any issues, and we try to find a proper connection to reach that,” Jeon said. 

Outside of her involvement with COGS, Jeon said she is involved with the Council of International Students and the International Student Advisory Board. She also teaches Korean at the Korean Institute of Minnesota. 

“It has been a great way to connect with other international students and project my thoughts on my experience as an international student,” Jeon said. “I wish that grad school in general had a more inclusive space to them to do it more comfortably.” 

Jeon added she attended school in Korea until high school before pursuing an education at a liberal arts college in Illinois. 

She initially did not want to go to grad school, but said her experiences working at a K-12 school in Pennsylvania drove her to learn more about the education system and pursue education technology to make schools more accessible. 

“You can talk about all the issues and what’s going on in class, but nothing is actually getting done,” Jeon said. 

Med school while working full-time

Annika Clawson said she took a non-traditional route in grad school, pursuing a professional master’s degree in medical device innovation. 

Getting a professional master’s degree means Clawson works at a full-time manufacturing job during the day and attends evening classes twice a week. Clawson, who is in her first year in the program, said she appreciates having hands-on experiences while attending classes in person. 

“It’s been a really cool experience, and I’m really lucky my company is willing to work with me,” Clawson said. “Finding grad school programs like this is kind of a rarity.” 

Her job allows for flexibility while she is pursuing her education. Clawson said she can start and end work at any time, but she typically works from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. She will go to class from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on the days they occur. 

“My company helps supplement my education because there’s this expectation that the things I learned can help the company,” Clawson said. 

Clawson added her degree’s program falls under the College of Science and Engineering’s Technological Leadership Institute, so her classes are centered around leadership, management, business strategy and technology forecasting. 

“I’m in a bio-design practicum that takes place on Saturdays,” Clawson said. “It’s a bit of a shark tank-style class, where we have a problem in the beginning, brainstorm different solutions and then end the semester with a prototype to solve that issue.” 

With her busy daily schedule, Clawson said she makes sure to keep her home and work lives separate. She will typically not answer any emails at home and spends her weekends doing homework since she has a large amount of time to do assignments. 

“Much of the course curriculum is group work that you also have to be flexible for,” Clawson said. “Finding times to coordinate with four other people who are also working full time can be tricky.” 

Clawson said there is time that gets sacrificed to get assignments done, such as social and self-care time. However, she tries to fit self-care into her schedule as much as possible. 

“A huge stress reducer for me is taking time for self-care,” Clawson said. “I want to make sure I’m getting a good amount of sleep every night, which can also get sacrificed sometimes.” 

University of Minnesota employees are looking to create a union, but existing guidelines under the Public Employment Labor Relations Act (PELRA) do not allow them to. 

Student workers and faculty created an online petition to change current PELRA guidelines – last updated in 1991 – and it has over 2,000 signatures from students, staff and faculty. 

The petition, addressed to Interim President Jeff Ettinger and the Board of Regents, requests changes that would allow for student workers who receive financial aid or work-study funding, in addition to staff and faculty, to create and join a union. 

“PELRA outright prohibits large categories of University workers from organizing by denying their status as public employees,” the petition said. 

Ash Smith, a fourth-year sociology, criminology and justice student at the University who works for the Office of the Registrar, said the current conditions at his job inspired him towards unionization. 

“Currently, we don’t have the right to join a bargaining unit and have fair contracts to be a union,” Smith said. “Our peers who are fortunate enough to not receive aid can, but because we receive financial aid, we can’t.” 

With frequent changes in hours and policies at his on-campus job, Smith added he found himself having to get a full-time job that would meet his wage expectations. 

“I made that decision based on how I was being treated by upper management and HR,” Smith said. “It was exhausting to not know what HR and admin are going to do with your hours and pay.” 

Student workers are paid the University’s minimum hourly wage of $15 and are not allowed to work over 20 hours per week, according to Smith. He said these wages are often not enough to afford basic goods, such as groceries, and not enough to afford median rent. 

There are only nine students who work at his job who specialize in certain aspects of the job and are not able to take extra shifts, according to Smith. 

