“She influenced a lot of people that I never really knew about, that have been coming out of the woodwork saying how she influenced them positively,” said Anthony Hall of Deanna Mills, his wife of 42 years.

Deanna Eileen Mills, the executive director of the University of Minnesota’s Community-University Health Care Center (CUHCC) from 2006-2016, died on March 9, 2022. She was 67 years old. Her friends, coworkers and family describe her as courageous, humble, sympathetic and a compassionate leader.

“She was a wonderful person. She was a strong person. She cared deeply about people being treated right,” Hall said. “She wasn’t one to blow her own horn, but she really did a good job of helping people be their better self.”

According to Hall, the two of them met at the Pilot City Health Center in north Minneapolis while Deanna was working as a dental hygienist and Hall was a public information officer.

“She loved to travel, to go to new places, but she didn’t want to go to the same place again,” Hall said. “Even if we liked the places [she’d say] ‘I don’t want to go back there again. Let’s go to a new place.’”

Deanna had the ability to bring the best out in people and encouraged them to push themselves, Hall said. He said she was a kind of quiet leader and although she was an introvert, Deanna had a strong sense of self.

“She was one of the very few women CEOs that made her voice heard,” May Thao, the director of compliance for Boynton Health, said.

When she first met Deanna in 2007, Thao said Deanna immediately helped give her the resources she needed to be successful as a new supervisor in CUHCC.

“She basically said to me ‘You’re gonna fall and we’ll let you fall and we’ll pick you back up and we’ll start over again. it’s going to be a lesson learned no matter what,’” Thao said. “She was fierce and fabulous when she needed to be, and when she was just herself, she was always calm and collective.”

Colleen McDonald Diouf, the current CEO of CUHCC, said Deanna was well known across community health centers and was the executive director of two other community health centers before coming to CUHCC.

McDonald Diouf added that while Deanna was the CEO, she led a group called the Federally Qualified Urban Health Network (FUHN).

“[FUHN] was 10 clinics that came together to improve care, reduce total cost of care [and] improve health outcomes for people across the Twin Cities,” McDonald Diouf said. “That project, as a network – they saved the state of Minnesota $26 million in Medicaid.”

Deanna’s coworkers said she made social justice and health equity a focus of her career.

“Deanna was always committed to the best healthcare for everybody and she personally had a strong anti-racist view,” Christopher Reif, the director of clinical services for CUHCC, said. “She brought that to the work that she was doing, so promoting equity or good health for everybody.”

According to Reif, he first met Deanna in 1974. “She just had a very personable touch that I think made people included and then also put them at ease,” Reif said.

He recalled a memory where Deanna and he were meeting with a group of architects to talk about designs for the clinic. He said the representatives from the architectural firm were all men and the head architect tended to direct the conversations at the men in the room, excluding Deanna.

“Deanna just said ‘No, you can direct your conversation to me, I am the CEO here at the clinic,’” Reif said. “She was very good at what she did and she claimed respect for what she did.”

McDonald Diouf recalled a quote from Deanna about working together effectively as community health centers: “We have to move from being fierce competitors to fierce collaborators.”

Thao said she remembered a day in 2010 when Deanna gave her a magnet with the word ‘Journey’ on it.

“She said, ‘I’m giving it to you because you need to know it’s not going to be smooth sailing,’” Thao said. “And she said, ‘I know where you’re coming from, and things are going to be hard, but you don’t stop, you just keep going.’”

Deanna is survived by her husband, Anthony Hall, her three children Patricia, Demetrius and Marcus, and her siblings Marsha, Barbara and James and grandchildren Daylen and Kylee.

When Julia Harvey saw her friend’s graduation ceremony in 2019, she said she felt like she might be ready to return to her college education.

Harvey, who is 26, chose to pause her studies at the University of St. Thomas as a second-year student because of chronic health conditions.

“I started my sophomore year at St. Thomas in 2016 but pretty quickly realized my health issues were too bad to stay and I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to major in,” Harvey said in an email to the Minnesota Daily. “I worked different jobs for a while, life had me unexpectedly bouncing around a bit.”

At the start of the 2020-21 academic year, Harvey chose to resume her studies at the University of Minnesota.

“Seeing Maggie walk across the stage and accept her degree was such a cool moment,” Harvey said in an email. “She had worked so hard to get there and I felt like I was finally at a place with my health that I could do it too.”

Now, the second-year student is planning to double major in strategic communications and cultural studies and comparative literature at the University. However, after returning to college, Harvey faced a new challenge.

Harvey said one of her professors pushed back against her requests for disability accommodations throughout the fall 2021 semester. When she sought help from the University, she said she was met with conflicting advice from different departments. This led Harvey to file a discrimination complaint with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) in February.

“Students who are sick like me are often giving it their all just to make it through the semester and making an instructor afford you your rights is an absurd thing to add to your to-do list,” Harvey said in an email.

