KAYLIE SIROVY: Hello, everybody. My name is Kaylie Sirovy, your host from the Minnesota Daily. Right now, you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. Today in the studio with me, I have Sophie. Hi Sophie! 

SOPHIE EYDIS: Hi! 

SIROVY: She is here to talk about one of her recent stories. Sophie, I’ll let you take it from here. Why don’t you let our listeners know who you are. 

EYDIS: I’m Sophie. I am a senior at the U, and I am a staff reporter here at the Daily. I’m on the campus activities desk, and I’ve been here for a little over a year now. It’s been a journey, for sure.

SIROVY: Have you liked it here so far?

EYDIS: I love it here. Sadly, this is my last semester here. I really need to start focusing on what I’m going to be doing post grad. So I’m trying to focus on that. 

SIROVY: We’re all on that job search grind. Let me tell you. 

EYDIS: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Are you looking at any jobs in particular? 

EYDIS: So I’m from Chicago, so I would love to move back to Chicago and I’m looking at jobs at just different news organizations, mostly newspapers. Wherever I can get a job, honestly. It’s been tough. There’s been a lot of rejection. A lot of ups and downs, but my second semester, I’m really gonna be focusing on that. 

SIROVY: At least you have people responding to your applications. I’ve done a few. They have not responded. 

EYDIS: Yeah, I have a lot of those, too. I’ve applied to places and it’s just like some get back and then they’re like, “Thanks for applying. We didn’t select you, but try again some other time.” 

SIROVY: Sophie recently did a piece about a crochet business from a student here on campus. And it is currently one of our most read stories in the past two years. So walk me through your reporting process. How did you find this story to begin with? 

EYDIS: So a lot of times when I’m looking for stories, I will go on the U of M Snapchat stories and sort of see just what’s going on because my focus is mainly students. What a better place to look for students than the U of M Snapchat stories. 

I came across, a little, like, ad, I guess you could say, a little, like, Canva poster that someone made about a crochet business that a student was running, and I thought that was super interesting.

I’m always looking for stories about students doing innovative things, so I got in contact with the person who posted that, who was the friend of the girl who ran the crochet business. From there she connected me with Corin, the girl who runs the business. I also talked to her friend Lola as well. And they’re both great. 

SIROVY: Oh, I love that. So, were you just like, “Girl, tell me about your business? How’d you do this?”

EYDIS: Yeah, I really wanted to, figure out how she got into crocheting. She said that she had started this business like two years ago as like she was working at European Wax Center, and she was basically looking for something to do with her hands. 

So from there she sort of was getting commissions from customers asking her to like make things for for them and then she was kind of like, “Well, this is like something I could make some some money off of.” So she started selling some of her things and I asked her, I’m like, “Well, where do you find the time to do all this?”

SIROVY: That’s the big question, man. 

EYDIS: Yeah, and she was like, “In class.” She was like, “At every class you can find me crocheting.” 

SIROVY: And her professors don’t mind that? 

EYDIS: I guess not. 

SIROVY: I love that. She’s just crocheting, sitting there. Oh my god. I love that. Did you ask her how many customers she’s had? How many people?

EYDIS: Yeah, well she sells mostly to students. She has definitely gained more of a following recently. She also sells some of her things on Poshmark. So she has gotten a few customers that way too. But, with her, like, she said that she is not really doing this for the money.

It’s just something that she likes to do. And like the money, it’s just a nice aspect of it. But you know, this is just kind of a hobby that turned into something she could create into a business. 

SIROVY: Isn’t that the dream? 

EYDIS: Yeah, it is. 

SIROVY: While you were talking with her, or while you were writing this story, was there anything that was really surprising to you?

EYDIS: Good question. I would just say the amount of people who have bought her stuff and the positive feedback that she’s gotten back from so many people. One thing that I really liked that she said was that she’ll see people around campus wearing her hats and things like that. 

She mentioned the cat ear hats are a really big, popular item that she does and she sees those around campus and she’s like, “You don’t know this, but I made that.” I thought that was super cool. 

SIROVY: That is super cool. So you got her interview and you were talking with her and you’re sitting down to write this piece. Was it really easy to write or was it kind of difficult? 

EYDIS: Honestly both. I think it was easy in the fact that she’s so amazing and she gave me so much to work with, which is always nice because there was a lot to write about. But I could only write so much, so I really had to choose and be intentional with the things that I included in the piece. 

She gave me a ton of people to talk to. And unfortunately I could only talk to one of her friends in the timeline that I had. She’s just great. 

SIROVY: I love that. Has she read the piece, do you know?

EYDIS: I reached out to her after I saw, the piece was getting a lot of attention and I was just like, “Thank you so much. This is insane. I really hope that I’ve helped you out in some way and like growing your business.” She was just very thankful.

SIROVY: Yeah, that’s so sweet. At what point did you realize it was getting a lot of attention? 

EYDIS: I came into in person editing and Spencer, our editor-in-chief, was sitting there and he’s like, “Sophie, do you know your story is like the second most read article in like all Daily history or something?” I was like, “What? Like, which story?” He was like, “The crochet story,” and I checked the website. 

I’ve consistently been checking it and it’s stayed at like the number one trending story. Honestly, this being my last semester here, I was thrilled and I was so excited that I could end on this note and promote her stuff and just everything she’s doing and all the work she’s putting into it was super, super special.

SIROVY: This is so wholesome. 

EYDIS: It is. 

SIROVY: Oh my god. I love it. I love the fact that this is your last semester, this being one of your final pieces. How many do you have left to do? 

EYDIS: I have probably like, two more, two more stories. 

SIROVY: Yeah. Way to end on a bang. And it got Best of Sno, which for those who don’t know, is kind of like a student journalism award.

Exemplifying that it was a great piece. It was very unique. You had great writing in it. Was there anything that you wanted to put in the piece but couldn’t because of the word limit? 

EYDIS: No, I don’t think so. I was very intentional about what I put in the piece. If I could have put the whole interview in there, I would have. Corin is truly amazing. And, just having a conversation with her, you could just tell the kind of person she is. 

But, no, I think I was, I was pretty intentional with what I included in the piece, and I made sure that everything I put in there was something that I wouldn’t want like our readers to miss out on.

SIROVY: Is this one of your favorite pieces that you’ve done, or is there another piece that you think you did better on? 

EYDIS: I would say this is one of my favorite pieces that I’ve done because a lot of the time I’m doing stories on clubs and things like that. And while that is great, it can get repetitive sometimes. 

So it’s always exciting when you could do a student feature piece because there are so many incredible students here doing such great things and when you get to recognize them for the work that they’re doing. 

It’s just, I don’t know, it fills my heart. I’m glad that I am able to do that for them. Reflecting back on all the stories that I’ve written, one of my first stories was on the homecoming marshal last year Laura Coates who is a CNN anchor and that just being one of my first stories was kind of kick ass. 

She was amazing and I was so happy to talk to her. The piece turned out great and that was one of my favorites for sure. Every story that I do is different and intentional and like its own way. So, yeah. 

SIROVY: Is there a piece that you don’t like? 

EYDIS: Oh gosh.

SIROVY: Cause I’ve got work I don’t.

EYDIS: Not that I can think of. I mean, it’s all kind of blurring in my head right now. Everyone I’ve talked to and all the clubs that I’ve talked to and been in connection with, like they’ve all been so great. So I don’t know, that’s a hard question. I’d have to look back.

SIROVY: Did you ever want to, after interviewing one of these clubs, do you ever want to join?

EYDIS: Actually, yes. I’m currently interviewing and working on a story for a club called the National Retail Federation Student Association. 

SIROVY: That’s a mouthful. 

EYDIS: And it’s basically a club that is retail focus like they work. They do a lot of networking with the retail industry and I’m like a sucker for like brands, like I don’t know. I love like makeup brands. I love designer brands even though I can’t afford it, but I can’t afford the fake bags, which is good. 

But I’ve been talking to them and they go on this trip to New York every January and get to connect with all these cool retailers like Steve Madden and Fenty Beauty. I’ve been talking to them and I’m like, “You guys are super cool. I would love to join this club.”

SIROVY: Can it be any major?

EYDIS: Any major is welcome to join. I would imagine it’s mostly retail related majors. But they’re super cool and they welcome everyone.

SIROVY: So now, kind of reflecting on your time here at the Daily, how was your process getting to work here? 

EYDIS: I would say it was pretty incredible. I am so happy that I got the opportunity to work with the Daily. I’ve met so many great people. I love everyone on my desk. And just coming in every week, whether it’s for meetings or in person editing, I always leave feeling a little bit happier because there’s never really a bad day at the Daily.

Everyone is so amazing. 

The people that I’ve gotten to speak with through this has been incredible. I feel like I know so much more about the university and everything that it has to offer and I think that that’s been super cool and also just holding the university accountable, too. 

SIROVY: You are so right girl. That’s what we do. Yeah. I mean, I don’t really do that. My coworkers do. I would like to, but that’s for another time. Do you see a potential follow up for somebody else to this kind of story? 

EYDIS: I don’t know. I’m always on the lookout for things. I’m always checking the Snapchat story and seeing what people are doing. I definitely would be open to that. I think that I would love to see after this story, what that has done for her and how much that has grown her business and how many crochet items she’s sold after this piece has come out. I think that would be super interesting. 

SIROVY: Yeah, and all of her comments there were like 20 plus comments on the story. They’re all so nice it’s kind of a nice change of pace from some of the comments that we get. It definitely, I was like, “Ah, this is just refreshing.” 

It’s so refreshing and it just feels really nice especially in the time of like winter break with like holiday season coming up. I was like, “Ah, this is what people need,” you know, just a nice story to read.

EYDIS: Yeah, it was. It’s definitely refreshing. I feel like we’ve had so much going on this semester with the protests and people stepping down from positions and all this crazy stuff. I’m glad that this was something people enjoyed. And was more of a positive note. 

SIROVY: Yeah. I think it’s a great way to end the semester for sure. Is there a moment that you’ve had here at the Daily that you think about sometimes like either a funny moment or someone that you’ve talked to or a story that you heard? 

EYDIS: Whenever I think about the Daily, I really think honestly just about my experience with the first editor that I had, Henry. He was so incredible. When I first joined the daily, I knew close to nothing about journalism. 

SIROVY: We all did. 

EYDIS: I was in my early stages of journalism. I had a very broad aspect of what I’d learned in my classes, but I’d never had the experience outside of that. Henry was someone who really helped me thrive here and was with me every step of the way. 

That meant so much to me. I feel just like my first semester here was the thing that I’m probably going to remember most about the Daily is just how welcoming everybody was and how great Henry was. Shout out Henry. He was amazing. 

SIROVY: I do miss Henry. Yeah. I miss chatting with him. He was always so fun. Is there anything you would tell yourself when you were just starting here that you know now you’d be like you got to know this before you?

EYDIS: Don’t be afraid of PR. University PR. Don’t be afraid. They are just doing their jobs. Make a list of questions for every interview you do. I kinda do that to structure me, but I used to just go down the list and not respond to what the other person said. I would just say, “OK, and this and this and the next, and the next question,” and I was just so nervous. 

But now as I’ve gotten more comfortable with it, I feel like. It’s really important to just let the conversation flow like we’re doing right now. That is not something that I was doing before and I wish I was because I feel like conversations like this really are what get the best out of people and help you learn about them the most when it’s like you’re going down a list. 

It can be hard to learn about the person. And I think that’s what I did with Corin too, just let the conversation flow.

SIROVY: Did you have an embarrassing conversation then, like someone you first talked to? 

EYDIS: I remember my worst interview I ever did. I’m sort of exposing myself. It was with someone from the mortuary department here. He was kind of just like, “Did you not look at anything before this interview? Do you know what you’re talking about pretty much?” And I was just like, “I mean, no, but yes, I did my homework.” 

That was probably the most sort of awkward experience that I’ve had. It will definitely stick with me because I remember after that interview, I literally started crying. I was like, “What just happened?” I was going in feeling good, ready to talk about dead people. All of a sudden I was just like.

SIROVY: We all have those interviews, man, where the person is like, “Are you sure? Like, you’re good at this? Like, you know your job?” 

EYDIS: I’m like, yes, I do. I promise. I was like, I promise. I did my homework. Oh my goodness. Yeah, that was probably my most, like, embarrassing.

SIROVY: Well, you definitely learned.

EYDIS: Yeah, I’ve learned since then. There’s so many interesting characters that you meet doing this job, and that’s kind of why I love it, too. 

SIROVY: I love talking with people. There are some times where I’m like, I just want to use our entire conversation. It’s not really pertinent to the topic that I want to talk about, but I just want to use it. I just wanna hear you talk. Literally. Yeah. Sit there and yap to me all day long. 

EYDIS: And it’s always the best when you get people who are a little quirky and have their wits about them. Like, those are the best people to talk to. It’s just kind of why I love what I do, getting to meet all these characters, honestly.

SIROVY: That’s kind of like the best part about journalism, you know?

EYDIS: I love that, I live for it. I live for the different personalities.

SIROVY: Oh, me too. Yeah. And all about the different topics and stuff that we talk about, really fun. Yep. Is there anything that you want to talk about, like a story that you wanted to mention, or the Daily as a whole. I don’t know.

EYDIS: One other story that I did, this past semester that got a lot of attention was a story on Jewish student reactions to the protests and everything going on. That meant a lot to me because I felt like we weren’t really giving that side of the narrative. 

And talking to those students and I was really, really happy I was able to do that, especially being Jewish myself. I felt like I was able to give those students a voice when a lot of them felt like they didn’t have one.

SIROVY: God, you’re going to make me cry over here. 

EYDIS: I’m really surprising myself. I’m never like this. I’m already in a really emotional mood today because it’s my last days of first semester. Then I go into the second semester of being a senior and I’m like, “Where has the time gone?”

SIROVY: I know. That was me last week. I was like, “Wait a minute, I won’t be here next year.” 

EYDIS: Like, it’s insane. I’ve been kind of feeling like that today. I almost cried walking out of my class. I’m like, “Wait, this is surreal.”

SIROVY: I’m so gonna do that tomorrow.

EYDIS: Yeah, I was like, this is surreal. And honestly, like, I’ve had such great time. Like professors this semester, so.

SIROVY: Yeah, I love my professors. 

EYDIS: Yeah, they’re great. Shout out J School. They have some really, really great, really great professors there. I’m sad. That time of year too. 

I’m sad. I’m excited for a break, but I’m sad because I go home to Chicago, and then I don’t see my friends here for a while yeah.

SIROVY: You can do freelance work for the Daily. Have you thought about that? 

EYDIS: I’ve thought about it. I’m actually currently working on a piece for one of my classes, which is basically about crime in the University of Minnesota area, specifically Dinkytown, which is a really, hot topic all the time. This is breaking news, but I am planning on doing freelancing for that one with the Star Tribune.

SIROVY: Oh! Yeah, that’s really exciting. 

EYDIS: Yeah, that’s really exciting. I’m going to be working with my professor over break and making the final touches to that story, I’ve been working on it all semester. I’m super, super excited to have this opportunity. This is for in-depth reporting. 

So investigative reporting that I’ve been doing all semester. It feels good that the work is finally going to pay off. I’ve talked to the University of Minnesota Police Department. We don’t hear from them all too much. 

SIROVY: We don’t hear from them too much. That’s okay though. This has been so nice to chat with you. 

EYDIS: Thank you so much for having me on. I love talking, so this has been perfect for me. 

SIROVY: Why do you think I love my job? 

EYDIS: You’re making me want to start doing something like this. 

SIROVY: Hey, it’s super easy, you know? It’s just literally talking with people and then making a story out of it.

EYDIS: Yeah, it’s fun. I’m so into podcasts right now, too.

SIROVY: Oh, which ones are you listening to? 

EYDIS: Oh my god, all of them. I’m super into Call Her Daddy. I love Alex Cooper. I think she’s a genius. I love Jake Shane. I listen to his podcast. I listen to Alex Earle’s podcast. 

Yeah, those are kind of the main ones I’m listening to right now. But, yeah, I love Alex Cooper. Shout out to Alex Cooper. She’s a queen. 

SIROVY: I don’t listen to that podcast, but I know exactly the one you’re talking about. It’s like the top women podcast. Yeah, okay, well, if you have nothing else you want to chat about, then I’m going to do my little end spiel here and we can close up. 

This episode was produced by Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we appreciate you listening in and feel free to leave us an email at podcasting@mndaily.com with any questions, comments, or concerns. I’m Kaylie. 

EYDIS: I’m Sophie.

SIROVY: And this has been In The Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hello, everyone. My name is Kaylie Sirovy, your host from the Minnesota Daily. Right now, you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. And today in the studio with me, I have Jack O’Connor again. Hello, Jack. 

JACK O’CONNOR: Hello. 

SIROVY: Jack is here today to discuss the upcoming election as it’s a pretty big topic right now. For the Minnesota ballot, what’s on there? 

O’CONNOR: Yeah, so we’ve got a lot of stuff on the ballot. There are state house races, state senate races, a few ballot questions, obviously we have the presidential election, and then there’s also gonna be a senate seat. As well as some lesser known stuff like school board and some judicial races.

I guess we could start with the ballot questions. If you’re in St. Paul, you actually have two city based ones. There is one ballot question, which will move elections from odd years to even years and another one which would fund child care stuff. In terms of the odd to even stuff, that’s meant to increase voter turnout. 

But there’s some concern that this is going to cause a bit of chaos just in terms of like how that’s going to work with city council members and their elections. Are they going to have to decrease a year? Are they going to have to get an extra year on? So just stuff like that, and child care, the mayor is basically saying that he’s not gonna implement it regardless of how the voters vote, which I find interesting. 

SIROVY: So for the specifics on that childcare question, what is it?

O’CONNOR: Yeah. So the childcare ballot question would essentially raise property taxes. It would levy a property tax in order to fund more childcare stuff, whether that’s daycare or healthcare, things like that. But the St. Paul mayor, Melvin Carter said it’s grossly underestimating it. A, how much it’s going to fund, and B, how much the true cost of it, of childcare are. And so he’s basically saying he won’t implement it. So, I guess it doesn’t really matter, maybe. 

SIROVY: OK. Well that’s maybe a little concerning. Why does St. Paul want to move the elections to even years? Like, why did they start that anyway? 

O’CONNOR: Yeah, so, it basically just all has to do with voter turnout. Voter turnout is always higher on presidential election years. So, when it’s always on odd years, there isn’t really much else that’s going to be on the ballot. And so, people who are in support of this ballot are basically saying that if we move the elections to there, we’ll see more people engaged with the electorate; more people interested in what’s on their ballot; more people interested on what’s going on in the city in terms of elections.

Opponents of the measure believe there are some concerns about how it will extend how long people are elected for, and there’s concerns about that. There’s just concern that city based issues, city based elections are going to fall to the rear side in those elections. 

SIROVY: I can see both sides of that, like, playing out. I understand both sides there. So, last episode we talked about the trifecta here in Minnesota. Let’s talk about that as we’re getting closer to this. So, what does this upcoming election, upcoming presidential election, mean for the trifecta here in Minnesota? 