“We were going to be overworked and even more underpaid than we already are for the work we do,” Smith said. 

Tracey Blasenheim, a faculty member at the University and a member of the PELRA Coalition, said he became a full-time employee 10 years ago after doing work as a graduate student. 

It was during that transition he said he learned about disparities between graduate student pay and full-time employee pay for the same amount of work. 

“Because I finished my degree, which in most cases would lead to a pay raise, I made 40% less for the same work,” Blasenheim said. “I lost my healthcare, so it was a shock to me. It really opened my eyes that the way funding is provided for education in this university is not okay.” 

Blasenheim said professors get released at the end of every semester due to their contracts, which are structured for short-term tenure, which hinders the ability of professors to connect with students. 

“Many of us lose contact with our students,” Blasenheim said. “I’ve had students miss out on letters of recommendation from me because they couldn’t get in touch with me. They built relationships that they wanted to continue.” 

As he researched ways to mitigate these issues, he said he found out other schools, such as Rutgers University, had a union that initiated a successful strike to advocate for changes similar to what Blasenheim is looking for. 

“The law says that we, as public employees, have a right to collective bargaining,” Blasenheim said. “The University has a very strange system. These mandated bargaining units that were put in the early ‘80s are extraordinarily uncommon nationwide.” 

Sam Reuter, a second-year University student in the Bachelor of Individualized Studies program who also works with the Office of the Registrar, said it is important for student workers to have the right to unionize. 

“Being able to organize and have some kind of bargaining power is really important,” Reuter said. “A lot of time we are on the front lines. At my job, a lot of stuff wouldn’t get done if I wasn’t here.” 

The inability to unionize under PELRA has been an ongoing problem that the University has acknowledged, according to Blasenheim. 

“We would love to have them work with us to fix this problem,” Blasenheim said. “It could be fixed within the next couple of weeks. We would love to have their support, and that’s exactly what the petition asks for.” 

The coalition has been working with the Minnesota Legislature to pass legislation to change the guidelines, which has received a lot of support among state representatives, according to Blasenheim. Several legislators, such as Mohamud Noor, have been in support of the legislation.

“It was clear that University workers needed their own voice on the issue and needed to be able to communicate directly with their elected representatives, and to have this conversation when it’s appropriate during a legislative session,” Blasenheim said. 

Reuter added he feels he has to work at his on-campus job because he is giving something valuable to the community but does not get fair compensation for the work he does. 

“Having a voice in that is very important to me because otherwise, you’re at the whim of some higher-up,” Reuter said. 

Ken Horstman, vice president of the Office of Human Resources, said it is time for the University to make changes to the current PELRA legislation.

“These employees in such large groups – do they lack representation? No, they have it. It’s just in a different way today. And we want to be careful going forward about how we change that,” Horstman said. “We feel we need the time to work with those employees more to fully understand if we were to make changes to PELRA, what would those recommendations be?”

Horstman said the University has a shared governance structure consisting of a senate and multiple committees to discuss various issues, including working conditions for students and faculty. 

“We may come at things differently, but we realize working together usually gets it to the best place that we can be before we implement a change,” Horstman said. 

The coalition plans to work with the state legislature about PELRA changes until the current session ends in May, according to Blasenheim. Should new PELRA legislation pass, willing University employees could be able to unionize as soon as the upcoming academic year. 

“It’s not necessarily a pro-union bill, it’s a pro-worker bill,” Blasenheim said. “What our bill does is that it opens the right to decide to unionize to everyone who does the essential work at the University.”

Correction: A previous version of the article misspelled a source’s name. His name is Ken Horstman.

This article has been updated.

There will be some new faces in charge of the Minnesota Daily starting May 5. 

The Minnesota Daily Board announced Spencer White, the Daily’s current opinion desk editor, will be the Daily’s new Editor-in-Chief (EIC) for the 2024-25 academic year, along with marketing copyright executive Destanee Ulrich as the new marketing and engagement officer. 