The Daily chose not to name the professor because no official charges have been filed. Harvey’s complaint lists the University as the respondent, not the professor.

University staff that specialize in accessibility said that at the University, there is no standard way disability accommodations detailed in an accommodations letters are supposed to be implemented, giving professors control over how to interpret and permit accommodations in the classroom.

“The function of the DRC is to facilitate appropriate accommodations,” the professor said in the email. “They cannot demand anything that either interferes with a faculty member’s educational strategies or infringes upon faculty autonomy.”

When asked for comment, University Public Relations Director Jake Ricker emailed the Minnesota Daily and said the University would not be able to provide details because of laws designed to protect student privacy.

Before Harvey filed a complaint with the MDHR, she consulted with the University Disability Resource Center (DRC), the University’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action (EOAA) and leadership within the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) to get her accommodations fulfilled.

The MDHR complaint was sent to the University Feb. 8 and the University had 30 days to respond, according to the complaint document.

“While it would be great if the U and I were able to find a mutually agreeable plan for moving forward, I am concerned the University will continue to try and dismiss any wrongdoing or culpability on their part,” Harvey said in an email.

Since then, the University has agreed to mediation with Harvey, she said.

“I need to impress the fact that what [the professor] did was not just annoying or hard, it was another obstacle on top of every single other [hurdle] in my life,” Harvey emailed the Minnesota Daily.

How students get accommodations
Before the fall semester, Harvey said she met with the DRC to talk about accommodations she might need for her health conditions, which included postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Idiopathic Hypersomnia, ADHD, brain fog as a complication of POTS and an auditory processing disorder.

“The DRC advisor who was assigned to me was really helpful,” Harvey said.

Accommodation letters are determined through conversations between students and staff at the DRC. However, accommodations are not fulfilled until a professor deems them reasonable for their course and implements the recommendations in the letter.

These conversations are called an “interactive process,” where students discuss their educational needs, DRC access consultants consider how to mitigate those barriers and instructors speak to how to implement accommodations while fulfilling course requirements.

The DRC determines reasonable accommodation based on the student’s medical documentation and disability barriers. “The DRC makes the final determination on what disability accommodations are reasonable,” according to a roles and responsibilities fact sheet.

Some of the accommodations Harvey and the access consultant decided on included getting more time on exams and flexibility with deadlines. According to Harvey, the access consultant “was able to suggest options that might work for me based on the things that I struggled with.”

According to Harvey, her auditory processing disorder “makes things sound like the game Mad Gab, where you get nonsense phonetic spellings of words and have to figure out what the phrase is.” Because of this, access to presentation materials like powerpoint slides would have been a helpful accommodation, Harvey said in an email.

A semester of doctor’s appointments
During the fall, Harvey was in and out of the hospital for surgeries to address her chronic illnesses. She said she had to attend pre-op, post-op and follow-up appointments which led her to miss classes.

At the start of the semester, Harvey provided the professor with her accommodation letter. Among other accommodations, the letter requested the professor “provide presentation slides to the student prior to class,” to address potential barriers to her learning.

After missing a class in early October, she asked the professor for lecture materials to catch up.

“I had emailed [them] a couple of times asking for the slides and [they] either didn’t answer or answered a different part of the message,” Harvey said.

In response to Harvey’s request for the slides, the professor told Harvey that she could get course notes from other students or come to office hours to go over lecture points as an alternative accommodation, according to email correspondence.

When Harvey went to class, Harvey said the professor announced that they would not be giving out the presentation slides because the materials were their intellectual property, and reaffirmed that in an email to Harvey in October.

In emails obtained by the Minnesota Daily, the professor wrote to Harvey that there is “only so much” either of them could do to make up class content if she missed class because of her medical conditions.

The professor suggested Harvey consider whether the medical issues she faced were significant enough for her to take a medical leave for the fall semester, and they hoped Harvey was on the road to full health.

Harvey said it was a devastating email to receive.

“I cried (sobbed) in the car, briefly entertained actually dropping out and wiped off my tears enough to attend [the lecture],” Harvey said in an email.

Harvey said being chronically ill felt like a full-time job and on top of that, she was healing from two surgeries while managing school work.

“I offered to discuss what was going on with me with [the professor],” Harvey said in an email.

Harvey said that the professor did not respond to her email requests for assistance.

“Having taught at the University for [many] years, I considered, among other forms of flexibility granted, peer note-taking to be the appropriate accommodation with respect to my lectures,” the professor wrote in their statement. “Let me stress, then, that there were no barriers to learning that the Teaching Assistants and I did not attempt to address.”

Feeling like she had no other option, Harvey reached out to the DRC for help.

“If that [fall semester] experience had been my first semester back at school I would not have finished the semester,” Harvey wrote.“I would have dropped out.”

Harvey said that she initially enjoyed having the professor for those two classes.