O’CONNOR: Yes, so this upcoming election is going to decide if the trifecta is going to last another two years. DFL was calling, or I guess I should clarify, DFL, the Democratic Farmers Labor Party, otherwise known as the Democrats here in Minnesota. They hold both the Senate, state Senate, state House, the governorship, which basically allows them to pass almost anything they want as long as they have a unified party support. 

They pass many, many, many different things if you are paying attention. This upcoming election is going to decide if we’re going to see a part two of that. DFL was calling it the “Minnesota miracle.” Republicans were very upset with how the DFL used extra state funds. So, voters are basically going to decide if they want to see this again. 

SIROVY: Why should voters care about this trifecta? 

O’CONNOR: Yeah, so, if you’re a voter who believes that the “Minnesota miracle,” as the DFL puts it, was something that was really great. That something that really benefited our state, that had just so many good, positive things, then they’re gonna want to see this trifecta remain. With the trifecta, the Democrats don’t really need to coordinate with Republicans. Not that they don’t, but they don’t really need their approval for what gets passed. 

And so they can continue to do the kinds of things that they did the last two years. But if you’re conservative minded, you don’t think that the state legislature really had your best interest these last two years, then you’re going to want to see that changed. With Republican control of just one of those branches, we will see a drastically different two years.

SIROVY: What are the specific races that will decide if that trifecta remains? Like, is it the House? Is it the Senate? 

O’CONNOR: Yeah, it’s definitely going to be the state Senate this year. State House seems like it’s going to be a safe DFL and in terms of which state senate seats are the ones to watch, it’s going to be a lot of the suburb races. Here in Minneapolis, it seems pretty cut and dry that it’s going to be DFL. In some of those deeper, rural areas, it’s gonna be Republican. 

So, some of, if you live in the suburbs, if you vote in the suburbs, those are some really important races you’re really gonna want to vote on. So some of those suburban, places like Chanhassen, Bloomington, Cottage Grove, Lino Lakes — those have a lot of important state Senate races. And if the DFL can retain at least nine, or I guess win nine of those key races, then they will retain theirs. If Republicans can switch a few more of those, then they get it. 

SIROVY: Do you have any predictions for that? 

O’CONNOR: It’s really hard to say for all of them. I think Republicans are gonna switch the state Senate this year. I think this is gonna be, they’re gonna just narrowly take it. 

SIROVY: Let’s talk about that Senate race. Senator Klobuchar, versus the opponent, Royce White, how do we think that’s going to go? 

O’CONNOR: Klobuchar is going to win. I’m sorry to the Royce White fans listening, but it’s just not really going to be a close election. Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which is an election forecaster, has listed the seat as a safe democratic hold. And Royce White just really is not doing himself any favors. He keeps coming out with comments that are concerning for a moderate voter, and just, he’s a really active poster on Twitter.

SIROVY: Maybe not a good thing. 

O’CONNOR: Not a good thing. There are a few different ones that I’ve just been noticing. I recall one where in a post, he basically just says something, I don’t know, he gets aggressive about people who aren’t in support of some of his policies. Someone replies to him saying like, “Oh, hey, I saw you in one of your, I saw you down in the suburbs once. I thought you had some good ideas. I’m a supporter, but you need to be concerned about this. I don’t want us to lose these type of people.” 

And Royce White basically just responds with like, “Man, screw you. If you’re not a supporter, you’re not on board.” And then the guy just responds like, “OK, I guess you just lost my vote.” I think that’s just the kind of thing that shows that Royce White isn’t really ready for the big time. 

SIROVY: That’s a little aggressive to be playing out like the people that are gonna vote for you. 

O’CONNOR: Yeah, I think Royce White is misunderstanding what he needs to do in order to win. Royce White needs to kind of convince those suburban voters that Amy Klobuchar doesn’t really have their interests at heart, that she isn’t really concerned about Minnesota, and he needs to kind of like, portray himself as more of a unifying figure that he can bring balance. But he just really isn’t doing that. He’s heavily leaning into that Trump-era-Republican politics. And I’m just, don’t believe that’s going to resonate in Minnesota.

SIROVY: I heard that he’s gonna have a watch party for election night. 

O’CONNOR: Yes, Spencer really wants to go to it. So, I’m sure I will send him that way and he will have his fun.

SIROVY: I just need someone to be there so that they can talk about, so that they can talk about what they saw cause I think it’s, incredible. It’s kind of funny. Incredible, maybe not. Funny, yes. 

O’CONNOR: You know, I think sometimes politics can seem a little serious. Sometimes it’s fun to just take a step back and see it as a game, and it’s kind of funny that way.

SIROVY: Yeah. I’m thinking that Royce White sees it as a little too much of a game, though instead of politics. 

O’CONNOR: Yeah, sometimes you need to lock in a little, and I don’t know if he’s doing that.

SIROVY: Yeah, from what I can tell, probably not.

O’CONNOR: No. 

SIROVY: Alright, so let’s talk about the presidential election, the big one. How will Minnesota vote as a whole?

O’CONNOR: Yeah, Minnesota is likely to vote Democratic. Sabato’s Crystal Ball, again the same election forecaster, lists it as a likely Democratic hold. It doesn’t really seem like it’s gonna be a flip. JD Vance has made a few visits to Minnesota. Donald Trump had made one a few months ago, I believe.

But, with Tim Walz on the ballot, with just how Minnesota politics are, it just doesn’t really seem like this is going to be the year Republicans can take Minnesota. 

SIROVY: For the presidential election, is it just going to be Minneapolis, and like, the Duluth area more blue, and the rest of the state red, or what’s kind of the divide there?

O’CONNOR: Yeah, so, like every other state basically, the heavily urban areas of Minnesota drive the politics here, drive the results of elections here. However, the urban areas aren’t quite large enough to single handedly decide it like it would be in Illinois with Chicago. So, if a Republican candidate hypothetically just dominated the suburbs, they could win an election. That is very doable, but just no Republican has really been able to tap into that for quite some time now. 

SIROVY: What are the counties in Minnesota that are usually blue and usually red?

O’CONNOR: It’s just going to be decided in those suburban areas surrounding the Twin Cities. And also in kind of the suburban areas of Duluth. St. Cloud itself is kind of, iffy on which way it goes.

SIROVY: It’s usually a mix, yeah. 

O’CONNOR: Yeah. 

SIROVY: What else is on the ballot that we should be watching out for? 

O’CONNOR: There’s another statewide ballot question. This one will decide whether lottery funds will be used for conservation efforts. Lottery funds have been used for conservation efforts for the last, I think it’s three decades now. Minnesota has already voted twice before on renewing that, and essentially this is going to be Minnesota deciding to renew that once more. Based on polling, based on how Minnesota goes, it seems like this is going to be a yes. We are going to use lottery funds for conservation efforts once again. 

SIROVY: And what do you mean by lottery funds? 

O’CONNOR: So essentially like the money that’s made from the lottery.

SIROVY: So like people buying the tickets?

O’CONNOR: Yes. Yes. Money made from that. 

SIROVY: Do you know what sort of conservation stuff, some of it has been used for in the past? 

O’CONNOR: Yeah. Yeah. It doesn’t have to be used for like one specific thing, but I know river cleanups, some of those like clean air initiatives, trash pickups, things like that. That’s what all of this goes for. It’s pretty important if you’re someone who is concerned about environmental protection, and this is going to be really key. 

In the hypothetical scenario in which this is voted against, that would be very consequential in terms of how all of those environmental protection efforts are going to get their money. A lot of the key stuff, a lot of what the environmental protection efforts rely on is those state funds. And a lot of those state funds come from the lottery. 

SIROVY: I had no idea about that. 

O’CONNOR: Yeah. 

SIROVY: You said for the past three decades? 

O’CONNOR: Yeah, Minnesota has voted twice in the past on basically the same ballot question.

SIROVY: I had no idea about that. I was wondering where they get some of that money. I wish they got more of it, but oh well. Let’s talk about predictions, specifically for the swing states, because I think that’s super important. 

O’CONNOR: Yes. So, election forecasters are basically saying there are seven swing states that you really need to watch out for. Those states are Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. In the last election in which Biden won, Biden won all of those except North Carolina. This time around, North Carolina is one of those swing states that’s being added on. Partially because of demographic changes. Partially because their senate candidate, Mark Robinson, has had his fair share of scandals that are really costing him votes and that’s probably going to hurt Republicans up the ballot.

SIROVY: He doesn’t seem too well liked over there. 

O’CONNOR: No, I believe the last time I checked his polling was around like 41%, which is like atrocious in North Carolina.

SIROVY: OK. So what about all the other swing states?

O’CONNOR: Yeah. All the other states are expected to be pretty safe. Minnesota here, as we mentioned, should be democratic. All the surrounding states — the Dakotas, Missouri, Iowa should be pretty safe Republican. But, in terms of how the swing states will go, this is my official prediction, I can put money on this; I think the Democrats are going to have a pretty good night. I think they’re going to take six of the seven. I think they’ll have all of them except Georgia, in which I do believe Republicans take it back.

SIROVY: What are the factors, cause they had, the Democrats had Georgia in the last election. Why aren’t they gonna have it in this one? 

O’CONNOR: Yeah, so last time around when Georgia was a really important state that Democrats managed to switch. There were two very important senate races that Democrats both took the Senate, but they were also very crucial in driving voter turnout. 

And I think that is why we saw so many Democratic voters come out in droves in Georgia, which ultimately allowed Biden to take that state. But this time around, I don’t believe there are any senate seats. You might have to fact check me on that. I don’t believe Georgia has any senate seats up for reelection.

SIROVY: Well, I will certainly be a lookout for that. This is a question I have for you based on what you’ve seen, kind of, in your reporting and as a City Desk editor. Do Minnesotans like Gov. Tim Walz as the vice presidential candidate for the Democrats?

O’CONNOR: That’s a really important question, especially with Tim Walz being our governor. Tim Walz, by large margins, is heavily liked by Minnesotans. Even, according to favorability ratings, ever since he’s become the VP candidate, he’s actually become more well liked in Minnesota, but obviously there are still people within the state. 

My own aunt is not the fan of Gov. Tim Walz, but I think Tim Walz at the end of the day is really helping Democrats on the ballot here in Minnesota. He’s bringing a lot of likability to the Kamala Harris campaign that I think is really important for a presidential election. 

SIROVY: That Midwestern dad energy. I’ve been seeing memes about that. It’s pretty fun. What are some of the concerns of the people who do not like Gov. Tim Walz as the vice presidential candidate?

O’CONNOR: You know, a lot of conservatives have painted him as like this very progressive governor. Someone who is very far left. Well, I will, probably wouldn’t go that far myself in saying that he’s of some far left candidate, like a Bernie Sanders type. I would say that that is definitely going to be a concern. With the Minnesota miracle, Democrats were able to get a lot of what they wanted passed. And if a Republican sees all those things, they don’t like the legalization of marijuana. They don’t like the raising of taxes. They don’t want to see more funding going towards this program or that program, then they might think Tim Walz isn’t the kind of guy that they want to see in the White House. 

SIROVY: Do you have anything else about the election that you kind of want to talk about in a question that I didn’t ask? 

O’CONNOR: Let’s see. I guess I think I’ll just make a quick note about the Congressional House and Congressional Senate races. According to polling, and this is probably also what I believe, Democrats will probably, in my mind, take back the House with a very slight majority, probably like in the 220s range. But, the Senate map looks really terrible for Democrats. It looks like they’re going to lose one or two seats, which means that they will lose the Senate. So, yeah. 

SIROVY: Well, I hope everyone has a chance to go out and vote this year. I know I will. I’m super excited to exercise my right to vote. I will be early voting because I do not, as a student, have time on election day. Anything else before we head out? 

O’CONNOR: Just make sure to vote. 

SIROVY: Alright. This episode was produced by Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we appreciate you listening in, and feel free to leave us an email at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments, questions or concerns. I’m Kaylie. 

O’CONNOR: I’m the election nerd, Jack O’Connor.

SIROVY: The election nerd, OK. And this has been In The Know.

OLIVIA HINES: Well, I have a story that I want to tell you that I don’t think, maybe I told you, maybe I didn’t tell you. So anyway, when I was eating my Honeycrisp apple, a bee got really up close and personal with me. This one didn’t sting me, but earlier this week, I did get stung by a bee in class. It was in my hair. I was fixing my ponytail. 

Figured out that there was something in my hair, pulled it out and it was a bee and it stung me on my thumb and it hurt really bad and I’ve never been stung by a bee before. So for those first two minutes, I was thinking, am I, you know, am I going to go into anaphylactic shock? Am I going to figure out that I have an allergy? Am I going to die in this class where I’m learning about romantic era poetry. Like who wants to die in that class? You know? 

KAYLIE SIROVY: Oh, that’s funny.

HINES: Yeah, so, PSA, please be careful guys about fixing your ponytails when you’ve been outside because you might have a bee stuck in it. Of all the ways that I thought I would get stung by a bee. 

SIROVY: That’s not one of them. 

HINES: That was not, no. 

SIROVY: Hello, everyone. My name is Kaylie Sirovy, your host from the Minnesota Daily. Right now, you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota, and today in the studio with me, I have Olivia Hines. Hi, Olivia. 

HINES: Hi, Kaylie. I’m the campus admin desk editor. So, I manage a group of five people who cover administration at the university. We cover the Board of Regents, as well as research and faculty and staff issues. Recently, we’ve been covering the protests that have been happening on campus, the inauguration that happened yesterday.

I also recently covered Provost Croson’s no confidence vote and the conflict of interest when it comes to Cunningham appointing her to hand select a faculty led committee to look into academic freedom and hiring policies that she herself violated. 

SIROVY: So you have been very busy lately is what I’m hearing. 

HINES: I have been. I’m like in communications with some people right now trying to get some data requests, uh, specifically regarding the story about Provost Croson and the university and its decision to rescind Raz Segal’s offer. 

SIROVY: So are you going to do a follow up piece to the one that you previously did? 

HINES: The plan is to do that, yes. It depends on what I learn.

SIROVY: So let’s talk about President Cunningham’s inauguration yesterday. I remember walking out of class, it’s like 4:30 p.m., and there’s a lot of people outside of Northrop. Some who are in favor of President Cunningham, and some who are not. So, let’s talk about that. 

HINES: Yeah, so it was obviously a very big celebration for anybody who was there. There were roughly 200 protesters based on my interviews that I had with student organizers. There were about 40 to 50, maybe, protesters in the inauguration that disrupted the official ceremony that was happening inside Northrop. 

SIROVY: Oh yeah, so inside Northrop, okay.

HINES: Yeah, there were about 200 outside Northrop. I think people are just really frustrated with how administration has handled the Israel Palestine conflict, especially since at this point in time, it’s very clear there is a genocide happening in Gaza. You just need to look at the numbers to know and talk to experts to understand that this is what is happening.

President Cunningham is coming in at such a difficult and tumultuous time, and I think it doesn’t help with past administration’s decision, Ettinger and Croson’s decision to not hire Raz Segal because of his expert opinion about how Israel’s involvement in Palestine is textbook genocide. But also the decision to consolidate protest policies that weren’t initially reinforced to kind of outline a plan to police these policies. 

These very restrictive policies, feels like you’re stepping on free speech and the right to protest. From my understanding, a lot of student groups on campus, especially like SDS, Students for a Democrat Society, and UMN Divest Coalition, are having about biweekly meetings with the president. There was initially promises made in spring 2024 for full disclosure and transparency of investments as well as working with Palestinian universities and admitting displaced Palestinian students, among other requests that the university has not fulfilled on the promise to meet those requests. 

And at this point in time, it really feels like students aren’t being heard. That administration is really ignoring their concerns, but saying that they are listening and that they do care and that students, they appreciate their right to talk about issues of public concern. 

SIROVY: On the Daily article that you wrote about this, I see a whole bunch of signs that they were holding up. What were some of the ones that, like, kind of stuck out to you?

HINES: There were a lot. Yesterday, I noticed, “Cunningham you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” That’s a really big one that goes around. The classic ones are, “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest.” “Free Palestine,” is something you will always see. 

There was a very big red banner that says, I believe it says, “We are the red line, Netanyahu kills children.” Something along those lines. It’s always the same message, but it’s a very provocative message, especially with the images and videos circulating on the internet right now of the violence that Palestinians are experiencing in Gaza. 

SIROVY: I also saw that President Cunningham came outside after her inauguration. What were some of her reactions as she was like coming outside? 

HINES: I didn’t see a reaction to be honest. 

SIROVY: So kind of just blank face?

HINES: Blank face. It’s like she was, she was very much happy, it seemed, to have listened to the Red Tree Singers Drum group. And she thanked them. Everyone went silent at that point out of respect. 

She thanked them for their performance, but after that was done, students started yelling at her, shouting at her saying, “Cunningham, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” and then she was escorted away. 

SIROVY: So, like, immediately after?

HINES: Immediately after, yeah. It was, like, in the span of maybe five, ten minutes. It happened so quickly, and I did not see a reaction from her at all besides her thanking the drummers.

SIROVY: Also, another article that you did was about Provost Croson. 

HINES: Yes. 

SIROVY: Who is also kind of under fire right now? 

HINES: Yes. Actually, I did write about this in the piece, I wrote about the inauguration yesterday, but a bunch of faculty members were there wearing black t-shirts that said, “Respect the no confidence vote.” And in my article what I write about is that the no confidence vote means, it calls for a change in leadership. 

It’s very clear based on Croson’s involvement as Chief Academic Officer that she was supposed to advise President Jeff Ettinger to follow academic freedom and hiring policies as outlined by the Board of Regents and the CLA Constitution. 

Neither of them did and now we’re in the current state that we’re in right now. It just feels a little, I’m trying to find the right word, it feels a little out of touch for Cunningham to step into this and to have chosen Croson who faculty, they voted no confidence in her. 

They don’t want her to be the Chief Academic Officer anymore because of her involvement in the rescinding of Raz Segal’s offer. It feels a little bit out of touch to have selected her to look into how academic freedom and hiring policies intersect. It doesn’t make sense. It’s a conflict of interest.

I tried to get a comment on it and I was unable to. There are some rumors circulating about her, Croson, being aware of what she was doing and that people, faculty would not be happy with that decision.

SIROVY: As you are writing these pieces and researching for them, what are your feelings about this? Like as either as a student or as a journalist or both. 

HINES: Well, I think it comes down to this. I love the university. I love it so much that I want to hold it accountable, and that I want it to be better. I love the education that I’m getting here. So much so that I want faculty to have the opportunities that they deserve. I don’t want their academic freedom to be violated as much as I don’t want my own academic freedom to be violated.

 I want the best faculty possible to be working here at this institution because it is a very good institution and what it provides educationally. I think it’s very frustrating to see and not even for myself, but for everybody else here at the university, it’s very frustrating to see how administration has been handling conflicts over the course of this year. 

SIROVY: Is it specifically, like, these two conflicts, or has something else come up within the past year?

HINES: It’s mostly just, like, I mean, since Oct. 7, that it’s, like, students started protesting immediately because they recognized that the amount of force that Israel was bringing into Gaza wasn’t appropriate. That it was extreme. 

Then experts started to weigh in, such as Raz Segal, and then it became very clear based on the numbers and especially after seeing the violence that’s happening that this is a genocide. The university kind of dragged their feet, especially the Board of Regents, about how to handle that. 