Spencer White: Editor-in-Chief

White began his career at the Daily in 2022 as an opinion columnist before being promoted to the opinion editor for the 2023-2024 school year. 

As White steps into his new position as EIC, he wants to foster a strong culture among Daily employees through more in-person interactions such as in-person workshops and internal Daily events. 

“I want to sustain and cultivate [a culture] at the Daily where people are in the office, people are excited to work with each other and at the Daily,” White said. 

White also hopes to increase the Daily’s community engagement efforts on campus, which include more efforts to highlight the campus community and expanding the Daily’s Content Diversity Board. 

“We’re a news organization,” White said. “We should be connecting with the community and we should be doing so in a way that we’re illuminating voices that aren’t usually heard.” 

After the decision was made, White said he felt honored to be chosen as the next EIC out of four Daily employees in the running for the position. 

“It could have been any one of us,” White said. “It’s really an honor. This is an institution I care a lot about.” 

Brady Gervais, chair of the Daily Board, said she is excited to see White’s commitment to fostering culture at the Daily. 

“We believe Spencer’s passion and experience in a variety of journalism roles will make a positive impact on the Daily moving forward,” Gervais said. 

Destanee Ulrich: Marketing and Engagement Officer 

Ulrich started at the Daily in 2023 as a marketing associate before becoming the marketing copyright executive in March 2023. 

“I am excited to be the next Marketing and Engagement Officer for a place as amazing as the Daily,” Ulrich said.

She hopes to create stronger relationships within the Daily’s internal units, and through student groups and departments at the University of Minnesota to increase its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.  

“Her involvement throughout the University of Minnesota and Minnesota Daily experience position her for success,” Gervais said in a statement to The Minnesota Daily.

Ulrich is currently planning a First Amendment event set to take place this September.

“I want to have introductory meetings with organizations and have awareness when reaching out to these groups, because there’s a lot of multicultural groups out there.” 

Ulrich, who is an English and strategic communications double major, said she is willing to learn about The Daily’s journalism practices so she can foster a community among Daily staff. 

“I would like to meet with the training Editor-in-Chief to discuss their breakdown with editorial, from the copy desk and reporters,” Ulrich said. “Taking those leadership positions and having them interact with our leadership in business and admin, so everyone is like ‘Oh my gosh, I know who this desk editor is.’”

Correction: A previous misstated Ulrich’s first role at The Daily, as well as when she started her second role. She was a marketing associate and started the marketing and copyright executive role in March 2023

This article has been updated.

Female leaders of some of the University of Minnesota’s student organizations are celebrating Women’s History Month throughout March. 

Women’s History Month is a month that highlights the successes and contributions of women throughout history. Several student organizations plan to commemorate the month by hosting events. 

Julia Bevans, president of The Women’s Network at the University, a student organization aiming to connect female students with professional networking opportunities, said it is empowering to be a female leader. 

“It embraces many different walks of life, diversity and areas of interest,” Bevans said. “Being in a leadership role as a woman has been uplifting to me and has helped me in various ways in growth and confidence.” 

The Women’s Network provides networking and career opportunities for female students, and Bevans said these are ways for female students to show others “what they are made of.”

“This platform gives women a chance to hone their skills and make a difference in the workforce,” Bevans added. 

Students who are a part of The Women’s Network can connect with other female employees and representatives, according to Bevans. 

“Networking doesn’t have to be this scary thing,” Bevans said. “It’s meeting people and helping each other along the way.” 

Gabrielle Denniston, president and founder of the Multiracial Student Union (MRSU), a new student organization designed to create a safe space for multiracial students on campus, said she became a leader because of the lack of diverse representation she has experienced. 

Denniston, a first-year mixed-race student, said she talked to many mixed-race students during orientation when they bonded over people placing racial and ethnic titles onto them. 

“We don’t want to be forced to pick between our identities and we want to be comfortable in our identities,” Denniston said. “We come from multiple backgrounds and there’s a wide variety of diversity here at the U.” 

Throughout her time leading MRSU, she has learned to highlight the strengths of others and work in a collaborative environment. 