“I was hoping to get in [their] good graces and maybe TA a class or look into other professor-student research opportunities,” Harvey wrote. “After a few weeks I disregarded that idea and just focused on passing.”

A tangle of departments
After Harvey’s attempts to get the slides from her professor were unsuccessful, she reached out to several University departments for help.

Her case was redirected to Ascan Koerner, the CLA Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education, and the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action.

The University’s EOAA investigates reports of discrimination, sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, nepotism and retaliation.

Harvey said the communication between the DRC and the EOAA was confusing, as she received conflicting advice regarding which department or individual to reach out to for support.

Joe Borer-Bell, the Equal Opportunity Senior Associate from the EOAA, emailed Harvey in mid-November and said that after consulting internally and with the DRC, the EOAA decided it would not be involved any further until the interactive process of determining appropriate accommodations between Harvey and the professor, was done.

“Until there is an impasse in the interactive process, EOAA is not able to take additional steps,” Borer-Bell emailed. “We hope you will continue working with the DRC to find an appropriate accommodation.”

Later, Borer-Bell wrote to Harvey that the EOAA did not believe a formal investigation was appropriate because access to presentation slides was written as an inclusive teaching practice, not a reasonable accommodation.

“If this is an accommodation that you will need in the future, we recommend that you work with your medical provider and the DRC so that this accommodation can be properly identified in your accommodations letter,” Borer-Bell wrote.

DRC Student Access manager Sohail Akhavein clarified for Harvey that while the professor chose not to share the slides, they still were engaging in the interactive process with the DRC “to explore alternatives,” by suggesting other accommodations such as designating a note taker for her and setting up meetings to go over lecture content.

Eight minutes after Borer-Bell emailed Harvey to say the EOAA could not take additional steps and she should continue consulting with the DRC, Harvey said she received an email from Akhavein who said the DRC could no longer help her obtain accommodations from the professor and should instead consult further with the EOAA.

“The DRC has exhausted our process here,” Akhavein wrote. “The DRC cannot mandate the faculty/program do anything.”

According to Akhavein, this case is “tricky” because the DRC cannot mandate faculty adhere to inclusive design strategies, such as sharing presentation materials.

Universal or inclusive design practices prioritize accessibility and flexibility in the classroom and lesson plans. They are not required by law, but reasonable accommodations are, according to Donna Johnson, the director of the DRC.

The DRC and EOAA claimed access to presentation materials was an inclusive design practice, and therefore not legally required. Koerner, the associate dean for undergraduate education in CLA, deemed the presentation slides a “reasonable accommodation,” which is legally-required to be fulfilled, in a November email that Akhavein shared with Harvey.

“I have determined that the request to receive lecture powerpoint slides is a reasonable accommodation for the student,” Koerner wrote to the chair of the professor’s department. “Please inform [the professor] that [they] must make the slides, or a reasonable representation of their content available to the student without further delay.”

Harvey said no presentation slides for the course were ever sent to her following this communication. According to email correspondence, the professor responded to Koerner’s request and expressed they felt they were within their rights as faculty to not send Harvey the presentation slides.

Additionally, the professor stopped using presentation slides in their next class period, Harvey said.

Further conversations
In an November email to Harvey, Akhavein said Harvey’s situation could open up the possibility for conversations in the department around fulfilling disability accommodations.

“While the time it has taken to get to this point is not ideal, I am very glad we’ve landed here,” Akhavein wrote to Harvey. “[It] … invites further conversations around inclusive teaching strategies that support all students — not just those who are willing to navigate the bureaucracy of our office to seek academic accommodations.”

There is currently nothing in place at the University to instruct professors on how to fulfill accommodations in an accommodations letter, according to Ben Munson, the University Senate Disabilities Committee Chair.

The University also does not require professors to use universal design strategies and does not have any resources in place to inform them how to use such strategies in their classrooms, he said.

A University taskforce established in 2020 is working to create resources for faculty and staff who want to better understand accommodation letters and support students with disabilities.

“It has only been in the last couple of years that the letters from the DRC even talk about universal design,” Munson said. “So part of what the professional development module would be about is just how to interpret the letter.”

According to Munson, while the ADA does not mandate universal design, it is the job of disability advocates to promote its implementation in classrooms.

“As a chair of a department, it’s my job when I hire new faculty to hire people who believe in universal design and intend to implement universal design in their courses,” Munson said.

Harvey said she expected an easy resolution when she requested accommodations from the professor because she had been met with support and understanding from professors in the past.

“I’m sure the U or [the professor] don’t understand why powerpoint slides are the hill I’ve chosen to die on, but it’s so much more than just that,” Harvey wrote. “It’s the multiple surgeries, the side effects, it’s how much I have gone through to get to the place I am now.”

Following the end of the fall semester, Harvey filed the complaint with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. In an email, she wrote that she wanted to work to make it easier for other students before and after her, who may experience the same hardship.