Once calls for divestment came up, it took a very long time. It took until this summer for the board to even consider it. And then they decided to like adopt institution neutrality, which is something that they hadn’t done before. 

And I think if they had done that before Oct. 7, or immediately after, if they had adopted institution neutrality, I think it would have gone over a little bit better. But they waited so long to address the issue that at this point, by choosing to adopt institutional neutrality, a lot of students see it as them supporting genocide.

SIROVY: I’ve noticed that on campus there’s a lot of people supporting Palestine in this issue and like the clubs that are protesting against President Cunningham like SDS. So it’s definitely not like a small majority either. 

HINES: No, it is a very large majority, and even those who are not active in the groups on campus, it’s like you can talk to anybody really. It’s gonna be mostly the same conclusion which is that it’s not okay that the genocide is happening. It’s kind of as simple as that.

I mean, there are concerns from students and faculty as well about safety because they are Jewish or Israeli, and that’s been raised. There’s just been a lot of mobilization of students in support of Palestine in more significant numbers than there has been in support of Israel.

SIROVY: For these pieces, what I also really want to talk about is some of the comments. 

HINES: Yeah, let me pull that up really quickly. Okay. 

SIROVY: For the protesting President Cunningham, as we’re recording this right now, there’s about four. One is specifically, he signed his name as a math professor here at the U. He said this in also the Provost Croson piece. It’s really just faculty speaking out. And I was kind of surprised about it.

HINES: Yeah, faculty definitely have opinions on what’s happening on campus because these are their students. They’re involved in their lives, they teach them, and also I think it’s just they’re people with opinions. And they see what’s happening and they have their thoughts on what is wrong or right or what the university should or shouldn’t do. 

William Messing, who you’re referring to. Yeah, he’s commented on the last two, and we’ve noticed that. So, shout out to William, I guess. 

SIROVY: We see you, but some of these other comments, they’ve got things to say. What did KG say on that other comment? 

HINES: Oh gosh, yeah, let me pull that up. Oh, KG has this whole long thing. “Escalating the near hiring of Raz Segal, a CHGS director, into an academic freedom issue is misleading.” The problem with that is that it’s not misleading. It is an academic freedom issue. As it is in the Board of Regents policy for academic freedom and responsibility, is that academic freedom pertains to everybody who is studying, researching, teaching or talking about things of public concern. 

It shields them, protects them from institutional, discipline or involvement. In this case, Raz Segal, an acknowledged expert in genocide who works at Stockton University gave his expert opinion on what was happening in Gaza. The university, because of some complaints from the community, President Ettinger decided to pause that search, and then rescind the offer. And it was based on what he said. So, it was a violation of his academic freedom because he shouldn’t have had his offer removed because of his expert opinion.

SIROVY: Did they, like, explicitly say that? 

HINES: The university has not explicitly said that, nor will they. But it is very clear that that was the decision that was made.

SIROVY: What’s the timeline there? 

HINES: Oh, I have the timeline. So, I think his, or, from June to July. I think the offer was sent to Segal June 5 and then the offer was rescinded. It was very quick and then it was announced publicly at the Board of Regents meetings, which are available to everybody.

SIROVY: I encourage you to listen in on them. 

HINES: They’re boring.

SIROVY: Yes.

HINES: But they are important. 

SIROVY: They are important especially as students. 

HINES: I honestly really love going to those meetings and seeing and hearing what’s happening. But also it’s an academic freedom issue because now they’re, it’s like this is a center for holocaust and genocide studies. What’s going to happen for future directors if they can’t talk about genocide or the holocaust without the fear of being fired. 

And it’s like you see people, they keep bringing up Oct. 7 and the Hamas attack. And yeah, that’s a terrible thing, 1,200 people were killed, but roughly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and about 90,000 severely injured. It’s like those numbers don’t really compare.

SIROVY: And I noticed for the provost story that you did, you talked to Michael Gallope. 

HINES: Yes.

SIROVY: He is also the CSCL (Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature) department head. Oh, he’s such an amazing dude just to talk to.

HINES: I really enjoy talking to him. I did a background interview with him initially just to establish a good relationship with him. And then we did an on the record interview and I learned a lot from both of those interviews. I’m very happy with working with him and how that story turned out because of his involvement. 

And also, William Jones as well, who I interviewed for the story, too. And he’s the Twin Cities AAUP. The American Association of University Professors. He’s the Twin Cities chapter president. 

SIROVY: Okay.

HINES: So he was also there yesterday. I saw him at the inauguration. He was wearing one of the Respect the No Confidence Vote t-shirts. It’s great. 

SIROVY: So like, as you’re looking out in the crowd, how many people were wearing those shirts?

HINES: It was, they had gone into the inauguration and then once the protesters disrupted the ceremony, they stepped out. And it was maybe ten people about. I don’t know if all of them were a part of AAUP or if it was just a select few faculty members but it was really great to see that. 

And they came outside, and they watched the protest happen, and I took a photo of them together with their t-shirts, said, “Hi” to William, and yeah. So I wasn’t inside for the ceremony. 

SIROVY: Okay.

HINES: I did have help with reporting this. My reporter Tyler Church was inside during the inauguration itself and I was outside covering the protest that was happening. They were a little bit early. 

We thought the protest was going to start about 2:30 p.m. and it started around 2:15 p.m. ish. So, and by that time they had amassed a fair amount of numbers. So it was, I would say fairly well organized for a protest. I think they’ve definitely gotten a lot more organized over the course of the year.

SIROVY: They’ve been doing a lot of protests. 

HINES: Yeah, they’ve had three so far. The first two were about 100 people and this is the biggest one they’ve had yet. 

SIROVY: You think that number is just going to grow? Or do you think that they’re kind of like leveling out? 

HINES: I think this number might grow as we get closer to Oct. 7. Their calls have been, like it’s been almost a year at this point.

SIROVY: Yeah, and I think that we forget that from time to time. 

HINES: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Because, especially as students, we kind of live just in our homework, in our classes, and the days just kind of go by and we don’t really recognize that some of this stuff is also going on at the same time.

HINES: Yeah, and it’s okay to like, live your life. Do the things you need to do. But I think it’s like you need to be able to understand other people’s perspectives on what is happening and the fact that there are people who are dying right now.

SIROVY: Is there anything about these stories that, like, you didn’t write in the articles that you, like, want to speak your mind about?

HINES: There were a lot of things I didn’t include in the inauguration piece that I wish I did. It’s like, I only have one line about the Red Tree Singers drum group, and I really wish that I would have put in more about them, that I would have talked to them and interviewed them. 

There was so much happening that it was kind of like, when you’re in a position like that, you have to choose what you think is the most newsworthy thing that’s happening, and I think the protest that was happening was definitely more important. I wish I would have been able to talk to the faculty wearing the t-shirts.  

SIROVY: Were you not able to? 

HINES: I wasn’t able to interview them. I did talk to William, but I wasn’t able to interview them. I also wasn’t able to interview any of the vendors that were setting up. Even about their setup, I couldn’t even interview them about that. They were concerned. They were told not to talk to anybody about the protest happening. 

 SIROVY: Oh, interesting. 

HINES: Yes. I’m not sure who exactly told them. The person that I had talked to just raised some concerns and just didn’t want to get in trouble for talking to a reporter about their set up or about the protest happening. Just wanted to give people apples and corn, you know. 

So that was the food that was available at the celebration. So my partner Jay said that he, said that he skipped part of work to go to this celebration, which he didn’t even know was happening. Even though I told him about it and like this is happening and I’m covering it. He wasn’t aware. 

 SIROVY: The dots weren’t connecting. 

HINES: Yeah, they were not connecting at all. And he texts me while I’m finishing reporting this story and I’m asking him like, “Did you check on the dog?” And he’s like, “No, but I ate five pieces of corn and they ran out.” 

SIROVY: Five corn cobs?

HINES: Five whole corn cobs he ate. And I was like, “Okay, so you didn’t have time to take our dog out, but you did have time to eat five corn cobs.” Okay. I love you for that. It was all good though. 

SIROVY: That’s such a Minnesota thing to do, though, even though I know he’s not Minnesotan.

HINES: Yeah, it is very Minnesotan. 

SIROVY: He’s just eating corn. 

HINES: He said it was the best corn that he’s ever had, so shout out to the vendors, honestly, for making some really good corn. I guess the record was eight corn cobs. 

SIROVY: Yesterday? 

HINES: From what I was told, somebody ate eight corn cobs and. 

SIROVY: Kudos to them, man. Was it just corn and apples, or was there other food? Cause I remember seeing like other vendors set up.

HINES: I think there were some other foods. I saw someone with pizza, but I only noticed the corn and the apples to be honest. And I did get an apple. I got a Honeycrisp. I love it. It’s my favorite apple.

SIROVY: It is also my favorite apple. 

HINES: It’s just it’s called Honeycrisp. It’s sweet. It’s crunchy. It’s perfect. Like what, you couldn’t ask for a better apple. It was delicious. 

SIROVY: It’s the corn and the Honeycrisp they decided to choose, like.

HINES: They had a few other apple variations, but I forgot what the other two were. 

SIROVY: What an interesting combination.

HINES: That was the most Minnesotan thing that I have ever seen is like, it was also such an odd dichotomy. To go from covering this protest. People shouting and yelling at the Board of Regents and other upper administrators and President Cunningham and carrying these flags. 

And there was one kid with like a bullhorn that he made me take a picture of him. I caught him in a video that I was taking because some members of the board and administration decided to do a photo op on the stairs outside of Northrop. 

It was like, so, I was trying to take a video of them assembling to do this photo op outside on the stairs of Northrop which is right where the protest is happening. And then turn over to where the the protesters are shouting and chanting and the speakers are.

SIROVY: They had like games out on the lawn too. They had like bags, and they a whole bunch of seating. 

HINES: Yeah, and then like down on onto the mall. That’s it was like, you know, food games, vendors. Yeah, it was very simple, but I think the expectation was definitely for it to be a wholesome event. 

SIROVY: don’t know if wholesome was the end product. 

HINES: Definitely did not feel like wholesome what happened. President Cunningham, I think, was supposed to give a speech and she wasn’t able to.

SIROVY: Oh, outside? 

HINES: Yeah. The band was supposed to.

SIROVY: Oh, I saw that. Yeah. 

HINES: To perform outside and they weren’t able to. Some things were canceled. I think the cheerleaders were supposed to do a performance and they weren’t able to either. We saw them outside. 

There were plans that were set in place that weren’t fulfilled because of that. But it was an eventful day. It was a fun day. It was great. What happened yesterday is like, this is why I’m a journalist, you know? 

SIROVY: Yep. These are the moments that like we kind of live for. 

HINES: Yeah. It was messy and dramatic.

SIROVY: I do remember, um, like when I was walking to class, I do remember seeing a lot of cop cars. Did anyone get like suspended from these protests?

HINES: There were threats definitely for suspension. I do not know if any of those threats were followed through. Um, there were threats during the inauguration for people who disrupted the ceremony. I do not know what happened to any of those people. 

It’s definitely something I’ll be following up on. And there were threats that were made outside for the protesters. The protesters became very loud and angry once those threats were made. And then they quieted down and then they had a prayer session. An Islamic prayer session. 

SIROVY: What a day. 

HINES: Yeah, again, and a lot of things happened and it’s kind of like, I wrote up about four pages.

SIROVY: There’s so much more that you could have written about. 

HINES: Exactly. And it’s kind of like, what’s most important? What do I need to include in this? It’s like, Cunningham at a panel earlier that day, talking about health and all areas of health: agricultural health, economic health, like physical health, public health for people.

There was protests that happened that I was covering. 

Tyler covered the inauguration inside. We all eventually met outside, and so many things kept stacking on top of each other. Of, this is happening right here, this isn’t happening now, it’s like, who do we talk to? It’s like, I definitely, there’s things that I wish I would have been able to talk to the faculty or some other students who weren’t organizers of the event. 

SIROVY: There was just people just standing and watching.

 HINES: Yeah, there were people who were just viewers. Talk to the regents even. I’m very familiar with what the regents look like, so it was very funny walking around and like spotting them in the crowd.

There was a lot of familiar faces.

SIROVY: Are there any pieces right now that you guys are doing about, or like any, like, ones in the coming days about President Cunningham or the Board of Regents?

HINES: So, definitely we’re probably going to be doing a follow up on the inauguration and seeing if any students were suspended for protesting. Definitely we are going to be doing a poll on Cunningham’s likability. 

SIROVY: On a scale of like 1 to 10? 

HINES: Kind of just like, do you like her? Yes, no. 

SIROVY: I would love to see the numbers on that. 

HINES: I’m really curious to see, kind of like, because everything that I think right now is based off of the conversations that I’ve had with only select few of people who are involved in the community. I would like to see the bigger numbers and the bigger picture at hand because maybe she is more liked than we think or maybe what people are saying is true and people don’t really like her.

SIROVY: Sorry, that kind of took me out there. 

HINES: She’s the face of the university, so she’s going to get a lot of flack for what happens. 

SIROVY: Alright, this episode was produced by Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we appreciate you listening in, and feel free to leave us an email at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments, questions or concerns. I’m Kaylie. 

HINES: And I’m Olivia. 

SIROVY: And this has been In The Know.

 

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hello, everyone. My name is Kaylie Sirovy, your host from the Minnesota Daily. Right now, you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. With me in the studio today is Claudia Garcia, our opinions editor. She is here to talk about some of the new state fair food that they are unveiling this year. Welcome, Claudia. 

CLAUDIA GARCIA: Hi, thanks for having me. 

SIROVY: As everyone knows, some of the state fair foods are pretty classic. We got Sweet Martha’s cookies. We got the corn on the cob. What else do we have? 

GARCIA: Fries. 

SIROVY: Oh, the fries are good. 

GARCIA: The lemonade. 

SIROVY: Oh, the lemonade stands, yeah. There are a few lemonade stands, though, that I think they watered down the lemonade.

GARCIA: Oh, yeah. For sure. 

SIROVY: And I go, ‘That’s mean”. One of my favorites is the mini donuts. 

GARCIA: Oh, yeah. 

SIROVY: I love going for the mini donuts. 

GARCIA: Of course. 

SIROVY: But some of the new ones this year are, I know we have, it’s from Tasti Whip, the Chili Mango Whip. So it’s mango Dole soft serve with chamoy and Tajín with tamarind candy, what is it, straw? Ugh, that sounds fantastic. 

GARCIA: I saw that, and I just really want to get that now. 

SIROVY: Yeah. 

GARCIA: Like it looks so good. 

SIROVY: Yeah, some of the other stuff we have from Sausage Sister and Me, I don’t know where that one is. It’s Three Piggy Pals on a stick, so it’s smoked sausage slices wrapped in bacon filled with cream cheese and drizzled with barbecue sauce and then with a jalapeno slice on top. How does that one sound to you?

GARCIA: I mean it sounds so American. 

SIROVY: It really does! 

GARCIA: So, I don’t know, I would try it though, but I don’t know if I’d like it. I don’t know if it’s something I would go and buy again, you know, but I would definitely try it. 

SIROVY: You would have to try it once, yeah. 

GARCIA: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Yeah, and then from our own Afro Deli here on campus, we got Afropoppers. These look fantastic. 

GARCIA: They look delish. 

SIROVY: It’s like just pastries with spices, vanilla, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and then deep fried and coated with coconut flakes, sugar, or just served plain. Oh my gosh. 

GARCIA: Dude. 

SIROVY: Every time I go to the State Fair, I go, “Don’t eat so much. You’re just there to have a good time.” And then that’s all I do is eat.

GARCIA: No, I’m there to eat. I don’t know about you. I’m there to eat as much. 

SIROVY: Do you go on any of the rides? 

GARCIA: I used to when I was younger, you know, with my friends, but now I just go to get snacks. To get, like, you know, just glutton out. 

SIROVY: I also go to people watch, that’s fun. 

GARCIA: Oh, me and my mom love to do that, too. 

SIROVY: I just sit on a little bench. 

GARCIA: Yes.

SIROVY: And for like, just like 10 minutes, I just stare at people walking by.

GARCIA: Yeah, you’re just munching on your food and just watching, like, I love that. I love people watching.

SIROVY: Where do you mostly go when you go to the State Fair? Like, what are the sections? 

GARCIA: Okay, so, I immediately, when I walk in, go for the fried pickles. 

SIROVY: Oh! 

GARCIA: I love fried pickles and I saw that they have those same fried pickles in Goldie’s Game Room. 

SIROVY: They do? 

GARCIA: Yep, and when I found out, it was just new this just past year, and ever since I found out about that, I’ve been going and getting. 

SIROVY: That’s the first thing you go is a fried pickle. 

GARCIA: Fried pickles. Yeah. I love fried pickles. And then my family and I love the Australian potatoes. 

SIROVY: I don’t know what those are. 

GARCIA: Have you tried?

SIROVY: No.

GARCIA: Oh my God, you have to go. You have to go. 

SIROVY: What are they? 

GARCIA: They’re like kind of like hash brownish, but not really. 

SIROVY: Okay. 

GARCIA: They come with different sauces and we get the chipotle sauce, which I think is the best sauce. And it’s so, oh my God, it’s delish. It’s so good. It’s greasy, but I don’t care. It’s so, so good. 

SIROVY: All the state fair food is greasy. Let’s be honest. 

GARCIA: It’s like, you have to like go in knowing that, you know. There’s gonna be nothing that’s not fried. 

SIROVY: They have like healthy options, but like no one. No one really.

GARCIA: It’s still fried. 

SIROVY: It’s still fried. Have you tried, I know last year that they had pickle pizza. 

GARCIA: Oh. 

SIROVY: Did you not see that? 

GARCIA: That doesn’t sound appetizing to me? 

SIROVY: I was walking by, and I remember what the line was ridiculous. It was just down the street. I don’t know how they’re handling that. I was like, why would you want pickle pizza? Just get the big pickle.

GARCIA: No, I would, yeah, big pickle is also a good one. Oh, of course, Sweet Martha’s Cookies. 

SIROVY: Yep, yep. 

GARCIA: We usually try to go towards the end and then we take them home. 

SIROVY: A lot of people tell me that they do that. 

GARCIA: Yeah. It’s strategy. 

SIROVY: I like getting it because I can munch, like early, because I can munch on cookies all day.

GARCIA: Oh. 

SIROVY: I like having the the little box because then when I finish it, I can put stuff in there. 

GARCIA: Oh wait, that is so smart. 

SIROVY: Right? Right? 

GARCIA: See, I don’t know. I feel like I am more drawn to like salty savory than sweet, so I end everything with sweet. So I feel like having that after I’ve eaten so much like fried food is nice, especially later at home. You know, drive home, eat nothing, and then eat all these cookies at home. 

SIROVY: Yep. What other spots do you like to go to? 

GARCIA: You know, it’s not food, but I love the little – the U of M will have, like, their, what is it, the animals?

SIROVY: Oh, the farm. 

GARCIA: The farm. 

SIROVY: The little farm with the little babies. 

GARCIA: Okay, I love going there. And then, I can’t think of what it is or why it’s there. Oh, I think it’s for like flowers and like kind of gardening and then they kind of make it into like a theme. 