Although MRSU is open to students of all genders and has a co-ed leadership team, Denniston said she is able to connect with other leaders about shared struggles and intersecting identities. 

“It’s great to see that we’re all empowering each other and that the men on our board want to do research to empower women,” Denniston said. “I have to try to see where my privilege is so that I can empower those who don’t have those privileges and empower those who don’t have a voice.” 

Denniston said the historic fetishization of women and toxic masculinity has led to women’s voices being overpowered or shut down, which is something she hopes to overcome through her leadership position. 

“All of us have had to go through being masculine in order to protect our femininity,” Denniston said. “For those people to help us embody our femininity and to have a voice without being shouted down or overpowered by everything else is comforting.” 

The Women of Color Collective is a student organization that helps women of color law students at the University network with people in law careers. 

Lauren Hamilton, president of the Women of Color Collective, said women of color are often underrepresented in the law field. She added having the opportunity to network with others and having a leadership role in the field opens up opportunities to help other women succeed. 

“It can be difficult to get to the higher levels of the field that can still be dominated by men,” Hamilton said. “It’s motivating to be around so many intelligent women and it drives you to be better and to mentor others.” 

Fariza Hassan, the vice president of the Women of Color Collective, said the organization serves as a resource for female graduate students to express their thoughts about being a woman of color in law and aims to create a safe space for students to network and succeed. 

“It’s really important to have people who have gone through it to tell you these things that aren’t told to you,” Hassan said. “The intersection of being a woman of color brings unique values and experiences to share with one another.” 

Hamilton said there are gender dynamics in networking with people in the industry, where women are underrepresented, especially at higher levels within the legal field.

“Strength and support is key,” Hamilton said. “Law school is stressful, so having people who are on your side to support you is key.” 

Hassan said connecting with others about shared experiences is helpful, adding their first meeting turned into one for students of color to vent about their experiences in the law school. 

“Having these groups for women of color to vent and talk about different experiences that have impacted the way we navigate law school compared to peers who don’t share the same identities is therapeutic,” Hassan said. 

University of Minnesota students had different opinions on who to vote for on the Democratic ballot during the state primary election on March 5. 

Although current President Joe Biden received a majority of Democratic votes, as well as the most votes in Minnesota over Republican nominee Donald Trump, there was a significant percentage of people, 18.8%, who voted “uncommitted” on the ballot. 

Voting uncommitted, or showing no preference for a specific candidate, began as a movement by activists to show disapproval toward Biden’s handling of Israel’s genocide, in the views of uncommitted voters, of the Gaza Strip.

Brandon Price, a fourth-year political science student at the University, said he would have voted uncommitted in the state primary but could not do so since the primary fell during spring break. 

“I think that voting uncommitted is going to have the strongest message,” Price said. “In the past, if someone didn’t get voted for in the primary, they could say, ‘Oh, they liked my competitor better,’ but this one is showing discontent with the way things are going.” 

Price said he would have voted uncommitted due to Biden’s support of the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza. 

“I think the United States has taken on the role of the global policeman,” Price said. “I think we could be doing better and could be putting more pressure on Israel to end the genocide going on.” 

Since the primary fell over spring break, Price said it was difficult to vote for many students because they were out of town. 

“I think having the day off to vote is important, but I think having it lining up with spring break isn’t necessarily the best idea,” Price said. 

Benicio Mendiola-Johnson, a fourth-year political science student at the University, voted for Biden during the primary because of the bills he passed, which focused on climate, inflation, gun reform and infrastructure. 

Mendiola-Johnson said he wished Biden did more to handle issues such as immigration but hoped more will get done if Biden gets reelected. 

“If the Democrats can win the Senate and the House and Biden wins, they can maybe get more of what I want,” Mendiola-Johnson said. 

He said he understands the outrage surrounding Biden’s handling of the conflict between Israel and Palestine but thinks voting uncommitted makes Biden look like a weaker candidate compared to Trump. 