The Minnesota Department of Human Rights is the state’s “civil rights enforcement agency.” This department seeks to uphold civil rights by enforcing the Minnesota Human Rights Act and investigates allegations of discrimination.

“I need to do what is in my power to make change in order to facilitate other disabled students to succeed,” Harvey wrote. “Usually it feels like you can kick and scream all you want but nothing changes and you are just another single person under a huge organization with so much red tape they can’t even see you. This time will be different.”

Students gathered Saturday evening to show support for the Minneapolis educators currently on strike.

The speak-out was hosted by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and co-sponsored by other University of Minnesota groups, including Students for Climate Justice, College Democrats Young Democratic Socialists of America. The protest, which had around 40 attendees, lasted over an hour.

The protesters gathered at the intersection of 15th Avenue SE and 4th Street SE across from the University Food Hall to support the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59 (MFT) union’s strike.

“You can’t put students first if you are putting educators last,” Siobhan Moore, a member of SDS and former Minneapolis Public School (MPS) student, said.

MPS educators and support staff have been on strike since Mar. 8, 2022 after 13 months of negotiations.

“We need to empower educators to have a voice on the job,” David Gilbert-Pedersen, an organizer with AFSCME 3800, said. “When educators have a voice on the job, students get what they need.”

The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) has outlined their bargaining priorities as livable wages for Education Support Professionals (ESP), improvements to the recruitment and retention of BIPOC educators, increased mental health supports, lowered class sizes and competitive compensation for licensed staff.

“It’s been 50 years since the last time our union went on strike,” Ana Vásquez, the second vice president of MFT, said. “We are finally standing up to say this is enough.”

According to SDS organizer Mira Altobell-Resendez, the protest is meant to recognize the MFT’s strike and how the worker’s rights movement intersects with SDS’s campus advocacy for police accountability, racial justice and environmental justice.

“They are all interconnected,” Altobell-Resendez said. “And so we could be remiss if we weren’t to be active in this fight as well.

Protesters held signs printed with the phrases “students for educators” and “MN workers united for educators.”

“Now I love the word solidarity, but I want to challenge us to go beyond that,” Olivia Crull, an organizer with SDS and Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), said.

Some people walking past the protest voiced their support saying “we need teachers.” Later, a group leaving a sports event on a school bus stuck their heads and arms out the bus windows to wave and cheer at the group.

“Education is a right, that is why we have to fight,” chanted the group of protesters.

Marcy Open Elementary is a school close to campus on 4th Street SE where students can join educators on the picket lines, Altobell-Resendez said.

“I would love to see just more students from the U out at the picket lines,” Altobell-Resendez said. “If you have the time and the energy, please go support the educators right on the picket line. It means so much for them to see our faces out there.”

The University of Minnesota expanded its gender care coverage offered through the employee benefit plan to include certain secondary procedures, such as facial masculinization or feminization and electrolysis for facial hair removal. The expanded health care coverage went into effect on Jan. 1.

The expanded coverage emerged from collaboration between the Gender and Sexuality Center for Queer and Trans Life (GSC), the Transgender Advisory & Action Team (TAAT) and the Office of Human Resources (OHR).

“We sent out the announcements on behalf of the OHR, TAAT and the GSC,” finn schneider, the interim director of the GSC, said. “Before the end of that day, we had almost a dozen responses of employees and students as well, expressing their excitement.”

In an email to the Minnesota Daily, TAAT co-chair and healthcare working group Chair Beth Elliott-Thul wrote, “This project has been worked on by many folx that are current or former University employees and students, over many hours and many spreadsheets. It has truly been a project that people have put their heart and soul into.”

schneider said the healthcare system is not necessarily easy to navigate and is further complicated for people oppressed by the same system.

“For a long time, medical procedures or medical services that we as trans folks need to be healthy and well were exclusions or they were considered elective procedures,” they said.

schneider added that TAAT has worked to address these types of health care inequalities since its founding.

Mary Rohman Kuhl, the senior director of total compensation for the OHR, said the OHR got involved after noticing increasing frustration from people under the University’s health care plan around certain medical procedures not being covered.

Rohman Kuhl said the OHR consulted with Medica, the health care provider for the University, to determine what secondary care procedures are considered medically necessary to maintain a certain standard of care.

To determine the standards, the OHR looked to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).

WPATH determines guidelines, or “standards of care,” set to advise health professionals how to provide transgender or gender diverse people with the care needed to achieve personal comfort and maximize overall health.

The OHR reviews the WPATH standards to determine what services should be included in health care plans, according to Rohman Kuhl.

“Our attention was raised to those standards because of our internal partners at the U, like our TAAT group and other individuals that work in different departments across the U and have expertise in gender dysphoria,” Rohman Kuhl said.

Gender dysphoria is feelings of discomfort or distress that might occur in people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth, according to the Mayo Clinic.

When OHR consulted with Medica about expanding services, Rohman Kuhl said OHR found that Medica was already moving forward with having their covered procedures match the WPATH standards of care.