SIROVY: Oh, it’s not, it’s not the, is it the barn? No, it’s not the barn.

GARCIA: No.

SIROVY: But I know because, and they have like the little sections with like, there’s like trees in one corner. They have flowers. There’s like an apple spot. 

GARCIA: Yep. There’s a bunch of flowers. Like a room of like. 

SIROVY: Yes. and it’s like a competition, too. So you get to see like these flower arrangements that like. 

SIROVY: They had a Shrek one last year. 

GARCIA: Yes. 

SIROVY: And I took a picture next to it 

GARCIA: Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.

SIROVY: Yeah. 

GARCIA: Yeah, I love going in there cause they’re so cool. Like they’re so creative and people put so much time and effort and it’s just so cool to see. And then they also have like the flower arrangement competition. My mom and I love to go look at flowers. Their flowers are so pretty so.

SIROVY: I mean you’re so right.

GARCIA: Yeah, so take a little break and just walk through there.

SIROV: Yeah. 

GARCIA: It’s really nice.

SIROVY: They also have a section where you can look at like the biggest produce that they have, like the giant pumpkins. 

GARCIA: Oh, I think, yep.

SIROVY: Other new stuff that they have this year is cotton candy iced tea. How do we feel about that? 

GARCIA: I saw that. I would not get that.

SIROVY: It looks really cute. It’s got like a rock candy in it. 

GARCIA: It’s cute, but I just feel like I don’t know. It’s just gonna be too like sweet or too like. 

SIROVY: Just drinking pure syrup?

GARCIA: Yeah, yeah, it does look pretty and I love the glitter in the drink. 

SIROVY: Yes, I see it. Yeah. 

GARCIA: I love that, but I just would not. I wouldn’t buy it. I’d rather get lemonade. Lemonade is safe. 

SIROVY: You’re right. You’re right and then they have cookie butter crunch mini donuts. 

GARCIA: I don’t know about that. Also, I’m not really, like, heavily deep, or not, I’m not really into sweet stuff.

SIROVY: Yeah. 

GARCIA: As much, like, really sweet stuff, you know? 

SIROVY: Oh, those are really sweet. I know what you mean.

GARCIA: That is, like, over the top sweet. 

SIROVY: Then how do we feel about from Soul Bowl, crab boil wings? 

GARCIA: Oh, for sure. I would for sure try that. 

SIROVY: I’m looking at a picture right now. It’s got like sausage and little lemon wedges and little things of corn on the cob and wings. Oh, it looks. 

GARCIA: My mouth is watering I think. 

SIROVY: It looks so good. Oh, this is exciting. This has been a little controversial. The deep fried ranch dressing. 

GARCIA: Oh, absolutely not. I saw.

SIROVY: That’s what most people have been telling me, yes. I don’t know why they’re doing it. 

GARCIA: I, who thought of that? Like, that is, no. That is the most American thing that we can do.

SIROVY: Forget about deep fried Oreos or deep fried Twinkies. This is the most, especially Midwest thing. 

GARCIA: Yes, for sure. Deep fried with ranch? That’s insane. 

SIROVY: I don’t know. Why would you want warm ranch? 

GARCIA: How do you even do that? 

SIROVY: I don’t know. I’m sure that they like freeze it into like little cubes or circles or something and then they like, I don’t know.

GARCIA: See that just doesn’t sound appetizing.

SIROVY: But this sounds appetizing – dill pickle tots.

GARCIA: Oh, yeah, I saw that. I would try it.

SIROVY: From Tot Boss. I wish I knew where most of these were. 

GARCIA: Oh, yeah, 

SIROVY: I know like the classic, I know where those are, but like I don’t know where most of these are. 

GARCIA: No, it’s like another thing about the State Fair is like you’re walking like all over. 

SIROVY: Yeah, I get like 20,000 steps.

GARCIA: The grounds. Yeah, so it’s like you’re eating, but it’s fine. 

SIROVY: Because you just keep walking. You’re making it up. 

GARCIA: You’re burning it up. 

SIROVY: Yeah, and then we got Grilled Purple Sticky Rice. I’ve never had sticky rice. 

GARCIA: Neither have I, but I saw that and I would try it. I would spend my money and try it because it looks interesting. Purple? That’s interesting. 

SIROVY: It is. There’s so much garnish on it and it’s a lot of sauce and stuff. It does look good. And then from the Route 66 Roadhouse Chicken, I think I’ve been here before, the Ham and Pickle Roll Up on a potato skin.

GARCIA: Oh, I saw that. 

SIROVY: So it’s got like, so it’s three fried potato skins filled with sour cream, cream cheese, chopped pickles and ham topped with potato chip crumbles. 

GARCIA: Yeah. So the picture doesn’t look appealing. 

SIROVY: It really doesn’t. No, I don’t know why they did like face down. Why did they do it like at an angle or something? I have no idea. 

GARCIA: No, I don’t know it. I bet it tastes good. 

SIROVY: But it just doesn’t look that appetizing. 

GARCIA: But I wouldn’t want to go and buy it, you know. 

SIROVY: Cause I bet that these are really expensive, too. 

GARCIA: I know yeah, I wouldn’t. 

SIROVY: The amount of money I spend at the State Fair just on food alone is ridiculous. I mean, I love going, but it’s so expensive. 

GARCIA: No, it is, but I don’t care. 

SIROVY: It’s just fun. 

GARCIA: It’s fun. You get little snackies, you get to walk. 

SIROVY: I just pig out for a day. 

GARCIA: Yeah, I think it’s worth it. I think it is our, you know, mission as Midwesterners to go to the State Fair and spend our money so. 

SIROVY: And then we got, what is this? Mocha Madness Shave Ice. Oh, it’s caffeine free coffee flavoring with caramel macchiato cold foam.

GARCIA: I think the part about the shaved ice is what throws me off. Wouldn’t it be watery? 

SIROVY: I’ve seen people walk around with the shaved ice, and it looks pretty, like, contained. Like, it doesn’t look like it gets.

GARCIA: Watery?

SIROVY: Watery super fast.

GARCIA: I do love coffee, so I feel like I would like the taste of this, but I don’t know about the shaved ice part. 

SIROVY: Just throws you off a little bit? 

GARCIA: Yeah, yeah. But I’d try it, I’d try it. 

SIROVY: This one looks good. I don’t know, Patata Frita Focacciawich. What? Okay, oh my God, kettle chip flavored ice cream. Oh, by the Minnesota Dairy Lab! That’s on St. Paul.

GARCIA: Oh, really? 

SIROVY: That’s the St. Paul campus. 

GARCIA: Oh, is that U of M students? 

SIROVY: Yeah! 

GARCIA: Oh! Okay, that’s crazy. 

SIROVY: Okay, sandwich between focaccia bread from Wrectangle Pizza and with, topped with honey butter kettle chips and herbs.

GARCIA: Okay, maybe not this one. 

SIROVY: See, I love focaccia bread and I love ice cream. So I don’t know.

GARCIA: I don’t.

SIROVY: It’s ice cream and bread. How do we feel? I don’t know. 

GARCIA: The ice cream is kettle chip flavored.

SIROVY: I bet it’s just salty.

GARCIA: It’s really, I want to try it, but I don’t know if I’d like it. I feel like no, I would definitely try it though. 

SIROVY: Yeah.

GARCIA: Like I’m curious to taste ice cream that’s kettle chip flavored. 

SIROVY: Yeah, like I don’t. It’s created by students, so I don’t know. 

GARCIA: You know what I would try it then. 

SIROVY: Just for them. 

GARCIA: Just for our students. 

SIROVY: Just for our students. From the Herbivorous Butcher we got the Raging Ball, which is deep fried sesame mochi dough ball with vegan cheeseburger filling.

GARCIA: I’d try. I’d try it. 

SIROVY: So it’s just like a little vegan burger in a little ball form. Is that what they’re doing? 

GARCIA: I guess?

SIROVY: Bacon flavored powdered sugar. That’s crazy. 

GARCIA: I wonder how big it is?

SIROVY: From the French Meadow Bakery and Cafe. I love this place. Shroomy “Calamari.” Oyster mushrooms hand breaded and deep fried. 

GARCIA: I’m not a fan of calamari. 

SIROVY: I’m not a fan of mushroom or calamari, but from the picture, it looks fantastic. 

GARCIA: It looks fried, so it looks good.

SIROVY: You’re so right. You are so right. And then we got Savory Éclairs from Scenic 61 by the New Scenic Café. I don’t know where that is again. So it’s a choux pastry éclair shell with a choice of filling, Bánh Mì or lobster. 

GARCIA: Oh, I would eat this. 

SIROVY: That sounds fantastic. 

GARCIA: I would eat this up. That looks so good.

GARCIA: Lobster? 

SIROVY: Oh, come on. 

GARCIA: Bánh Mì and lobster. I would get both.

SIROVY: I’m gonna start crying here.

GARCIA: Oh my god, I would definitely try that. That looks so delish. 

SIROVY: And the other one that you can get is with like pork.

GARCIA: I would get both.

SIROVY: That looks so good. And then we got, this one, I don’t know what the outside of this one looks like. So it’s from the Fluffy Hand Cut Donuts, Strawberry Lemonade Donut. But it’s like, it’s rolled in strawberry lemonade crunch. That’s why it looks so weird.

GARCIA: It looks like, it looks like clay.

SIROVY: It kind of does! 

GARCIA: It looks like my little brother like made it in art class. Like, that’s what it looks like. 

SIROVY: Hey, strawberry lemonade, though, those are great flavors. 

GARCIA: That is a really good flavor.

SIROVY: I don’t know why they would roll it though in crunch. 

GARCIA: And the other thing is the little like strawberry lemonade, what is that, squeezer?

SIROVY: I don’t know what that’s called. 

GARCIA: Pipette.

SIROVY: Pipette.

GARCIA: Pipette.

SIROVY: Pipette.

GARCIA: A filled pipette. That kind of throws me off. 

SIROVY: Yeah, the freeze dried strawberry, I don’t know about that. It looks weird. It looks like a rock. 

GARCIA: It does. 

SIROVY: It looks like a rock. 

GARCIA: It does, yeah, but that strawberry lemonade pipette. It kind of, because it, wouldn’t it just make it like soggy?

SIROVY: Soggy?

GARCIA: I don’t know about that.

SIROVY: I don’t know. they’re trying stuff. I mean good for them. 

GARCIA: They’re experimenting. Yeah, we’re gonna let them. 

SIROVY: We’re not gonna go near it, but we’re gonna let them. And then Strawberries and Cream Waffle Stick, that one looks good. 

GARCIA: I saw that that looks delish. I’d try that.

SIROVY: With strawberry shortcake cookie dough?

GARCIA: I go crazy for strawberry shortcake. 

SIROVY: You do? 

GARCIA: Yeah, that’s like, that’s like one of the sweet things I do like. 

SIROVY: A what? Swedish Ice Cream Sundae from the Salem Lutheran Church Dining Hall? What makes it Swedish? 

GARCIA: Is this like Ikea? Is this like the Ikea? 

SIROVY: Of the State Fair? I have no idea. 

GARCIA: I feel like Ikea has this. I do love Ikea food.

SIROVY: Okay, so. It’s vanilla ice cream and lingonberry jam, I do like that, with Swedish ginger cookie crumble, with a ginger cookie heart. Okay, I don’t know what makes it swedish though, is it just the? 

GARCIA: I think it’s the lingonberry. 

SIROVY: It’s the lingonberry? 

GARCIA: Because Ikea has like frozen yogurt, I think or ice cream with lingonberry. That goes so hard. Everyone go to Ikea. 

SIROVY: Forget the meatballs, just get the ice cream or the frozen yogurt. 

GARCIA: No, also Swedish meatballs at Ikea. 

SIROVY: Yeah, you’re right.

GARCIA: So good, but no, I think it’s like yeah. I think that’s what makes it Swedish is the lingonberry. 

SIROVY: Okay. 

GARCIA: I don’t know. 

SIROVY: I mean, that’s a good guess because it doesn’t, I don’t know. We’re trying here and then from the Hamlin Church Dining Hall, we got Swedish ‘Sota Sliders. So, cranberry wild rice meatball formed into patties with dill Havarti cheese and a red relish of beets, red onions, red peppers, lingonberries and cranberries. There’s the lingonberries again. So it must be. 

GARCIA: This is very Minnesotan.

SIROVY: Very. 

GARCIA: The wild rice meatball formed into patties?

SIROVY: Yeah. 

GARCIA: I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t try it. I don’t know. Something about, I think the, something about the lingonberries with the cranberries. 

SIROVY: Yeah. 

GARCIA: Mixed, like, sweet and savory kind of throws me off a bit. 

SIROVY: But aren’t they, but aren’t they, like, tart? Do you think they would be tart?

GARCIA: I don’t know. Maybe it would taste good, but I don’t think I’d try it. 

SIROVY: I mean, it looks pretty good. I mean the colors look fun, but I don’t, I also don’t know if I would try it. 

GARCIA: The colors are cool. 

SIROVY: Okay, and then this one, I have no idea what this, like, I’m so confused about this. The Blue Moon Dine-In Theater has a Sweet Corn Cola Float. What is sweet corn cola? 

GARCIA: I have no idea. 

SIROVY: I’ve never heard of that before. 

GARCIA: That is throwing me off a little. 

SIROVY: And then sweet corn ice cream with popping candy and house made frozen caramel. What is? What is sweet corn cola? 

GARCIA: I don’t know. 

SIROVY: I’m so confused. Is it supposed to taste like corn? 

GARCIA: Like kettle corn? 

SIROVY: I don’t know.

GARCIA: Like sweet? 

SIROVY: Maybe kettle corn. 

GARCIA: Like sweet, like that Kettle corn flavor with wait, but is it a cola flavor? Like kettle corn cola? Is that what it is? 

SIROVY: It says sweet corn cola, doesn’t say kettle corn? 

GARCIA: Are they putting corn? 

SIROVY: If they, if I see a piece of corn in that, I will freak out. 

GARCIA: That’s gonna be crazy. Corn? 

SIROVY: It looks just like a root beer float, though.

GARCIA: Corn bits in my cola?

SIROVY: Stop. I mean, I would try it just for the bit. Just for the plot, but if I find a piece of corn in it, I don’t know. 

GARCIA: Trash. Immediately trash. 

SIROVY: Immediately. 

GARCIA: Thrown in the trash. 

SIROVY: I don’t care how much money I spent. But from the picture, I don’t, I don’t see anything. It just looks like, like a cola root beer float. 

GARCIA: Yeah, it just looks like a float. I mean, is that a caramel on top? 

SIROVY: It looks like, in the description it says house made frozen caramel. So I’m assuming it’s just little caramel bits.

GARCIA: Okay. 

SIROVY: We’re thinking about it. We don’t know, but we’re thinking. And then from next on the list is from RC’s BBQ, Sweet Heat Bacon Crunch. I love me some bacon.

GARCIA: Oh my God. I would immediately get this. Forget the fried pickles. I think I would go straight to this. This looks so good. 

SIROVY: Yeah, the double smoked slab bacon tossed in RC’s red barbecue sauce and topped with hot honey and chili crunch, served over a bed of white rice and garnished with green onions. Like, come on. 

GARCIA: Forget about it. This is it. Everyone, actually, no. No one go to this. I don’t want, I don’t want. 

SIROVY: Don’t talk about it. No one talk about it. 

GARCIA: Forget it. Forget it. 

SIROVY: I don’t want there to be a line. 

GARCIA: No, I’m getting this for sure. This looks so good. 

SIROVY: Yeah, and then from Minnesota Farmers Union Coffee Shop, we have the Turkey Kristo. Texas toast from Pan-O-Gold Bakery, sliced Ferndale Market turkey, CannonBelles white cheddar cheese, apple butter. I love apple butter. Made from locally sourced apples, and house-made spicy brown mustard mayo, dusted with powdered sugar. Why would you do powdered sugar? 

GARCIA: That kind of throws me off.

SIROVY: Why, why? Leave the powdered sugar out of this? This is a sandwich. 

GARCIA: See, it’s the sweet and savory. They’re experimenting this year with it.

SIROVY: They are, they really are. 

GARCIA: I don’t, it looks like, French toast and like.

SIROVY: With meat. 

GARCIA: Meat inside which I don’t know how I feel about that. 

SIROVY: It does kind of like French toast. You’re right.

GARCIA: Yeah. Yeah, it’s like really thick bread, Texas toast. I love Texas toast, but. 

SIROVY: It goes great in French toast. 

GARCIA: But I don’t know about this. 

SIROVY: Yeah, maybe we leave that for other people. Okay, and then Walking Shepherd’s Pie. I know a few people who love Shepherd’s Pie.

GARCIA: See, I’ve never tried it. I would.

SIROVY: I haven’t either. 

GARCIA: I think this, I would go and try it. But, I don’t, I’m scared that if I ever try a true good Shepherd’s Pie. Like, I want to try a good one. You know, I don’t want this to be like.

SIROVY: The like the baseline of which other Shepherd’s Pies are judged.

GARCIA: But I would want to try it cause it looks delish. 

SIROVY: Yeah, the golden brown like pastry on the outside looks good. It looks hardy. That’s for sure. And then from Chan’s Eatery, it’s a new vendor. So Korean corn dogs. I love Korean corn dogs like Cruncheese. 

GARCIA: I love Korean corn dogs.

SIROVY: It’s so good. 

GARCIA: No, Cruncheese here in Dinky? Delish.

SIROVY: Delicious.

GARCIA: Potatoes. The one with potatoes on it. Eat that up.

SIROVY: Eat that up. So this one is hot dog and mozzarella cheese battered with panko, deep fried, and finished with a dusting of cinnamon sugar. And there’s a few different options they look like. I wonder where this one’s gonna be. They always, they like add new vendors every year, but I’m like, how are they getting these people inside the park? There’s no space. 

GARCIA: I know. Do you think some vendors leave? Like they kick? Sorry.

SIROVY: I don’t know.

GARCIA: You’re out. 

SIROVY: Maybe they, I don’t know if they get kicked out, but maybe they just kind of.

GARCIA: Relocate. 

SIROVY: Yeah. Go to like other fairs or something. 

GARCIA: True.

SIROVY: I don’t know, but like they have all the classics. So I mean, that’s fine with me. And then from Nordic Waffles, Wrangler Waffle Burger. So it’s like a burger, but instead of the buns, it’s a waffle. 

GARCIA: Okay. I would try it.

SIROVY: That looks like it would kill me. 

GARCIA: It looks really, like, shiny which. 

SIROVY: It does look shiny. 

GARCIA: Very greasy. 

SIROVY: I wonder if that’s the syrup, though. 

GARCIA: Oh, you’re right. 

SIROVY: I wonder if it’s syrup. I don’t know.

GARCIA: I’d try it. I’d try it.

SIROVY: I would try a bite before it would fill me up. 

GARCIA: I think this would fill me up for sure, so. 

SIROVY: Like the whole day. I’d be like, I don’t want to eat anything else. 

GARCIA: No, yeah, that’s one of those things where it’s like you take big breaths after you eat it. 