“Many of those people who support Palestine are also very big on the climate,” Mendiola-Johnson said. “Joe Biden signed the most pro-climate bill in the history of our country, and people are going to throw it away over Palestine.” 

With the national election approaching in November, the University’s Undergraduate Student Government (USG) hopes to encourage students to vote through their Row the Vote campaign and other outreach initiatives.

Joslyn Blass, the interim director of Government and Legislative Affairs for USG, said this year is a big election year globally, with more than half of the world’s adult population planning to vote in an election. 

“Historically, the University of Minnesota has been really successful in increasing the amount of voter turnout for college-age students,” Blass said. “One of the biggest priorities we’re working on is establishing our concrete plan for how we can be most helpful for students in the fall for getting them educated on how to vote.” 

Many of their initiatives will take place in the fall, as USG is focused on their campus elections to elect new student government representatives. 

Voting for the campus elections will happen from March 18 to 22. Students will learn the election results on March 27, according to Blass. 

“We’re trying to make people aware that these people who get elected into these positions serve with the understanding that they are representing either the student body or their specific college,” Blass said of the campus election.

University of Minnesota students had different opinions on who to vote for on the Democratic ballot during the state primary election on March 5. 

Although current President Joe Biden received a majority of Democratic votes, as well as the most votes in Minnesota over Republican nominee Donald Trump, there was a significant percentage of people, 18.8%, who voted “uncommitted” on the ballot. 

Voting uncommitted, or showing no preference for a specific candidate, began as a movement by activists to show disapproval toward Biden’s handling of Israel’s genocide, in the views of uncommitted voters, of the Gaza Strip.

Brandon Price, a fourth-year political science student at the University, said he would have voted uncommitted in the state primary but could not do so since the primary fell during spring break. 

“I think that voting uncommitted is going to have the strongest message,” Price said. “In the past, if someone didn’t get voted for in the primary, they could say, ‘Oh, they liked my competitor better,’ but this one is showing discontent with the way things are going.” 

Price said he would have voted uncommitted due to Biden’s support of the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza. 

“I think the United States has taken on the role of the global policeman,” Price said. “I think we could be doing better and could be putting more pressure on Israel to end the genocide going on.” 

Since the primary fell over spring break, Price said it was difficult to vote for many students because they were out of town. 

“I think having the day off to vote is important, but I think having it lining up with spring break isn’t necessarily the best idea,” Price said. 

Benicio Mendiola-Johnson, a fourth-year political science student at the University, voted for Biden during the primary because of the bills he passed, which focused on climate, inflation, gun reform and infrastructure. 

Mendiola-Johnson said he wished Biden did more to handle issues such as immigration but hoped more will get done if Biden gets reelected. 

“If the Democrats can win the Senate and the House and Biden wins, they can maybe get more of what I want,” Mendiola-Johnson said. 

He said he understands the outrage surrounding Biden’s handling of the conflict between Israel and Palestine but thinks voting uncommitted makes Biden look like a weaker candidate compared to Trump. 

“Many of those people who support Palestine are also very big on the climate,” Mendiola-Johnson said. “Joe Biden signed the most pro-climate bill in the history of our country, and people are going to throw it away over Palestine.” 

With the national election approaching in November, the University’s Undergraduate Student Government (USG) hopes to encourage students to vote through their Row the Vote campaign and other outreach initiatives.

Joslyn Blass, the interim director of Government and Legislative Affairs for USG, said this year is a big election year globally, with more than half of the world’s adult population planning to vote in an election. 

“Historically, the University of Minnesota has been really successful in increasing the amount of voter turnout for college-age students,” Blass said. “One of the biggest priorities we’re working on is establishing our concrete plan for how we can be most helpful for students in the fall for getting them educated on how to vote.” 

Many of their initiatives will take place in the fall, as USG is focused on their campus elections to elect new student government representatives. 

Voting for the campus elections will happen from March 18 to 22. Students will learn the election results on March 27, according to Blass. 

“We’re trying to make people aware that these people who get elected into these positions serve with the understanding that they are representing either the student body or their specific college,” Blass said of the campus election.