“Starting this fall, OHR committed to having very regular meetings with TAAT members. So on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, we had two of our members of TAAT who were very well-versed in the issue of healthcare meeting with an OHR employee,” schneider said. “I think that was an instrumental part of that progress.”

The change enacted on Jan. 1 applies to employees under the University employees medical plan offered by OHR.

However, schneider said another change TAAT would like to see is making other health care plans like the pharmacy plan, the employee assistance plan and the student plan more inclusive of transgender and gender non-conforming people.
“One of the things that TAAT is excited to do in the future is really build a relationship with the Office of Student Health Benefits, so that we can try to help that process when it comes time for them to bid on their plans again,” they said.

The WPATH is set to come out with new standards of care this spring, according to Katie Kolodge, the health and wellbeing consultant for the OHR. Kolodge said the OHR plans to continue the collaborative process of working with the GSC and TAAT to ensure that the OHR understands what is needed in terms of gender care and health care coverage.

“This truly is an incredible victory,” Kolodge said. “We’re so grateful and we’re like, ‘there’s more work to do. We got to get back to it.’”

Wednesday evening, a crowd of about sixty students assembled outside of the University of Minnesota’s Coffman Union at 6 p.m. to demand justice for Amir Locke.

“Amir Locke’s name will never be forgotten and we will always be there to fight for him,” said Bella Harbison, a speaker representing the UMN branch of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

SDS organized Wednesday’s protest and outlined three demands: to arrest and charge the officers involved in Amir Locke’s killing, to end the University’s relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) and to establish a Campus Police Accountability Council (CPAC).

“We would like to see more action [from the University] than just a sympathetic email,” said Mira Altobell-Resendez, a third-year student and SDS member.

Before the speakers started, the protesters gathered, carrying signs painted with “Jail killer cops now” and “Black Lives Matter.”

After hearing from speakers from Freedom Road Socialist Organization, White Coats for Black Lives and the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar (TCC4J), students followed the lead of a sound van and prepared to march. Students at the front of the march carried a banner reading “justice for all stolen lives.”

“I know we are tired. Tired of one more Black man killed by cops,” Loretta VanPelt, a speaker representing TCC4J, said. “And here we are again, taking to the streets to demand justice.”

With chants of “No justice. No peace. Prosecute the police,” students marched in the 21 degree weather down Washington Avenue. The crowd attracted attention from onlookers standing along the East Bank light rail station, some of whom stopped to videotape and join in chants.

“We need to keep up the momentum because we can’t continue to have just waves of people coming into the movement after a death,” second-year Gracelyn McClure said. “We need to continue to pressure the University of Minnesota. We need to pressure Minneapolis. We need to pressure our elected officials to hold the police accountable.”

The protest wrapped up in front of the Washington Avenue Parking Ramp.

As students gathered to listen to a last speaker, a line of cars that built up behind the protesters honked as the students gathered in the street.

“Why is a minor inconvenience more aggravating than the loss of an innocent life?” Rahman said, addressing the honking cars.

The University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment (IonE) raised its undergraduate student worker’s minimum wage to $15.91 starting Jan. 3, to mirror livable wages of Hennepin and Ramsey counties.

“For over 20 students on staff, we went from $11 or $12/hr to $15.91/hr,” IonE Director of Administration April Snyder wrote in an email statement. “Ironically, we had one of our amazing undergrad students run the numbers to see what this budget impact would be for us.”

This change applies retroactively to both newly hired and already employed students, according to IonE Director Jessica Hellmann.

“I heard about [the wage increase] online right before Christmas,” Jacob Bechtold, a third-year student and IonE program assistant said. “It was honestly the best Christmas present I got this year. I was ecstatic.”

“The day that we decided to make our change, the College of Biological Sciences announced their change,” Hellmann said. “This sort of reaffirmed [to us] that this is a good move: other people across the University agree that this is important to support our students.”

According to Hellmann, the IonE decided to raise its undergraduate student wages for two reasons: to better support the students financially and to offer more competitive wages that will attract more student workers.

Due to the national labor shortage as a result of the pandemic, the offer of competitive wages is increasingly crucial for many Americans.

This change culminated in a time when college students across the country have been protesting for livable wages. As of Jan. 22, Ohio State students protested for an increase in wages to $15.

At the end of the fall semester, the University’s College of Biological Sciences raised its hourly wages to $15 for some student positions, which went into effect on Jan. 3.

According to the Washington Post, in April 2020, nearly 21 million people lost their jobs. At the start of the pandemic, many businesses said they felt reluctant to hire new people. However, businesses are now looking to hire, but not nearly enough people are applying.

Some University employers, especially those who work in the dining halls, saw the effects of staffing shortages that led to some campus dining options remaining closed through the fall semester.