SIROVY: Big breaths. Gotta go sit down. 

GARCIA: Yeah. People watch for a while.

SIROVY: And then we got some other new vendors. El Burrito Mercado. 

GARCIA: I love them. Delish. 

SIROVY: It looks like they got Quesabirria Taquitos, Esquites.

GARCIA: Yeah. 

SIROVY: I said it right and then agua, I love this. It’s a watermelon drink with chamoy and bits of seasoned dried mango. 

GARCIA: Yeah. 

SIROVY: That sounds so refreshing, though. 

GARCIA: It does. 

SIROVY: For like a walk in a super hot day with like 20,000, more than 20,000 other people like 50,000. 

GARCIA: Watermelon, with chamoy? Slurp that up. 

SIROVY: Yeah. 

GARCIA: I would for sure.

SIROVY: And then another new vendor is Kosharina Egyptian Cuisine. So Koshari which is rice, pasta, chickpeas, lentils, tomato sauce, garlicky vinegar “dakkah” sauce and then topped with fried onions and like three varieties chicken, beef and vegetable. 

GARCIA: Oh, I would get this. I would get this for sure.

SIROVY: And it looks like they have a drink? “Plus caffeine free high iced hibiscus tea.” That sounds good. 

GARCIA: Oh, I love hibiscus tea. 

SIROVY: I’m not a huge fan of tea, but I do like hibiscus tea. 

GARCIA: Hibiscus is delish. 

SIROVY: Oh, the person who is serving the Cotton Candy Iced Tea, that’s a new vendor. So it’s Loon Lake Iced Tea. They got cotton candy, blood orange, blueberry, peach. Those sound good.

GARCIA: Okay. 

SIROVY: And it looks like they come with, like, rock candy too, like all of them. 

GARCIA: I would probably try, like, maybe blood orange, peach or strawberry, but the cotton candy one? 

SIROVY: Just too much. 

GARCIA: It might be too much. But do they all get glitter? 

SIROVY: It looks like they all get glitter because they all look really pretty. 

GARCIA: Yes, then I would get one of these, for sure. 

SIROVY: And then another new vendor, Midtown Global Markets Indigenous Food Lab. So we got, uh, serves Official New Food Nixtamal & Wild Rice Bowl. I don’t know how to say that. I don’t want to say it with I’m just gonna say, Wóžapi? I don’t know. And bison meatballs. I would eat that. 

GARCIA:That looks great. 

SIROVY: Or sweet potato dumplings. 

GARCIA:That looks great. 

SIROVY: With options to add cricket and seed mix. 

GARCIA: Okay.

SIROVY: I do like a bison burger, so I would probably like the bison meatballs. 

GARCIA: I’ve never tried bison before.

SIROVY: It’s really, it’s actually really good.

GARCIA: Okay, I would try it. 

SIROVY: Like, people would be, think that they would be thrown off about it, but it just tastes like a regular burger. 

GARCIA: Okay. 

SIROVY: I’ve been to a few places that like serve that. 

GARCIA: Wild rice, too. 

SIROVY: And it looks like the last new vendor is Paella Depot, serves Chicken & Chorizo Paella. 

GARCIA: Oh my God, I’ve tried this before.

SIROVY: Have you? And then, plus, aguas frescas in six flavors from fruit puree, whole fruit, lime juice, agave and water. 

GARCIA: No, paella, especially the Paella Depot, so good. 

SIROVY: Is that, is that in Minneapolis?

GARCIA: I don’t know where, like, they’re located, but I’ve seen their food truck, like. 

SIROVY: They have a food truck? 

GARCIA: Yes. I’ve been to where? It was just a food truck festival a few weeks ago and they were there and it was so good. So everyone, do not go here cause I want to go here again. I don’t want a line.

SIROVY: And then from Jammy Sammies by BRIM, we have Margo’s Garden, which is local rhubarb jam. I love rhubarb. Oh my gosh.

GARCIA: I’m not a rhubarb fan. 

SIROVY: It’s not for everyone. 

GARCIA: It’s a texture thing for me. I’m really big on texture. 

SIROVY: So me too. But I only really like rhubarb when it’s like either in like a drink or something or like it’s a jam or sauce. I would never eat like rhubarb chunks. I don’t know. 

GARCIA: See, I didn’t know when I grabbed this cake at this wedding, I didn’t know it had rhubarb in it. So that was a scary time because I was so confused. 

SIROVY: You’re like, what is in this? 

GARCIA: There’s texture. So ever since, I’m not a fan. 

SIROVY: That makes sense. Hey, that’s childhood trauma. We all have those moments. So local rhubarb jam, thyme marinated, locally sourced tomatoes, farmer cheese, jalapeño, and honey served with a side of grilled, gluten free flatbread.

GARCIA: See, I like everything except the rhubarb part, but it looks, it looks good. 

SIROVY: It looks, it does look like, like almost like a summer salad almost. 

GARCIA: The tomatoes look really refreshing. 

SIROVY: And then from Bridgman’s Ice Cream, Lady Slipper Marble Sundae. Strawberry ice cream, lemon marshmallow cream, and lady finger cookies layered in a cup and topped with whipped cream and cherry. That looks fantastic. 

GARCIA: I don’t, I don’t know. Something about.

SIROVY: Says the non-sweet girl.

GARCIA: You know, it kind of looks like what an old lady would look like as a dessert. Am I wrong? 

SIROVY: I see where you’re going. I see the vision. That’s not my first thought. Old lady as ice cream version? No. 

GARCIA: Okay, got it. 

SIROVY: I see what you mean though.

GARCIA: Just keep that to myself.

SIROVY: It’s the colors, and it’s like.

GARCIA: Yeah.

SIROVY: It’s the layers. 

GARCIA: Yep. I think what throws me off is the lemon marshmallow cream. 

SIROVY: Really? That sounds delicious. 

GARCIA: That sounds too sweet for me. 

SIROVY: I’m glad there’s two versions of “I really love sweet” versus “You don’t really like sweet.”

GARCIA: But I do love the savory. 

SIROVY: You do love the savory. From Sabino’s Pizza Pies, Fried Bee-Nana Pie. What makes it, okay? Handmade pie filled with Minnesota honey, fresh banana and Biscoff cookie butter. I love Biscoff cookies. So good. 

GARCIA: I do not like Biscoff.

SIROVY: I sense a theme here.

GARCIA: Opposites attract.

SIROVY: Opposites attract. And then from, already talked about Soul Bowl. Holy Land Deli, so deep fried Halloumi cheese is that is that how we say that?

GARCIA: I do not know.

SIROVY: Okay, so Halloumi cheese crafted from a blend of sheep and goat milk wrapped in pastry dough and deep fried, so it’s, so it’s just like cheese. 

GARCIA: Yeah. 

SIROVY: But in dough. 

GARCIA: Yeah.

SIROVY: Okay.

GARCIA: I’ve never tried sheep or goat milk. 

SIROVY: And then from Richie’s Cheese Curd Tacos, Buffalo Cheese Curd & Chicken Tacos. I love. This sounds fantastic.

GARCIA: That looks so good. Oh my God. 

SIROVY: So it’s fried buffalo flavored cheese curds and chicken.

GARCIA: You had me at buffalo.

SIROVY: Just had you at buffalo. I don’t need to say anything else. Topped with blue cheese slaw, drizzled with buffalo sauce and served in a fried flour shell. That looks really good. 

GARCIA: Second stop. 

SIROVY: Oh, yes.

GARCIA: Second stop. 

SIROVY: Oh, yes.

GARCIA:That looks so, buffalo, anything. And the cheese curd with buffalo? 

SIROVY: Right. 

GARCIA: Girl, don’t even say anything else.

SIROVY: I don’t need to be convinced. I’m already there. 

GARCIA: Already there. 

SIROVY: Already there. And then from Baba’s, we have Ba’bacon Sour Cream + Onion. So sour cream and onion, hummus topped with beef, bacon, sumac, onions, scallions, French onion cream, and the works. So it’s, so it’s just like. 

GARCIA: Is it a dip? 

SIROVY: It’s hummus, so it’s a dip, yeah.

GARCIA: So it looks like it comes with pita puffs.

SIROVY: Okay. 

GARCIA: That looks good.

SIROVY: It looks good. 

GARCIA: I probably wouldn’t run to it though.

SIROVY: I don’t know if I would run. 

GARCIA: No, but it looks, it looks good. 

SIROVY: At one point, I would probably try it.

GARCIA: Yeah, it looks worth it. 

SIROVY: And then, from Dino’s Gyro’s, we have Blazing Greek Bites. Deep-fried bites made from a blend of chickpeas, tomato, roasted red pepper, scallions and cayenne pepper. So it’s just little, um, it’s just like little euros and little bite form. With a side. 

GARCIA: I know how I feel about this one.

SIROVY: Yeah. I don’t know. With a side of roasted red pepper hummus. 

GARCIA: Okay.

SIROVY: I do like hummus.

GARCIA: I do too. And it’s got a little spice, which I appreciate. I feel like the hummus would carry. I wouldn’t go running to this either. 

SIROVY: So at the top we have a few stuff, but these would be kind of like in the middle.

GARCIA: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Like, stuff we would try.

GARCIA: Lower middle. 

SIROVY: Lower middle. Yeah. Not at the bottom, with like the deep fried ranch. But like. 

GARCIA: That is way bottom. 

SIROVY: Way bottom. That is.

GARCIA: I’m not even looking at that when I walk past. Shielding my eyes. 

SIROVY: I would ask. I would probably eat, because people stand around the booths where they have the food, I would probably ask to see what it tastes like. I’d be like, “Tell me your thoughts.” 

GARCIA: Tell me, why did you do this? 

SIROVY: Why, why did you hurt yourself like this? 

GARCIA: What was going through your mind when you’re standing in line.

SIROVY: But people really love, like, ranch. Like, I know people that would literally just eat it from the jar. 

GARCIA: But, there’s people who are in love with ranch though.

SIROVY: A little too much. 

GARCIA: A little too much. But you know what, hey, go your own way. 

SIROVY: You do your own thing. I’ll do mine. You would probably judge me for the things I would eat too.

GARCIA: True. So true.

SIROVY: That seems to be all the new food I think. I don’t think I missed anything. I really want to try those crab boil wings though. I love wings. 

GARCIA: And crab boil. 

SIROVY: With the cajun sauce?

GARCIA: Delish. 

SIROVY: I’m getting hungry.

GARCIA: Me too.

SIROVY: It’s horrible. I’m really excited though. 

GARCIA: I can’t wait. 

SIROVY: Yeah, do you go to the fair like just one day or like a couple days?

GARCIA: One day usually. I usually go with my family, but this year we’re taking a trip, so I might go, you know, with my friends instead. We’ll see what happens, but I usually try to go every year because I love those Australian potatoes, like, and I don’t know where you find them so. 

SIROVY: You just keep thinking about them.

GARCIA: They’re so good. Everyone do not go there. Those are the love of my life. 

SIROVY: I, this year I was, I kind of wanted to go like as like a Daily group because I think that’d be a good bonding, like experience. Cause like a lot of us, it’s kind of hard to get to know each other because we do a lot of our work online and we don’t like see each other all the time. But I would love to go as a group. We would be so fun. 

GARCIA: I think it would be interesting to see everyone’s like reaction to things. 

SIROVY: Yeah. Someone would dare someone to try the ranch.

GARCIA: I think I know who. 

SIROVY: I know who. 

GARCIA: I can already see it happening. 

SIROVY: But yeah, no, I wanna go like as a group. I think that’d be so fun. 

GARCIA: That would be great. 

SIROVY: The first thing that I would probably try, the Lady Slipper Marble Sundae. I’m such a sweet.

GARCIA: The Old Lady? The Old Lady Dessert? 

SIROVY: The Old Lady Dessert. It looks cute! It looks like it belongs at like a tea party. 

GARCIA: It looks like it belongs in like, the Queen of England. No. 

SIROVY: Rest in peace. 

GARCIA: No! It looks like the Queen of England. 

SIROVY: Or it looked like it. 

GARCIA: It looked like her. 

SIROVY: Yeah. 

GARCIA: No, it looks like, what am I trying to say? It looks. 

SIROVY: Like it belongs in like an old lady’s house, like the, with the dollies and the floral furniture. 

GARCIA: It looks like a piece of decoration that yeah, you would find in an old lady’s house. I think it’s the colors mainly.

SIROVY: It is the colors. It’s like light pink. Yellow, white, beige.

GARCIA: Those old lady colors, you know? 

SIROVY: Yeah. The first thing I would try, I don’t know. Honestly, the savory Éclairs with the lobster.

GARCIA: Oh, for sure. 

SIROVY: That would probably be, like, one of my first ones. 

GARCIA: I’d go there. I’d get that, also, the Sweet heat Bacon Crunch. 

SIROVY: Yes. 

GARCIA: I’d probably get, like, a few of those to go, too. 

SIROVY: Oh, I almost missed one from the Blue Barn. We got the PB Bacon Cakes. So it’s pancake. So it’s bacon dipped in pancake batter. I’ve had stuff like that before. It’s actually really good. Really filling though. 

GARCIA: Oh, I bet. Yeah Fluffy pancake and then like bacon. 

SIROVY: Yeah, like right in the middle of it. 

GARCIA: It’s like the waffle burger. 

SIROVY: It’s like the waffle burger bites, but in smaller form. 

GARCIA: Yeah, and you’re huffing. 

SIROVY: Yeah, huffing and puffing. I need one of those like the mobility scooters. It’d be chaos.

GARCIA: We’d get to a society like Wall-E and.

SIROVY: We would. 

GARCIA: That’s scary. 

SIROVY: That’s my ultimate fear.

GARCIA: I see it happening. 

SIROVY: I see it happening with like the self driving cars and the AI. 

GARCIA: Oh god. 

SIROVY: It’s scary. 

GARCIA: We’re getting into a whole new conversation.

SIROVY: This is for another time, but I have thought about this. Yeah, but the PB Bacon Cakes are with whipped cream, grape jelly and banana chips. 

GARCIA: I don’t know. I wouldn’t go running for this one. I’d put it middle tier though. I wouldn’t put it at the bottom though. Yeah. I think it has potential.

SIROVY: But definitely the marble sundae and the Bánh Mì. That is what I would go first, like two very different things. But I would go for it. 

GARCIA: The Bánh Mì for sure and then I would also go for the paella, even though I’ve had it before. 

SIROVY: Yeah.

GARCIA: I love paella. It’s so good. 

SIROVY: I mean, if you’d love it, you know. You know. 

GARCIA: I know. 

SIROVY: You know. I’m just so curious about this sweet corn cola. It doesn’t look bad, but the words make me go, something’s not right here. 

GARCIA: Corn bits? 

SIROVY: Corn bits? It doesn’t look like there’s corn bits, but you never know.

GARCIA: I think it’s just the flavor of the ice cream. 

SIROVY: Well, I think that’s the end of this episode, but do you have anything you would like to share that’s going on with the opinions desk?

GARCIA: Yeah, we just put out our first opinions A&E collab. One of our columnists, Izzy, and one of the A&E reporters, Sommer, worked together to figure out a few of the best covers in their opinions. And then, yeah, they just kind of wrote down what they thought. And they did a really good job on it. Like, I was just listening to each song while I was editing, so. I would go check that out, because they did a really good job on finding these covers. 

SIROVY: We love collabs. It makes the world go round in this place. 

GARCIA: Yeah, for sure. 

SIROVY: Like we’re collabing right now. 

GARCIA: We are.

SIROVY: As always, we appreciate you listening in and feel free to leave us an email at podcasting@mndaily. com with comments, questions or concerns. I’m Kaylie.

GARCIA: I’m Claudia. 

SIROVY: And this has been In The Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hello everyone. My name is Kaylie Sirovy, your host from the Minnesota Daily. Right now you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. With me in the studio today, I have our lovely city editor, Jack O’Connor. Thank you for joining us, Jack. 

JACK O’CONNOR: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. 

SIROVY: He’s in the studio today because we are going to be talking about some important Minnesota election stuff with primaries and representatives and senators. But first off, do you want to talk a little bit about yourself there, Jack?

O’CONNOR: Yeah, sure. So just as Kaylie said, I am currently the city desk editor. I’ve been here for more than a year now. Started as a city desk reporter, but you know, I got a promotion not too long ago, and it’s been everyone’s problem since. 

SIROVY: No, it has not been everyone’s problem. You’re doing a great job. 

O’CONNOR: Wow. 

SIROVY: First off, let’s talk about the rematch of Don Samuels versus the incumbent Ilhan Omar. What should we know about that? 

O’CONNOR: Yeah. So this is a repeat of the 2022 primary. Ilhan Omar has been the representative here since 2020, if I’m correct, and in 2022, Ilhan Omar and Don Samuels faced off in the primary. Ilhan Omar is the typical, she is part of the squad, she is a progressive leaning member, she is an immigrant from Somalia.

Meanwhile, Don Samuels is an immigrant from Jamaica and leans a lot more to the moderate side of the Democratic Party. In 2022, their election was very close. It was decided by about 2,000 votes. That is an incredibly small margin, especially considering the fact that Ilhan Omar was the incumbent at this time.

A lot of people would point to the fact that Don Samuels got a lot of money from AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It’s essentially a, a finance group that gives money to candidates who are pro-Israel, or they give candidates money who are running against candidates they feel are against Israel.

And that was in 2022. So now two years later, this is a very different scene now with the Israel-Palestine-Hamas conflict. This is something that’s a little divisive some would say. In 2022, the, the big issues in that election were crime. Don Samuels was really blasting Ilhan Omar for supporting this ballot measure which would have essentially reorganized the MPD into the Public Safety Committee, or not that same. 

SIROVY: Oh, I heard about that, yeah. 

O’CONNOR: Yes. It basically would have changed policing in Minneapolis really drastically, but didn’t end up passing. But Samuels was very much attacking Omar over that issue. But now, two years later, this is very much the Israel versus Palestine election here. If there’s a vote, you know, a Muslim woman is really supporting Palestine. She’s been sending out a lot of statements. Meanwhile, Don Samuels is very much a pro-Israel candidate. He recently got a bit of flack. I saw he called Omar a pawn of Hamas. 

SIROVY: Ooh. 

O’CONNOR: Not great. 

SIROVY: Not great. 

O’CONNOR: Samuels has had a bit of a foot in mouth issue going on this election cycle. One that he got really early on in this cycle was he essentially said that, “Ilhan Omar was not cute enough to make up for her downfalls.”

SIROVY: Oh, that is not a good thing to say about your political opponent. Oh, no.

O’CONNOR: It was not great. I think this is definitely an election where Samuels is gonna have to, I think we’re going to see a lot more talking about why the other candidate is bad for our community rather than why my specific beliefs would be good for the community.

SIROVY: Has AIPAC given to a bunch of political candidates here before? 

O’CONNOR: Yeah, yeah. This is something that they do every election cycle. Actually, this cycle, they have yet to give to Don Samuels. They may down the road, but they haven’t. One candidate that they gave a lot of money to was the opponent of Jamal Bowman, who, if you don’t know, another member of the squad who was just defeated in his primary. So this is very much a group that is ideologically opposed to the squad.