“The institute was hiring a lot at the beginning of the semester,” Bechtold said. “They had a really easy [time] filling those jobs which I think was partly because of the raise that they did. Students are gonna want to work for them.”

Maria Morande, second-year student and IonE program associate, said that she was planning on finding a second job until the institute raised its minimum wage.

“I was considering picking up a TA position, and I knew that I was really going to be busy this semester and it wasn’t super ideal,” Morande said. “[Now I] just have my job at the Institute on the Environment this semester, which has been so great. I get to have more time to devote to my studies and having time for leisure as well.”

Student workers within the institute say that they hope other University departments see this change and are inspired to raise their undergraduate minimum wage as well.

“I really hope that it’s a catalyst,” Morande said. “I really hope that it puts pressure on different areas of the University to adopt this change or something similar.”

Student, staff and faculty activists have called for an increase in COVID-19 safety protocols for the spring semester.

Some of their demands included requiring courses to be taught online for the first two weeks, providing adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) to students and expanding COVID-19 testing services offered through the University of Minnesota.

In a press release sent out on Jan. 11, a coalition titled UMN Students, Staff and Faculty United for Health and Safety called for the University to do more to address the Omicron “viral blizzard.”

In light of news about the potential spike in Omicron cases and COVID-19 policy updates sent out by President Joan Gabel and Provost Rachel Croson in early January, this coalition pushed for stronger COVID-19 safety protocols.

“We’re just trying to advocate for health and safety during the pandemic,” said Sumanth Gopinath, associate professor of music theory and coalition member. “We’ve been consulting a lot with faculty in the School of Public Health, doctors and others who have expertise to inform what we’ve been saying.”

The four demands in the press release were to require remote instruction for the first two weeks of this semester, to form a plan for a return to in-person instruction developed by faculty in the School of Public Health, to require high-quality masks and make them accessible to the University community and to expand testing services on campus.

The same demand for high-quality PPE was reflected in a petition titled “UMN Must Provide Adequate PPE for Students” authored by second-year law student Carli Cortina.

“We are expected to return to in-person classes with only a “face covering” requirement,” Cortina wrote in the petition’s description. “Omicron is highly transmissible, and forcing us to go back in person without effective masks (KN95, N95) is knowingly exposing every student, professor, and university employee to a dangerous virus.”

According to Cortina, the University of Minnesota Law School’s affinity groups held the same concerns regarding the University’s COVID-19 safety protocol.

In an email sent to the Law School’s Dean Garry Jenkins, these affinity groups expressed disappointment in the law school’s commitment to maintaining in-person classes.

“The general consensus I feel from the University is that people don’t want to be online and I think that’s true,” Cortina said. “But when it comes to being online versus being safe, I think that we feel our needs are being ignored.”

Jenkins sent out an email responding to the law student’s concerns on Jan. 12. In the response, Jenkins noted University policies such as the vaccine requirement, booster shot recommendation and free KN95 masks being distributed across campus, but ultimately, reaffirmed the law school’s commitment to in-person classes.

“While I realize that a relatively large number of cases is likely to be unsettling over the next few weeks, we plan to move forward with the semester in person, in line with University guidance,” Jenkins wrote in the Jan. 12 email.

Cortina added that, although she and many law students agree that it was difficult to do remote learning, it is also hard to learn with the anxiety of catching COVID-19 during an in-person class.

“There’s just so much uncertainty,” Cortina said. “The whole point is to be in-person and make it feel normal. But it feels less normal because everyone’s [experiencing] heightened anxiety.”

While some professors and students are calling for an increase in COVID-19 safety protocol, other professors say they want to return in-person because it is difficult for both professors to teach and students to learn online.

“In my opinion, online teaching is not the proper way to teach,” Emilian Racila, assistant professor of pathology, said. “Pathology is very difficult to actually teach online or by doing pre-recorded lectures. Students, they don’t have an opportunity to communicate, to ask questions, to get explanations that they need.”

Similarly, medical students usually focus on direct-patient interaction as part of their University education, which is difficult to do in online classes, said Rahel Ghebre, University professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health.

“It’s so important for our residents and fellows to have direct-patient interaction, so we can’t really deliver good learning without having them face the patient,” Ghebre said. “It’s a much more complex interaction [and] there’s not as many options to do it virtually.”

Some faculty say they hope to highlight how the University’s COVID-19 safety policies on the surrounding communities, as outbreaks on campus will increase the transmission rates across Minneapolis.

“I think the joy of being in the classroom and the nature of in-person pedagogy is, to me, undeniable — it feels much better,” Gopinath said. “But, we’re trying to do what we can, not only to protect the U community, but to ensure that the broader community in which we live isn’t affected by the fact that we’re spreading the disease here and then spreading it beyond.”

The University of Minnesota’s College of Biological Sciences (CBS) announced raising wages to $15 an hour for students working in the Dean’s office and supporting units in CBS. This change will go into effect beginning Jan. 3, 2022.

Valery Forbes, the University’s Dean of CBS, announced the change in an email Dec. 1. The affected student positions are in CBS departments, including Nature of Life, CBS circles, the Dean’s Research Program, CBS Student Services, undergraduate teaching assistants, transfer peer advisors, teaching labs, the St. Paul administrative cluster and science communication and outreach.

“Our decision to increase wages for most student workers reflects our belief that every student employment opportunity in the College of Biological Sciences holds value by creating connections, facilitating learning and equipping students with the skills necessary to succeed following graduation,” Forbes said in an emailed statement to the Daily.

David Greenstein, the Associate Dean for Research, said CBS leadership officials want all students in the department to experience working in research if they want.

Greenstein added that one of the ways research experiences can be available to more students is if CBS students are paid a high enough wage so they do not have to work another job.

“Many of us who are working scientists, the reason we’re working scientists was we had formative experiences,” Greenstein said. “We worked in laboratories and we worked in field biology. We found questions and we were bitten by the bug, and we just found out it was great fun and something that we would like to do for our life’s work.”

Tanner Mierow is a fourth-year student on the CBS Student Board. He said in an email to the Daily that he was surprised when he read the email and had no idea that the administration had been working on this.

“I think this will allow more students in CBS to have the ability to take on University jobs within the college,” Mierow wrote. “This wage increase still makes it so that students who need to work can get hands-on experience taking classes and such instead of finding other jobs outside campus that pay more.”

With the change, University faculty providing student research opportunities can decide whether they want to give their undergraduate research students a raise.

Greenstein said he decided to raise the wage for students working in his lab, even those who work in media.

“I have folks in my lab who are undergraduates who are doing media preparation. I gave them all a raise so they’re going to get $15 an hour,” Greenstein said. “It’s an easy thing I can do.”

Overall, Greenstein said the wage increase will make CBS employment opportunities attractive for undergraduate students and will attract more students to CBS in general.

“In the case of CBS, we are fortunate that our current financial position, a combination of the tuition our students pay and support from the University, allows us to allocate funds in this way, in support of our exceptional students and all that we know they can achieve,” Forbes wrote.

After the Nov. 19 email sent by Vice President of University Services Mike Berthelsen regarding the staff shortages in dining facilities, some University of Minnesota students posted on social media to voice their frustrations about the University’s minimum wage.

Since the Minneapolis minimum wage is set to increase to $15 in the next few years, some University students said on social media they are dissuaded from working on-campus because of the low wages, so they often choose off-campus employment options.

“‘We are doing everything we can to open more dining facilities”…really??! Have you tried paying your employees more than $3/hour below [Minneapolis] minimum wage?” wrote third-year student Alexis Wagenfeld on a reddit page about the University.

Several students expressed a similar message in their posts responding to the Nov. 19 email: ‘if the University wants to solve the staffing crisis now affecting dining facilities, it should raise its minimum wage to match Minneapolis’.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the consumer price index in Minneapolis has risen about 24% between 2010 and 2021. The consumer price index measures the average change in prices over a period of time to see how far a dollar goes today compared to past years.

On Jan. 1, 2021 Minnesota statewide increased its minimum wage from $10 to $10.08 to account for inflation. The University of Minnesota’s minimum wage sits at $10.08 today.

According to University Director of Public Relations Jake Ricker, many student jobs pay more than $10.08. Additionally, starting minimum salaries for student dining hall “range from $12 – $13.50/hour.”

“Some students working in dining may be paid more based on their job and experience,” Ricker said in an email to the Minnesota Daily.

Jacob Moe is a fourth-year student and has worked at the University’s athletics department’s IT office for around three years. Since 2010, Moe said his position paid around $10 an hour, however this semester, the wage increased to $13.50.

“My boss was a student here at the University of Minnesota about 10 years ago,” Moe said. “He started working the job I have currently in back in 2010. Starting pay was $10 an hour. When I started working here in 2019, my starting pay was $10 an hour”

Student reactions to Nov. 19 email

After reading the email sent out Nov. 19, Moe said he believes the University is shifting the responsibility of addressing the staffing crisis onto students, instead of University management and officials.

“I just think it’s funny,” Moe said. “I feel like it’s the classic shifting of blame from management to workers.”

Wagenfeld said they believe it is unfair for the University’s administration to claim they are doing everything they can to address understaffing, while they still will not raise the minimum wage.

“It’s the [same] reason why every single business pretty much is struggling to find entry-level employees. It’s because they do not pay those employees enough,” Wagenfeld said. “It was very strange for [the University] to make the claim that they’re doing everything that they can, when it’s clear that they’re not.”

Some of the students recommended offering more flexible hours or departmental resources to reduce stress resulting from working in understaffed conditions.

Moe said the office he works in usually has eight students hired and employed as staff, but currently has only three. This puts more pressure and responsibility on the student workers, which Moe added has created an exhausting and depressing work environment.