Very much two sides of the Democratic Party, the more moderate side, your Joe Biden’s, your Hillary Clinton’s versus your more progressive, your Bernie Sanders, your Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Yeah, this is very much in my mind, a kind of a battle of two different sides of the Democratic Party. 

SIROVY: What do you think is going to happen?

O’CONNOR: Man, this is so, there’s still so much time. I know it’s a little more than a month till the primary (August 13). But I think Ilhan Omar is gonna barely take it again. I don’t think, I think it’s gonna be really close. One reason that I say she’s gonna win is because last time she was very much caught off guard. 

I think, in her mind, she just was not expecting anyone to really put up any serious challenge to her, but Don Samuels was really able to capture that, tapped into the kind of this side of the Democratic Party that just was not ready for a more progressive candidate like Ilhan Omar. But I think now that Ilhan Omar is much more aware of the potential threat that it presents. I think she’s going to be a little more wise, a little more involved in the community, at least for the next two months. 

SIROVY: Is that what other news organizations are saying and like polling places? 

O’CONNOR: Yeah. Yeah. I did read a little. The polls show it’s going to be a very tight race within the margin of error for both sides, so either candidate could really take it. There’s still more than a month to go, so just saying the one candidate is definitely going to win is not realistic. You know, Omar also has a few other advantages. According to reporting, Omar has $2 million on hand compared to Samuel’s 200,000. Obviously, that can change within the month. 

SIROVY: He only has 200,000?

O’CONNOR: On hand, so that means he’s spending money. 

SIROVY: Okay.

O’CONNOR: Like, it’s like, think of it like, if they want to put out a bunch of money, like, that’s where that goes. That doesn’t consider like, payroll and all the stuff they’re already paying for. 

SIROVY: Okay, okay.

O’CONNOR: But yeah, that was as of March, so he might have gotten a lot more money since then. You know, this is another one of his controversies that Samuel has kind of had, I forget when this was, this is a handful of years ago. Don Samuels and his wife were biking with a couple of neighborhood children, and one of the children fell into the nearby lake.

SIROVY: Oh goodness.

O’CONNOR: Don Samuels and his wife didn’t know how to swim, and so the child drowned. Obviously that, you know, that’s a tragedy, that’s not something they could have predicted, but Samuels hasn’t really responded in the best way, at least in my opinion. I remember seeing a tweet he made. I don’t know if he deleted it yet, but it was essentially along the lines of like, someone was criticizing him for that and he basically said, like, “can’t swim, but can run for office.”

SIROVY: Oh, I remember seeing that caused a big uproar. Did he ever like really apologize for? 

O’CONNOR: I don’t remember him issuing like a statement about it. Like, I’m sure he like, he always, he feels bad. Like that’s not something he could have known. But like you are the responsible adult there. You should have had some precautions and like to not really even have like the feeling to like just not say something like that after the fact. I mean, come on. 

SIROVY: That’s yeah, that’s not an okay really thing to do. So the Democrats currently hold a trifecta, as you said at the state legislature. What does that mean exactly? And what races will decide if this trifecta survives? 

O’CONNOR: So a trifecta essentially means that one party holds every single one of the chambers here. So State House is controlled by the Democrats. State Senate is controlled by the Democrats and our governor, Tim Walz, is a Democrat. Essentially what that means is if that the Democrats can get every one of their camp to support something, it’s just gonna pass. There’s basically nothing the Republicans can do about that. That may sound like kind of a technical thing, but that is insanely important. This is such a major thing. 

The Democrats only control the state senate by one seat. And they control the state house by four seats. And with that kind of control of the state legislature, they’re able to pass things like the sick and safe time leave law. They’re able to pass marijuana legalization. They’re able to pass a lot of the transgender protection, LGBTQ+ protection that we’ve seen over the past two, four years. 

SIROVY: Didn’t they pass the lunch for all students? 

O’CONNOR: Yes. I believe if I remember correctly, that was also a party split vote. So that just means only Democrats voted for it. Republicans opposed it.

SIROVY: What races will decide if this trifecta survives? 

O’CONNOR: Yeah. So for voters in the university area, you’re not really going to be able to decide the state house this time around. Minneapolis is a democratic stronghold. It’s not going to be decided here. Where it is going to be decided is in those suburbs. So think about Lakeville, White Bear Lake. Those kind of suburbs are what’s going to decide the race. I remember reading some reporting from the MinnPost, over the last 20 years, the amount of contested races in the state house has gone from like 30 to 35 to now, which is just about 10 to 15. 

So, we know, going into the election, which races are going to be close, which ones just aren’t going to be close at all. The Democratic trifecta is going to be decided in these suburbs. So Minneapolis suburbs, obviously, but also a bit of the other population centers in Minnesota. Think Duluth, Winona, Mankato; places like that are going to decide this election.

SIROVY: Interesting. I had no idea about that. This is a juicy one. Will the election for Klobuchar and, uh, Royce White, is that?

O’CONNOR: Yes. 

SIROVY: Will that be close this year? 

O’CONNOR: It’s not going to be close at all. It’s going to be very much, uh, an easy election, but in my mind, it is the most entertaining in a kind of an outside observer way. I’m the most entertained by this one. I think Royce White is a very interesting character. Just some background things about Royce White.

He has almost no political experience. The most political experience he has is that he ran in the Republican primary for 2022 to defeat incumbent Ilhan Omar, but he lost that primary, and so now he’s kind of gone all the way. I should clarify, Royce White technically hasn’t secured the nomination. He has the GOP endorsement, but he doesn’t have the primary victory yet. That is coming on August 13th. But, with that GOP endorsement, with, with everything going on, it’s very much in Royce White’s favor. 

I think the only guy even close is Joe Trista, who is kind of a retired Army Air Force kind of man. But yeah, so a little background about Royce White is he has no political experience, he only ran in one primary before, where he lost, and he is a former NBA player. Nine minutes, no points, no passes, no anything. 

SIROVY: Oh no.

O’CONNOR: He also was in one professional fight where he lost. So a very interesting man. He was also, um, kind of, uh, one of the early leading figures in the Black Lives Matter movement, which is very strange just hearing that from a Republican, but he was very much involved in that. He has been described as promoting conspiracy theories. He’s described a lot of his behavior as sexist, racist, but you know, he’s an interesting figure. I’m not sure how much Republican, the Republican Party of Minnesota is really going to pour into him but.

SIROVY: Why did he get the endorsement then? 

O’CONNOR: You know, it was a really weak class. There’s this idea that smart politicians, politicians who want to be in office, who want to run, they’re not going to run for a race they know they’re going to lose. And this race just, it’s unless some miracle thing happens, I just cannot imagine Amy Klobuchar losing. 

She has won by many, many percentage points for the last few reelections, and I don’t see Royce White doing that again. And so if you’re a smart Republican politician, you want to be in office, you don’t want to be known as a loser, you’re not going to go run these campaigns just to lose.

Look, running a campaign, even a bad campaign, even a campaign that’s not going to go anywhere, is difficult. It is not an easy thing to do. It’s so many working hours, it’s a lot of time, a lot of effort, and just to do all of that effort, just to get blown out by 10 plus percentage points. No one wants to do that. 

And so, we saw a pretty weak Republican primary. I think, as I said, Joe Trista was the only one who was expected to really do it. Joe Trista was the favorite, but Royce White managed to get a little populism going and managed to take it. Or at least take the GOP endorsement. I keep forgetting to say it’s not a done deal yet, but he is very much the favorite.

SIROVY: So this kind of sounds like they, even though he’s putting a lot of hard work into it, into this, they’re kind of setting him up for failure almost?

O’CONNOR: You know, it’s not really their fault. It’s just the cards the Republicans have on the Senate level in Minnesota is just not in their favor. You could always just not run someone, but you know, you can’t stop someone from running and you want to at least have someone on the ballot. Makes your party seem a little more, you know, official makes it seem like you’re trying. 

Another, Royce White has gotten into a few different controversies. So in that 2022 primary I mentioned, one of the FEC filings, so kind of the mandatory financial reporting stuff that all elections, all politicians need to do. It was shown that he spent, I think it was 1,200 dollars at a strip club in Florida. Now, on a podcast, he explained that one, in his mind, I’m not saying what he’s saying is true or, or that he’s lying, but he said that a) it was filed wrong, and that the person who was in charge of that messed up and included that there, and that b) this is a direct quote from him, “they sell food at a strip club, don’t they?” 

Now, I also saw reporting that from the strip club, the most expensive thing was 25 dollars, and alcohol is not something that can be included in FEC filing. And also this is an all nude strip club, which just adds a little more, you know, flavor to this little story. 

SIROVY: Flavor?

O’CONNOR: I’m really entertained by it, you know. 

SIROVY: You know, you don’t really hear too many politicians say stuff like that. So, I mean, it keeps things entertaining for sure. 

O’CONNOR: I’m entertained. That’s the only point politics has for me, just, you know, a little fun. 

SIROVY: Did he have any other controversies? 

O’CONNOR: I’d have to look it up, but I know he’s said a few controversial things. I think he said women belong at home or. 

SIROVY: Oh. 

O’CONNOR: I’d need to double check that but.

SIROVY: Yeah. 

O’CONNOR: He said things along those lines. 

SIROVY: I get why he is considered an interesting character, as you said. Okay, so what advantages for this do the Democrats have? 

O’CONNOR: Yeah, the Democrats have a few advantages going for them. First off, it’s gonna be the abortion issue. This has been something the Democrats have really managed to rally themselves around, rally voters around. We saw in 2022, during those midterms, it was really expected that Joe Biden was gonna take a huge hit. 

Republicans were gonna get a big wave in the House, in the Senate, and it just didn’t happen. Also in the Minnesota State House, in the Minnesota State Legislature, that Republican wave was also kind of expected for them to get rid of that trifecta, and they just weren’t able to do it. A lot of that could be attributed to the fact that the Roe v. Wade abortion case had been decided not too long ago. This is still an issue that is very important to voters, and based on polling, around two thirds of voters are in support of legal abortions. 

And that’s something Democrats, if they’re going to be smart, could really rally themselves around. Also at the Minnesota democratic party has also been a lot better at running. Minnesota democratic party has much better financial situation going on than the Republican party.

SIROVY: Is there a big gap between the two right now? 

O’CONNOR: Yeah, I’d have to go back and check the exact numbers, but I remember for a time it was really ugly. The Republicans were not in a great shape, and the Democrats were just kind of rolling in their cash. Cash is that one thing where it’s so important for an election. 

People might not like it, but it’s just such an important thing. It determines how many ad rolls you’re gonna have. Are you gonna put up billboards? How many staff can you have? Are you gonna be able to put up campaign offices from around the state, or are you just gonna have to concentrate them in one area? Like, this is something that is incredibly important to a successful election. And it just seems like the Democrats have a pretty big advantage on that aspect.

SIROVY: On the flip side, what advantages do the Republicans have?

O’CONNOR: Yeah, I think the real big advantage Republicans have is that Democrats at a national level aren’t incredibly popular, or at least I should say Joe Biden, the top ticket Democrat, is just not polling incredibly well. And this is something that’s going to be important for Democrats, even at the local level. This is something that encourages voters to get out. 

If a Democratic voter doesn’t feel inspired enough by Joe Biden to go out to a polling place and go out and vote, then they’re not also voting for the smaller local elections where Democrats are at. So it’s going to be really important for them. Look, Joe Biden’s unpopularity is going to be a major issue for the Democrats and it’s something Republicans are really going to be able to take advantage of. They’re going to be. 

SIROVY: They already have. 

O’CONNOR: Yeah, this is something that’s going to be a huge thing for the Republicans to take advantage of. And also kind of, I guess it’s more of Democratic weakness. You can call it a Republican strength, but Democrats are very much divided on the Israel-Palestine conflict. We saw it in our local race here with Ilhan Omar, Don Samuels, two sides of the opposite coin. 

But if you go to the Republican party, it’s pretty much Israel. Like there are obviously Palestine supporters on the Republican Party, but it is very much a more unified front there. So I think what the Republicans have going is a more kind of unified party. They have, they don’t have Joe Biden at the top of their ticket, which they need to rally around. So I’d say that’s their strength. 

SIROVY: Do we think that the Minnesota Democratic Party will retain the trifecta? 

O’CONNOR: It’s a tough question, but Walz is staying on the top of the ticket. I think the Democrats will be able to retain the one seat up for, I think the Democrats will be able to retain the Senate, but I think they’re going to lose the House. I don’t.

SIROVY: Really?

O’CONNOR: I just don’t think they’re going to be able to do it in the, I don’t think it’s going to be an absolute destruction, but I think I could imagine five to eight seats going the Republican way. 

SIROVY: What do we know exactly which seats? 

O’CONNOR: There are a few open seats, suburbs, but I’d have to go through them seat by seat to really make my choice but. 

SIROVY: Yeah. The point is that there’s seats open that the Republicans can take.

O’CONNOR: Yeah. And I think there’s gonna be a few Democrats that are just not gonna be able to. I just think that a few of those Democrats, really in the suburbs, just aren’t going to be able to get enough votes. Especially with a lackluster national ticket, that they’re gonna be able to overcome that.

SIROVY: This is one of my questions that I have for you. Do you think that based on the Minnesota elections that we’re having and the National election that we’re having that you think more or less people are gonna vote this year? 

O’CONNOR: Oh my god. That’s a tough question. That’s a good question. I like it. I think we’re gonna see a lot of voter turnout. I think I’d say a little less than 2020 would be my guess as the voter turnout. I think we’ve got a pretty polarized election going on, so I think that’s going to inspire some people to go out, but there’s definitely been a lot of voter apathy this time around. I mean, it’s repeat of 2020, say what you want about Joe Biden and Donald Trump, but they are the nominees, and some people are very dissatisfied that those are the two choices. So I think that might dissuade some people from voting at all. 

SIROVY: Yeah, I’ve seen a lot from social media and online that people are just not happy about how this is the election that’s turning out. Is there anything else that you really want to talk about?

O’CONNOR: I’m trying to think. 

SIROVY: Oh, did you, is there going to be a specific person that will be in charge of writing about the Minnesota elections from city desk?

O’CONNOR: I think that’s probably going to be more of a group effort, I think. For this primary, I think I’m going to have one of our reporters just write something up quick. I’ll probably, sorry Alex, if you’re hearing this, you’re gonna be doing it. It’s gonna be you. I’m assigning that to you now. But once we come to the full election, I think that’s gonna be a much more of a team effort with the City Desk and probably some other reporters. See some nice graphics. 

SIROVY: Oh, I love those graphics. Graphics make a story. Well, I think that is it. Unless, anything else? 

O’CONNOR: I guess I’ll just add one thing about what a trifecta means because I do want to hammer home like just how important that is. If you are someone who has been really impressed with the Democrats in Minnesota, you’ve really liked everything that they’ve been doing so far, then you really want them to retain this trifecta.

I cannot overstate how much this is going to play a role in Minnesota politics for the next two years. 

Being able to just get all the support within the party. Not needing to go to the Republicans and ask, “Would you pretty please support this?” Not having to water down any bills that they support. This is going to be something that plays major role in future Minnesota politics. 

SIROVY: And compared to the states around us, I mean. 

O’CONNOR: Yeah, I mean, this is, we are a bit of a, the blue outlier: the Dakotas, Iowa, Wisconsin, mainly Republican controlled. 

SIROVY: Wisconsin though can be a battleground state. 

O’CONNOR: It could be. They’ve got a, I think if I remember correctly, a Democratic governor in a Republican House.

SIROVY: Oh, what an interesting combination. Alrighty, that has been the end of this episode. As always, we appreciate you listening in, and feel free to leave us an email at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments, questions, or concerns. I’m Kaylie. 

O’CONNOR: And this is Jack. 

SIROVY: And this has been In The Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hello everyone! My name is Kaylie Sirovy, your host from the Minnesota Daily. Right now, you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. 

Let’s talk about the weather here in Minnesota. Recently, we’ve experienced a solid week of non-stop rain from June 15 to the 22 to be exact, and just a lot of rain in general. Quite the switch-up from the warm winter we just experienced and the drought we faced last year. For those of you who are new to the land of 10,000 lakes, this might seem a bit strange. But even as a Minnesota native myself, I found it a little unusual. But, hey, it’s Minnesota and our weather is always full of surprises.

Although perhaps a few too many surprises. Pete Boulay, the assistant state climatologist at Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources, said that the state has experienced an increase in precipitation across the board.

PETE BOULAY: You know, just looking like, let’s say the Twin Cities, you know, we think of in terms of normal. So every 10 years, we take a 30 year average of precipitation and looking at the previous normal period to this one, precipitation increased. You know, if you just look at basically in June, in May, precipitation in the Twin Cities increased about a half an inch. You know, on an annual basis and in June, it’s increased too. So overall, the trend has been for wetter conditions.

SIROVY: You might be wondering what this means for us. Well, the rain has definitely greened things up around here, making our already beautiful state even more lush. The lakes and rivers are getting a much-needed refill, which is great news for all you fishing and boating enthusiasts out there. And let’s not forget about the farmers as they’re getting relief after last year’s drought conditions. We might now be called the land of 100,000 lakes though!

BOULAY: Whenever we’ve had droughts in Minnesota in the past, and we’ve had some big ones, sometimes they get broken in spectacular fashion. And we’ve had some classic examples of this, you could go all the way back to 1910, one of the driest years on record, right. 

And then 1911, it was one of the wettest years on record. 1976, another huge drought. 1977 again, super wet. So, you know, and this has happened in the 2000s, too. 2012 dry, then we have 2014 come along, totally different. So, the fact that we’ve had these rapid changes in weather patterns from really dry to really wet, it’s just part of our climate.

SIROVY: According to Boulay, climate change could be contributing to the increased precipitation due to shifting weather patterns, leading to more overall rainfall. While we can’t attribute any single storm or particular wet and dry seasons to climate change, the overall trend shows that Minnesota is becoming wetter. Despite experiencing dry seasons, the recent droughts have been among the wettest on record, if that makes any sense.

BOULAY: So, while we did have a drought for the last couple of years, we’ve certainly seen a lot worse conditions, a lot drier conditions in the state. So, 2019 was the wettest year on record in Minnesota, and is this a return to the 2010s? It remains to be seen. 

SIROVY: So, a drought could still happen next year or maybe it will again be a really wet season. According to Kenny Blumenfeld, the senior climatologist also with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said that we just can’t accurately predict that.

KENNY BLUMENFELD: I think the question everyone wants to know, are we going to stay this wet? Are we going to, you know, dry out a lot? Is it just going to become normal? Those same seasonal forecasters don’t really have evidence one way or the other that’s causing them to think we’d be wet or dry, so they call it equal chances. We’ve got sort of equal chances of being wet or dry. 

Now just to show how difficult this is, the whole period that has been wet, going back to basically the spring equinox, that whole period had also been projected as having equal chances for above or below normal precipitation. In other words, being wet or being dry. And obviously we’ve been decidedly very wet. So it just shows that what they project doesn’t necessarily tell you. 

You have to be careful in your interpretation because it could very well remain quite wet. Right now, for the next three weeks, those same forecasters see Minnesota remaining in a pattern that’s more wet than dry, meaning exposing us to a greater frequency and/or greater total amount of precipitation than would be normal this time of year. So, it doesn’t mean that we’re going to go in a pattern like we just were in where we’re most days for a 9 day period or a 10 day period.

SIROVY: Blumenfeld mentioned that Minnesota has climate records dating back to the 1800s, with specific daily and monthly data. That’s a lot of information spanning a lot of years, so all the weather events are competing with that. He also pointed out that a climate event can be important even if it’s not the most extreme on record. 

BLUMENFELD: One of the things that’s so interesting about our world, the world I inhabit as a climatologist and the people who want climate information, is there’s been this really interesting fixation on number one. Being like the most extreme. Is this the worst ever? 

Is this the, and you know, think of all the competition that you have for number one, for being the, you know, the best of, you know, over a hundred others at something. Having the best grades out of a hundred people or having, you know, being the best at swimming or dance or softball or whatever, you know, whatever activity you do. There’s a lot of competition for that number one spot and that’s true in climatology. 

So there’s a lot of competition for being the hottest or being the wettest and when you achieve a number one, it’s a big deal and you can have things that have really major consequences without them even being close to to number one because our climate history does include a lot of substantial extremes that we can’t necessarily comprehend.

SIROVY: With the climate changing, our top rain events and even our top-ten rainy days are on the rise, according to Blumenfeld. It’s like our extreme weather leaderboard keeps getting bigger. Adding more years to Minnesota’s already wild climate plays a part, but there’s also this ongoing uptick in rain and temperatures as I’m sure a lot of you have seen.

BLUMENFELD: So I guess that’s all to say, you know, don’t maybe convince yourself, “This is the worst. This is the wettest it’s ever been,” because history has a lot to teach us and on the other hand we need to be prepared for more of this and as we move forward we need to understand that really wet conditions like the ones we’re in are gonna maybe even have more precipitation in the years and decades ahead. And we need to make sure that we’re prepared for that at the community scale and at the regional scale. And the same is true with temperature.

BOULAY: Not all months have increased. What we’ve seen is it’s kind of interesting how, in general, in the Twin Cities, gone up about 3 percent from the old normal to the new normal. So, you know, it all kind of adds up a bit over time and our normal precipitation has been increasing, you know, precipitation has been increasing ever since really the dust bowl, the thirties, but some months are wetter than others. Some haven’t changed a whole lot, July and August about the same. 

October has gone up a bit. November has gone down. So not every month has been equal there. So wetter springs, somewhat drier November’s. So one thing has really increased and it’s one of our driest months is February. February was always the month you thought nothing would happen, but that’s been one of the bigger increases percentage wise is that and May. It’s not a blanket like everything is increasing. It’s kind of a hit or miss kind of thing, too.

SIROVY: Looking ahead, Blumenfeld anticipates similar trends like the one we’re in now, possibly with more variability and additional warming. Experiencing another winter as strangely warm as the recent one might take some time, but given the ongoing warming trend, it can happen within our lifetimes. 

Winter warming is happening the fastest, although other seasons are a close second. However, Blumenfeld cautioned that these patterns won’t repeat exactly every year, as dry periods are also part of this cycle.

BLUMENFELD: It’s really hard to forecast seasons ahead. I think because we know we’re switching into La Niña, which means the Pacific Ocean near the equator is cooling, going through a cooling phase, and that does tend to be associated with more winter like winters here in Minnesota. Same as the way that El Niño tends to be associated with warmer and less winter like winters.

I think it’s safe to assume that we’ll have at least one really noticeably wintry period. If we were to look at any of the recent years and decades for a guide, I think the long term forecasters would be safe suggesting that, you know, the, the latter part of winter centered on February would be maybe colder or snowier than what is normal. But for the months ahead, between now and then, for the rest of the warm season or the growing season, it’s really hard to know. 

NOAA, or the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, part of the federal government, they have the Climate Prediction Center, which actually tries to make seasonal forecasts. And their forecast for the rest of summer for Minnesota, really the period right through September, is that we have better than even chances of being warm. 

SIROVY: That’s the thing with weather, we all know it’s unpredictable. Whether it’s sudden rain showers disrupting summer picnics, unexpected thunderstorms during outdoor activities or the excitement students feel as they enjoy their break under the sun. Minnesota’s weather blends sunshine and showers and that keeps us all on our toes. I look at Weather.com all the time, but I still never know what Mother Nature will cook up next. As of late though, I always bring an umbrella with me. 

BOULAY: Up until the flooding, you know, in some ways this was a good thing because we were really saving money in irrigation, people that would irrigate weren’t needing to irrigate. And that does save money and save water, but then the flooding came and of course that’s a lot worse and there’s a lot of hardship there too. It’s past beyond being a good thing. You know, it was good to get out of the drought. Now it’s a bad thing.

SIROVY: Personally, I think it’s fascinating how the impacts of weather can vary so widely and Boulay makes a valid point about the dual nature of weather events. How they can initially save resources like water and money through reduced irrigation, yet quickly turn into devastating floods, such as the recent incident on the Blue Earth River in southern Minnesota. 

As I record this episode, the failure of the Rapidan Dam on one side has caused a nearby house to collapse. 

BLUMENFELD: You know, some of some of the people who probably will listen to this are students and student age, and so they might not think much about the 2010s the way that older people do, but in the 2010s, we had a very wet period and really 2019 was extremely wet. So we did actually have very high water and flooding issues commonly from about 2014 through 2019 in Minnesota. Nothing quite as widespread as what we just had. But in many cases, we had situations that were worse than what we’ve had, but they were just more localized. And that seemed to happen regularly during the 2010s.

I would say the last time we had something this widespread was probably June of 2014, which still stands as Minnesota’s wettest month of any month on record, June 2014. And right now we’re not competing with it, for that record, it’s still way ahead. So just to kind of put it in perspective, it’s like, you think this is bad, imagine having 25 to 50 percent more rain.

SIROVY: This episode was written and produced by Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we appreciate you listening in and feel free to leave us an email at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments, questions or concerns. I’m Kaylie, and this has been In The Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hi everyone, my name is Kaylie Sirovy, your host from the Minnesota Daily. Right now you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. 

If you are a college student anywhere in this country you probably have heard of the SRTs, that is the Student Rating of Teaching or some form of it. It comes around at the end of every semester where students are asked to give anonymous feedback on the instructor and the class itself. Even though I’ve completed many of them myself, that’s where my knowledge ends. 

So, past hitting the submit button, I don’t think about the SRTs anymore until the next time I have to write another one. As students, we aren’t told much about them, just that they are something we are required to do and that they are important. While I didn’t think they were a big deal, they kind of are according to Ole Gram, the Associate Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs at the University.

OLE GRAM: The SRT is really valuable. It’s not an instrument for judging the faculty members’ content knowledge, right? Whether they know chemistry or not. It really is about the student experience, and that’s why it’s important.

SIROVY: According to Gram, the SRT is just one of the methods for evaluating teaching, however, it is the only way to get feedback about the student experience specifically. You know, what worked for students, what should the instructor be doing differently and the like. 

GRAM: There’s sort of two portions to it, right? There is the instructor items, and then there are course items, right? We’ll say the instructor presented the material clearly, right? It’s about the clarity of instruction.

There are also items that asks about the course. Those are very broad. One is, “I would recommend this instructor to another student,” right? Overall, “How did you feel about this instructor on a scale of one to five?” There’s one that mirrors it that says, “Would you recommend this course to another student?” 

And what we see is that those two actually differ a little bit. In general, students are much kinder to the instructor and they sometimes may say, look, “I really don’t like organic chemistry.” “I don’t think I want anyone to take that,” but the instructor did their best, right?

SIROVY: At the end, there are two sets of data due to Minnesota regulations. Instructor-related items are classified as personnel data under the Minnesota Data Practices Act and cannot be shared with students. Only people with higher authority can access this information, like department heads. However, students will never see what’s said on this section.

On the other hand, course-related data, which still provides a lot of information about a course, is accessible. Although it may not pertain to the specific instructor currently teaching the course, it generally reflects similar teaching experiences. This data includes information such as workload and effort required, which students can view when registering through the MyU portal.

Before researching for this episode, I didn’t realize that students had access to this kind of information. I always assumed it was classified, but I reviewed the gathered data and was surprised when I saw every course available at the University on the list. It includes course data dating back to fall 2020, with each course rated on a scale of 1 to 6, where 6 is the highest. While I found several courses with perfect scores, these often had only a few responses, which may not be very reliable. Despite this, I still found the data quite helpful. 

GRAM: And the idea was that we need to find a way to get some of this information to the students right, to inform. It’s not, like Rate My Professor, which is sort of like, a little bit popularity contest. It is really saying, okay, these are students. They’re taking it very seriously. They know that this affects their instructors. So I think it’s better data in many ways, and we just hope that it’s useful for the students when they make decisions about which courses to take.

SIROVY: While Gram is an advocate for the SRT, others might not be so enthused about the end of semester survey. One person a little bit less optimistic about them is Judy Grandbois, the Executive Administrative Specialist for the Philosophy department. She works with the undergraduate students there and in the past, has handed these evaluations out and collected them. She said that since the University switched to online surveys instead of paper, it’s now doing a disservice to the instructors.

JUDY GRANDBOIS: I think in past years it was better when it was actually papers being handed out because the instructors would leave time during the class to fill them out. Now with the computerized ones, I just feel like there’s so many students that ignore emails. So I think that this is kind of doing a disservice to the instructors. Just because I don’t think the percentage of returned ones is the same as they’ve been in the past. 

SIROVY: They switched to online because of the COVID pandemic and never switched back. 

GRAM: We kept paper forms much longer than many other universities. The reason is that the response rate, so the number of students who actually completed the form, was much, much higher when we had paper forms. So, the process was at the end of the class, or sometimes during the class period, the faculty member would leave, you’d set aside 10-15 minutes, and it was a captive audience, right?

It’s really hard in the era of social media and everything else that’s going on for students to remember to complete that online. That’s why we have sort of over the past four years, really, is that we encourage faculty to emulate the paper form, but electronically. 

So we tell them, “Do what you would have done with the paper form.” Most students in your class will have their phone with them, maybe a laptop, maybe a tablet, but it’s so ubiquitous now with the smartphones that you can actually do that. So, leave the room for 10-15 minutes, assign someone to come get you afterwards, and you will get those higher response rates. We’re still not there yet. That is the effective way.

So, a couple of things: faculty asking, telling students that they value their input, how they use it, how they have improved their teaching in the past based on that input and doing it during the class time.

Those are the big takeaway messages, and that is something that we really hope to improve. There is a point when we were hoping, are there other ways we can improve that, and we’re going to keep experimenting with this. Do a little bit more of a campaign in the fall to encourage instructors to be more thoughtful about some of those tips because it’s in their best interest as well.

SIROVY: It may be in their best interest, but it differs from department to department. Grandbois said that there’s only a small number of philosophy instructors that actually read them.

GRANDBOIS: Nothing’s ever in their favor based on what they say, because in past years, when students were kind of icky about it, you know, “well, it would be nice if the instructor showed up on time” or, you know, and so there were actual written responses like that.

Did that change how the instructors did it? No. Does it affect their pay? No. I don’t really see the benefit of them because instructors have their syllabi. They teach the way they teach. Based on what a student or students say I don’t think they’re changing that.

SIROVY: There have been helpful comments and there still will be, according to Grandbois, but as the classroom size goes up, it’s harder to read what each and every student said, especially on a computer screen. I can understand that since we as students do most of our homework on our computers and let me tell you, after a few hours, it gets really hard on the eyes. What do students think of them?

GRANDBOIS: I don’t really think, I’ve never heard anyone say “I love them.” I just, you know, I’ve never heard that it almost seems like it’s more of a chore for them, but that’s philosophy. 

I definitely wouldn’t get rid of them, but I just think they’re doing a disservice by making them electronic. I mean, I know we’re all moving away from paper anything, but I just think there was a better number better, um, outcome from that, but we’re not going to go back in time.

Cause I think they are a useful, helpful tool if they go back to the way they were. I don’t really think they’re useful or helpful the way they are because as you said, looking on the computer, reading through it. Who has that kind of time?

SIROVY: It varies if the professor goes through every one for a class, but the chairs and heads of departments always do. So what you say on the SRT does matter. You might not see the changes yourself, although the next class they teach probably will.

GRAM: Let’s say they get a lower score than they would have liked to see on one of the items. Say the instructor provided feedback about, provided good feedback about my work. If that is low, the Center for Educational Innovation, that is professionals who help instructors improve their teaching.

They will sit down with them and do consultations about what they could improve. What can you do to provide better feedback? When you hear that students feel, “uh, I’m not really, I don’t know where I’m in this class.” Well, it probably means that there is some pedagogical techniques that you can implement to really raise that score.

SIROVY: With the thousands of surveys they get each year, they’ll find some students who are frustrated and leave comments that are a bit obnoxious or not really relevant according to Gram. But sometimes, we have to remember that these professors are people too and have their flaws like anyone.

GRAM: That can be a source of frustration. I think we all know that feeling of you’re being told everything’s great about doing something and then there’s that one person who criticizes you and all you can think of is that one person who criticized you. So we always tell people to really look at these in, in context, right?

If you get maybe half of the class is providing some comments. What is a theme? Is there a theme? And does it match some of what the responses were on the numerical items? That probably tells you something. And then, if they’re those outliers, well, not clear how useful they are. By the way, it’s not just negative comments, right?

So, you may get comments like, “best teacher ever.” It’s like, okay, well, I feel good, right? Tap yourself on the back. The problem with that is it’s not particularly helpful, right? Because you don’t know what it was that worked. So providing that concrete feedback is super helpful for any instructor. I guarantee you. 

SIROVY: So it seems the SRTs are a two way street. Both students and professors have to be open to giving and receiving feedback to better the college experience. But Gram said that he doesn’t think they will change much in the future. They’ve been refined over the years, and have to be reviewed every four years by bringing it to the Senate Committee on Educational Policy—which includes student representatives—to discuss what works and what doesn’t. 

Faculty and Academic Affairs will continue to gather feedback from the campus community to identify opportunities for improvement. Additionally, Gram said that instructors should consider at the beginning or in the middle of the semester surveys to help faculty gauge what’s working in their classrooms, separate from the end of semester evaluations shared with department chairs. 

GRAM: So you could imagine having something like an SRT, essentially surveys, earlier in the term. So this is something we actually encourage faculty and instructors to do. To do something midterm or maybe three weeks into the semester, ask students informally, not anonymously, what is working. What should I be doing differently? And then going back to the class and say, “okay, I heard from you that we did not spend enough time on this topic. It’s still muddy. I’m going to spend another class session reviewing it.” No one is reviewing the instructor. It’s just for the instructor.

SIROVY: For my fellow students listening right now, the SRTs may seem unimportant and like a chore, and I’ve felt this way too, but people do listen to what we have to say. Now I can’t say this for every department and every instructor, your thoughts about a class do not go ignored. It just depends on the professor. Some care very much about what a student says, and others maybe don’t.

GRAM: SRTs are, you know, a little bit of anxiety and it’s not a perfect instrument. It is just part of feedback. And the way we think of it is that this is about as the student voice. It’s not about students evaluating the content and all that, or how brilliant the faculty member is. It’s really about the experience in the classroom over that time. And it’s one point of feedback on teaching. And I think that’s important to keep in mind. 

SIROVY: This episode was written and produced by Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we appreciate you listening in, and I personally would love to hear what other students think about the SRTs, so send us an email to podcasting@mndaily.com with comments, questions or concerns. I’m Kaylie, and this has been In The Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hey guys, my name is Kaylie Sirovy, your host from the Minnesota Daily. Right now you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. 

Today, we’re talking about what I think is one of the most unique UMN clubs out there—the Lettuce Club. It’s a tradition that involves a ton of iceberg lettuce. To help us understand the origins and inner workings of this leafy club, we got Russell Brown, a senior in history and a past Head Lettuce, here to spill the beans—or in this case, the lettuce. 

RUSSELL BROWN:  To my understanding, it was started as just kind of like a goofy little get together and then it just kind of spiraled out of control into what it at one point was. I don’t think there was like any true reasoning behind it other than being a fun little quirky club.

SIROVY: This tradition sprouted up during the fall semester of 2019 and has since earned quite a reputation on campus. But what exactly does it take to join the Lettuce Club?

BROWN: Yeah, so we are pretty loose on the rules. Only iceberg lettuce is allowed. Has to be at least one pound. You have to try and eat it as quickly as you can. You can only really win though if you’re a U of M student who has at least one year left because whoever wins and becomes the new Head Lettuce is also then responsible for planning next year’s club meeting.

SIROVY: For those who may be wondering, no, you do not have to eat the stem, but you can bring any condiment or dressing you wish. Ranch seemed to be the favorite this year as I saw quite a few bottles of it amongst the competitors when they met this past week to crown a new Head Lettuce. But as the past Head Lettuce, what were your responsibilities?

BROWN: You know, it’s really not been that much work. I probably, over the last year, just for planning and like getting us registered as a student organization, it’s probably been about 10 hours total, so not too much. The part that has been the most draining definitely has been like the social media engagement because since there was such a long period without the lettuce club being held, I’m just trying to like make sure we’re present online and people know what’s going on has been more difficult.

SIROVY: Why did the club stop meeting?

BROWN: I have my understanding of why it was. I don’t know exactly like how factual it is. This is just how it’s been kind of relayed to me. The Lettuce Club, last time it met in fall of 2021 or 2022, we just kind of used a room without booking it, or the previous Head Lettuce did, and the university really didn’t like that because they brought in like Barstool Gophs and, or actually like National Barstool was there, and a lot of media and they really didn’t like that just because of like liability. 

So, the university was like kind of threatening like to just fully shut down Lettuce Club. And so, it was just a lot of hurdles to try and get through of like, you need to be a registered student organization and you need to get event insurance, which we are not opting to do because we’re not in a university building. We’re in a public place. So, yeah, they wanted $400 for us to throw our event. So we’re kind of trying to figure out a way to make this happen without, you know, that huge financial burden. 

SIROVY: That’s a lot to navigate for a club about lettuce, but on the lighter side, have you seen any funny moments during your time as the Head Lettuce? I can imagine there would be quite a few.

BROWN: I would say like the funniest moment involved with Lettuce Club for me was when National Barstools posted like a recap of the meeting and they posted this really up close picture of me like devouring what I thought was lettuce because I didn’t win, I just asked for the club so that I could make it like happen for everyone. They have a picture of me devouring a head of cabbage because I brought the wrong thing and I just look so pissed. I’m like, there’s evil in my eyes, like so angry I have cabbage, but I thought that was really funny.

SIROVY: That seems to be a running theme as I saw more than a few heads of cabbages instead of iceberg lettuce. Why do you think the club sticks to iceberg lettuce though?

BROWN: You know, it’s just like, it’s just kind of what it was. Like, I don’t have any explanation for it. Although, I am quite happy it’s iceberg and not any other type. I think that’s, it’s like just light and easy to eat. Good for competition.

SIROVY: Was there a reason that you wanted to continue the Lettuce Club?

BROWN: I just think, now more than ever, we just need goofy things that can bring us together and I think that a Lettuce Club where you just meet once per year to do something dumb I think it’s important, like equally important to other clubs. So I just didn’t want to see that fun die out.