“I think it’s just plain and simple,” Moe said. “If the University wants to have student workers and have consistent access to labor through their student body, then they need to make the job worth working again.”

According to Moe, the only real benefit to working on-campus is the convenience of having nearby employment. But overall, he said off-campus jobs are doing a better job incentivizing students to work for them and it’s not surprising that students are choosing to work off-campus.

“I can go work on campus for $10.08 an hour as a starting wage, or I can go work two blocks down the street and make $16.50,” said Carter Yost, a second-year student and co-chair of the Minnesota Student Association’s ad hoc committee on student worker wages.

National labor shortages

According to Ricker, filling open jobs is a widespread issue with 10.4 million job openings nationwide according to the U.S. Labor Department’s Monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. Ricker added hiring challenges should not be connected directly to one variable.

Varadarajan Chari, a University professor of economics, said he was puzzled when he read the Nov. 19 email.

He added that the University’s Office of Dining Services cannot simultaneously say they can not find enough staff to keep dining facilities open, while offering wages lower than if adjusted for ten years of inflation.

“That is shameful that they are claiming they have a problem of not being able to find enough workers,” Chari said. “The simplest and most obvious device to attract more workers, which is to offer students a better wage, is something that they deliberately eschew.”

As a result of the pandemic, one way businesses adapted to labor shortages was by offering bonuses and raising hourly wages. According to Chari, the University administration could implement this, but chooses not to.

Clarification: This story was updated to include information about starting wages for student dining hall workers.

“We are a reflection of our society, aren’t we?” George John, a professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota, said. “This pandemic has gotten so politicized, I don’t want to be in the shoes of any policymaker.”

University students and faculty expressed conflicting viewpoints about what actions the University should take to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 on campus, especially since Minnesota currently has the fourth highest daily infection rate in the country.

While some members of the faculty senate have called for increasing administrative action to instate higher safety measures, other faculty members said they believe at this point, all students, professors and administrators can do is be flexible as the University navigates unprecedented circumstances.

Eighteen faculty senators called for a special session of the Faculty Senate to consider the “Resolution on Classroom Health and Safety Under COVID-19.” This resolution passed with a large majority in both the University and faculty senate in special sessions that were held on Oct. 6, 2021.

These measures include routine COVID-19 testing of staff and students, and a stronger demand to require for proof of vaccination.

Jim Cotner, a University professor in the College of Biological Sciences and member of the faculty senate, said he believes the University was receptive to the resolution.

“As always is the case with these kinds of things, [the administration] didn’t totally embrace everything that we asked,” Cotner said. “But at the end of the day, I feel like they listened.”

As of Nov. 23, the University did strengthen the proof of vaccination requirements in compliance with President Joe Biden’s executive order requiring employees working under federal contracts to submit proof of vaccination, according to Ken Horstman, University vice president of human resources.

Horstman said the University is obligated to collect proof of vaccination because it receives funding from the federal government.

Less concern with recent spike due to high vaccination rates

Philippe Buhlmann, a professor and member of the faculty senate, said there has been high willingness from faculty and students to get vaccinated, and in his experience, that the transition from online to in-person classes has gone well.

He added that in a University Senate meeting on Dec. 2, it was reported that throughout the fall semester, there has not been any classroom outbreaks or outbreaks traceable to a specific place on campus.

Despite a spike in COVID-19 cases occurring around this same time last year, some faculty members said they are not as concerned about experiencing a similar spike this year, largely because of the high campus vaccination rates.

Rachna Shah, a Carlson School of Management professor and faculty senate member, expressed a similar perspective.

“I am not very anxious about spiking COVID rates,” Shah said. “If you just look at the vaccination rates in Minnesota, they are very high.”

According to Horstman, there has not been a spike in COVID-19 cases since students have returned back on campus from Thanksgiving break so far. However, Cotner said he is still worried because Minnesota has one of the highest numbers of new COVID-19 cases in the country.

Future administrative action

At the Dec. 2 University Senate Meeting, with stricter requirements for proof of vaccination, the question of what punitive actions for University faculty who did not submit proof or have exemptions would look like came up, Buhlmann said.

According to the Board of Regents’s policy on tenure, in this case, faculty would vote or express opinions on what should happen if a professor refused to submit vaccination proof or file a medical or religious exemption.

More than 95% of faculty supported the formation of a centralized committee where faculty would vote on what should happen in cases like this, Buhlmann said.

Faculty members expressed uncertainty about whether the University will see an increase of COVID-19 cases following the Thanksgiving break and its effects on classes and changes to COVID safety protocols.

“[This is] the point of friction that I doubt we can ever solve,” John said. “I think we’ll just have to roll with the punches.”

Correction: A previous version of this story misrepresented the support for the Resolution on Classroom Health and Safety Under COVID-19. The resolution passed with a majority in both the faculty and University senate in special sections held Oct. 6.