SIROVY: This club sounds like a perfect way to romaine connected with other students and leaf an impression. So, are there any tried-and-true strategies you’ve seen for devouring a head of lettuce in record time?

BROWN: Well, we’re not inside of a building this year, so I don’t know how plausible this one will be, but people were like smashing their heads of lettuce on the table to try and break it up last time. There was also a lot of accusations being thrown about of cheating. So, I’m being very mindful of it this year. I brought a scale, we’re weighing all the lettuces before we start.

SIROVY: So, what’s the most challenging part of the competition for you? Is it the chewing? The sheer amount of lettuce? Or maybe the pressure to maintain your composure?

BROWN: You know, I think it’s more so just like, at least for me, it’s the texture because I just start chewing lettuce and I’m like, eventually everything feels gross. So I just like kind of get psyched out by that. It’s not necessarily like the stomach part of like, “I’m full.” It’s just the, it’s the mental part for me.

SIROVY: As for the competition, I spoke with Abby Teal, a third-year student majoring in Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development. Teal was new to the Lettuce Club and told me she was just there to have a good time. Not only that, but it was her birthday, and she celebrated by blowing out a candle stuck into a head of lettuce. Her friends and the rest of the club joined in to sing “Happy Birthday,” and honestly, I think that’s a great way to spend a birthday. 

ABBY TEAL: You know, I’ve always heard about the Lettuce Club. I wanted to try it out, see what it was about, and then also, yeah, it’s my birthday, so nothing else I’d rather be doing.

SIROVY: Do you think you can be Head Lettuce?

TEAL: No. We’re just here for a fun time.

SIROVY: Another competitor, Katherine Magnuson, a senior majoring in Data Science, approached the competition with a different goal in mind.

KATHERINE MAGNUSON: I am here today to prove I am built different and to celebrate a fantastic graduation. I think I was born Head Lettuce, I was just going to get the title on top of it today.

SIROVY: The last competitor I spoke with before the lettuce eating began was Nathan Tomas, a sophomore studying building science.

NATHAN TOMAS: When I, you know, a freshman, before freshman year, back in like 12th grade of high school, people told me about the Lettuce Eating Club on campus. And I was like, “That sounds prolific. I gotta get involved with that.” There wasn’t really an opportunity to do so. Then a friend of mine reached out to me and was like, there’s a Lettuce Eating Club on campus, you wanna get involved? I’m like, I’ve been waiting my whole life for this. Let me at him. So here I am. Yeah, eating lettuce.

SIROVY: The energy coming from the competitors as the time drew nearer was electric. But first they had to recite the Lettuce Club oath where they put their right hand on their lettuce and the left one in the air. 

The oath is as follows: “Lettuce compete today with honor, glory, and most importantly a mild appetite for leafy vegetables. If we find ourselves growing weak, let the strength of the mighty iceberg carry us forward. We must romaine calm if we do not win, and beleaf in the new Head Lettuce to guide us. Even if we do not win, we will be grateful for this little gem of a club and for those of us that will go on to compete in the future, we butter be prepared to toss salad once again.”

The moment Brown shouted, “go,” a green frenzy erupted, filling the air with the crisp scent of freshly chopped lettuce. From my vantage point, it was easy to spot who was in it just for laughs and who was gunning for the win. The students who mistakenly brought cabbage were struggling, but they didn’t let that slow them down. As the minutes ticked by, a few contestants surged ahead, eyeing the coveted Head Lettuce title.

But alas, as the first person finished their lettuce and Brown was ready to crown them Head Lettuce, they had to be passed over to the next person who finished as they were a senior, so they couldn’t be Head Lettuce. This happened for the next two people until finally, there was a winner.

And it was none other than Tomas with a time of 5:21! Brown dramatically removed his crown as people continued to munch on their lettuce, preparing to start the coronation ceremony. To those in attendance he declared, “I am proud to crown the next Head Lettuce of our Lettuce Club. May the lettuce gods help Nathan reign successfully and plan a great meeting next semester.” The crowd burst into applause, then chanted in unison, “God save the Head Lettuce.” It truly was magical and I am glad to have witnessed it. 

Tomas will now be the club’s social head, managing the Instagram (@originallettuceclub) and planning the next leafy gathering which he hopes to advertise to more students. So, you ended up Head Lettuce, how does it feel?

TOMAS: I am in awe of this accomplishment. I walked in here today just being like, thinking it would just be a fun thing to be a part of, and to walk away with it being Head Lettuce was something I never expected, honestly.

SIROVY: Even though not everyone could become Head Lettuce, the students were still crisp with excitement. The soon-to-be graduates had a blast celebrating one of our campus’s most iconic traditions, while those coming back next semester are already looking ahead to another head-to-head competition for the coveted title. 

This episode was written and produced by Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we appreciate you listening in and feel free to leave us an email at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments, questions or concerns. I’m Kaylie, and this is In The Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: I totally understand the cold hands thing. My hands, even in the summertime, my hands are freezing. 

AMELIA ROESSLER: I’m the only person who walks around in the summer with long pants and sweatshirts because I’m just freezing all the time. 

SPENCER WHITE: Do you think you’re anemic? 

ROESSLER: I don’t know. 

SIROVY: I thought I was for a while, but then I got tested and they’re like, no. 

ROESSLER: I don’t think I am.

SIROVY: I was like, I don’t believe you. 

ROESSLER: I also just tolerate heat. So like, I’ll go out with a sweatshirt on and just like everybody else is sweating and I’m just like it’s fine. 

SIROVY: I just like sweatshirts. 

WHITE: Love a sweater.

ROESSLER: Yeah, I love sweatshirts. 

WHITE: Very comfy. 

SIROVY: As you guys are both wearing sweatshirts. Hi everybody, this is Kaylie Sirovy from The Minnesota Daily and you’re listening to In The Know, the podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota.

In the studio with me today are, so exciting, my two future bosses. So we have Amelia, the managing, future managing editor, and then Spencer, the future editor-in-chief. How are we feeling today? 

ROESSLER: Good.

WHITE: Pretty good. 

ROESSLER: Yeah.

SIROVY: How we feeling about the new job starting in June? 

WHITE: Excited and a little nervous. Don’t want to burn the place down. 

ROESSLER: No, we won’t. 

SIROVY: You’re gonna do great. I trust you guys. So first off, let’s kind of take a trip through memory lane. What has been your guys’ favorite parts about working here? 

WHITE: Definitely just meeting people. I know some of the most fun I’ve had was when we went on our trip to Atlanta. Everything that went down there, the escapades we got up to. It was just a great time. Everything from that. Cole mentioned it in his farewell podcast a few months back, but just messing around at weekaheads meetings. Some of the most fun I’ve had at my entire time at the University of Minnesota.  

SIROVY: Yeah, weekaheads are really fun. Even though they’re meetings, we can get into some shenanigans. 

WHITE: Yeah, we can.

SIROVY: Amelia, what about you? 

ROESSLER: I did not go on the trip, but just being here in the office has been incredibly fun, especially coming in to edit and just hang out with everybody. It’s like in between waiting for stories to come in and it’s just like, what’s some stuff that we can get up to? And it’s just so fun just to be around everybody.

SIROVY: Okay, so what have been your favorite stories that you’ve either helped publish or you did publish?

WHITE: Ooh, honestly, I mean, a lot of what Leo Hupke, he’s been doing this semester, I’ve been getting really excited about. He’s been a new voice for the opinion section. I guess stuff I’ve worked on. Earlier this semester, I got to write basically a hit piece about like a megachurch, so that was fun. I enjoyed doing stuff like that.

SIROVY: That one got a lot of comments. 

WHITE: Not everyone was super happy with me. 

ROESSLER: I’ve done a lot of stories this year. I feel like a lot of them, some of them have been like more like heavy, more important pieces like rape in Residence Halls, or like suicides off the Washington Avenue Bridge. But, personally, the more fun ones was when I wrote about the UMN Gospel Choir.

That was so fun. I went to a practice, and I was like, I can’t stay seated because everybody stands up to sing. And so I, like, stood up and I, like, started singing with them, and it was so fun. Or, the ROTC, Life in a, Day in the life of an ROTC student. That was fun. Woke up at 5 in the morning to go to morning PT. That was interesting, but some of my favorites. 

SIROVY: You woke up at 5 in the morning? 

ROESSLER: Well, they had PT at like 6. It was either 6 or 6:30. And so I woke up super early, had to walk all the way to the armory, and met the guy that I was interviewing. And he’s like, yeah, okay, we’re just gonna like go into the field house. Everybody’s like they’re wearing matching shirts and shorts and shoes and they’re just all matching and I felt so out of place, but it was so fun. 

SIROVY: Were they like, what are you doing here? 

ROESSLER: Yeah, I got a lot of looks. So I just kind of like kept to the outskirts and then, but nobody ever said anything and then at one point like one of the leaders came up to me and they’re like, “can I help you with something?” And I was like, “um, no I’m just following that guy around for the day,” but they were so nice once they knew what I was there for.

WHITE: I don’t think I’ve ever gotten up at 5 in the morning and thought, “ah, that was fun.”

ROESSLER: In the moment, I did not think it was fun. It was more, I was more like nervous, but afterwards, when I was like, falling asleep here at 8pm doing edits, I was like, “Yeah, super fun morning.” Had a time.

SIROVY: Just a time?

ROESSLER: A grand time. 

SIROVY: What has been, this is maybe a little tougher question, funniest moments?

ROESSLER: Honestly, anything Georgia says. 

WHITE: That’s fair, yeah. 

ROESSLER: Like being in the room with Georgia, just like feeding off her energy is so funny. Like we leg wrestled. That was funny. 

WHITE: Yeah.

SIROVY: You leg wrestled? 

ROESSLER: In the office. Cause we were talking, Georgia and I have this like running joke that we’re just going to fight each other. Obviously it’s never going to happen, but like, it’s the running joke. And so it’s like, one day I was like, “okay, you want to like leg wrestle?” And she’s like, “what’s that?” And I was like, okay, now I got to show you what leg wrestling is. And so we, in the office, I tried to show her how to leg wrestle. It didn’t work out. 

WHITE: Now listeners, if you want to take bets on who will win this fight, you can find my email, swhite@mndaily.com. 

ROESSLER: If we find a, if we decide on a time and place for this famed fight, we will let it be known. 

SIROVY: Moe’s gonna come out on top. 

ROESSLER: Oh my gosh! 

SIROVY: Moe’s our mascot.

WHITE: It’ll be a W.W.E. event. 

SIROVY: Spencer, this one is for you, and then Amelia, why did you want to be editor-in-chief?

WHITE: I mean, I care a lot about the Minnesota Daily, I’ve had a lot of fun here, and unfortunately Alex has passed away and —

SIROVY: We should clarify that he means that, not literally, means he’s just not gonna be here at The Daily anymore.

WHITE: He’s moved on from The Minnesota Daily, he’s alive and not dead.

SIROVY: Thank you.

WHITE: So he’s moved on, and I don’t know, it just seemed like a good next step for me, and like, I just want to do whatever I can to make sure The Minnesota Daily is running well, and like, being a part of it as much as I can. I feel like, gives me the best opportunity to do that.

SIROVY: Amelia, why did you want to be EIC? 

ROESSLER: Well, I’ve been a reporter for about a year now, which has been fun, but I was like, I’m ready to, I want to be in a leadership position. And while being the desk editor would have been fun, I was like, “okay, but the EIC application is opening up. Why not just like shoot for like the biggest one I can get?” Going through that entire process with everybody was, I learned so much, not only about The Daily, but about myself and about my fellow coworkers here and it was so fun. I was really happy when they chose Spencer though for EIC because obviously I know he’s going to do a fantastic job and I’m just so fortunate that he wanted me to be his coworker working next to him in this whole thing. So that’s kind of why I wanted to do it. 

SIROVY: How’d you make that decision, Spencer? 

WHITE: I had talked to Amelia a little bit about it before, like we knew who the next EIC was going to be. I mean, I admire Amelia’s work a lot. We get along really well and I think we’ll work well together. So it was pretty just a straightforward decision, I think. 

SIROVY: Oh, that’s super sweet.

ROESSLER: I know.

SIROVY: He did a little heart with his hands for those who can’t see. What are your — what are you most looking forward to being in these positions? Because for those who don’t know, being editor in chief and managing editor, you kind of have final say on a lot of stuff.

ROESSLER: I guess I’m looking forward to being in a leadership position and being able to help reporters and editors with things that they need and then being able to help Spencer in his endeavors and be able to kind of just make The Daily better. 

WHITE: I’m excited to like, start with like some new projects and like move The Daily in a new interesting direction with some new stuff we want to start trying, maybe some video stuff. Just trying to expand what we do.

SIROVY: Short and sweet. Okay. This can kind of go for a lot of stuff, what was either the hardest part about the presentations, about becoming a candidate, like, because you guys had to do a lot of stuff for this. 

WHITE: Oh, it was so stressful. 

ROESSLER: It was a long process. 

WHITE: It was like two months, wasn’t it? 

ROESSLER: Yeah.

SIROVY: So when did you guys put out your applications? 

WHITE: I think we had to submit our applications February?

ROESSLER:  20?

WHITE: 28?

ROESSLER: Yeah, 28. 

WHITE: And then March 28 was when like they made the decision after we presented to the board. 

ROESSLER: But we were meeting before our applications were even due. 

WHITE: Yeah, at like the start of the semester I think. 

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

WHITE: Yeah, so it was a long process we had to put together like this application packet which was like 20 pages or something.

ROESSLER: It was ginormous.

WHITE: It was huge. And then, you know, a presentation and giving like a speech to people who decide your fate. It felt like a reality show. It was weird. 

SIROVY: It kind of did feel like a reality show. As someone who was watching your guys’ presentations for the reporters and editors and whatnot, and for people in admin and business. We were, it did feel a little like a reality show. Like you guys just kept coming in and like, then you would leave and then a new person would come in and it’s like, “oh, pick your favorite. Who gets the rose?” 

ROESSLER: It felt like really reality show like the night that we presented to the board because we all came in at like four or five. I don’t remember. 

WHITE: Yeah, I was in at like three or something editing.

ROESSLER: Yeah, and so, but the presentations didn’t start till like 5:30, 6. And so we were just sitting up here. We were on the fourth floor, our presentations were on the first floor. And so they’d text us one at a time to go down and present. So the rest of us are just waiting up here. And then after we all presented, we were all just sitting up here for like an hour?

WHITE: We were here till like 11. 

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

WHITE: 11:30. 

ROESSLER: But we were all just sitting up here like in a circle just talking. Like waiting for them to decide our fate. 

WHITE: We played hide and seek around the office for like an hour. 

SIROVY: You did?

ROESSLER: Yeah, we did.

SIROVY: Who was winning a lot?

WHITE: Jack’s really good at hide and seek. Jack’s really good at hide and seek. 

ROESSLER: Yeah.

SIROVY: Did you not find him?

WHITE: He was hard to find. He had good hiding spots. He was very quiet.

SIROVY: That’s crazy cause he’s not small either.

ROESSLER: No, he can like put himself in small spaces. 

WHITE: He like folds himself. 

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Just picturing Jack folded in like a filing cabinet or something. Amelia, this is a question for you. What was your favorite part about being a reporter? 

ROESSLER: Being a reporter? Honestly, just like, the reason why I love being a journalist is that I learn new things every day, and I got to learn new things about my campus and about people around my campus every day. And then like, afterwards, I get to like, walk around campus and be like, “oh, I know you!” Like, I did a story about you! Like, it was just really fun to make a lot of connections. 

SIROVY: And now I kind of want to talk about the quote book. 

WHITE: Oh, no. 

ROESSLER: Yes.

SIROVY: So, we talked about this with Maddie and Alex in the previous episode, but Amelia is kind of taking up the torch, as Alex was saying, for the new quote book for the next year. And what is on it so far?

ROESSLER: Can I read some? Is that allowed? 

SIROVY: Yeah, you can read some. 

ROESSLER: Okay. 

WHITE: Pick them wisely. 

SIROVY: Yeah, pick them wisely. 

ROESSLER: Wisely? There’s a lot. I will say there’s a lot of Georgia and Spencer quotes on here. 

WHITE: While you’re finding that Amelia also put together a Kahoot for our last all staff meeting of the year. 

SIROVY: Oh my gosh, yes. The Kahoot. 

WHITE: Our quotes of the year and I was on there too many times I think.

SIROVY: It was kind of comedic how many times, like even if it wasn’t your quote people would have thought it was you.

WHITE: I was an option on like half of them. 

SIROVY: Yeah. 

ROESSLER: No, you were on the options, whether it was you or not, you were on the options on pretty much all of them. 

SIROVY: Who made that choice?

ROESSLER: I did because I had to make it difficult for everybody. 

WHITE: Fair. Me and Noah were like, go to like random choices. 

ROESSLER: Yeah.

SIROVY: Yeah.

ROESSLER: You and Georgia, too. 

WHITE: Georgia, too.

ROESSLER: Georgia towards the end.

SIROVY: Yeah. Georgia was in there a bit too. 

ROESSLER: I was just surprised with over a hundred quotes that I could have put in, HR only vetoed four, so that’s a win. 

SIROVY: I know, and Charlie was on like half of them. 

ROESSLER: Charlie was on a lot of them. 

SIROVY: I was very surprised at that. 

ROESSLER: Okay, ready for some quotes? So Georgia has said recently, “if you say SPJ three times and spin in a circle, Seth Richardson appears.”

SIROVY: That one’s a little, kind of an inside joke for those who like aren’t 

journalists at The Daily. 

ROESSLER: That’s true, but it’s really funny. Alex Karwowski said, “you ever look at birds and think that they’re Nerf footballs?” 

SIROVY: That is the future sports editor, ladies and gentlemen. 

WHITE: An encapsulation of who he is, I think. 

SIROVY: Yeah. 

ROESSLER: Logan Anderson, on admin desk, is currently working on a story, or worked on a story about he talked to some guy who was an expert in deer urine, I think?

SIROVY: Oh, this was for the, was it the hunter hunter thing? 

ROESSLER: Yeah! 

SIROVY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

ROESSLER: And so his quote on here is, “Steve Porter, a deer urine merchant, told me to do it.” Oh, you said yesterday, “that one was supposed to keep secret because Alexis was gonna make fun of us.”

SIROVY: Oh, yeah. 

WHITE: Uh, yeah. 

ROESSLER: That was weekaheads. 

WHITE: Alexis makes fun of me a lot.

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Alexis, for those who don’t know, is A&E editor. We’re saying, we keep saying all these names, but like, some people don’t know who they are. 

WHITE: Yeah.

ROESSLER: A lot of these are like inside jokes. 

SIROVY: Yeah, that just shows how much of a family we are here. 

ROESSLER: I know. I was just going to say, did we tell you we’re going to paint a mural in the office?

WHITE: Oh yeah. 

SIROVY: Do tell me more. 

ROESSLER: It’s going to be Goldie and Moe. 

SIROVY: Holding hands or something? 

ROESSLER: Possibly. 

WHITE: I’m petitioning for it to be them being married. 

SIROVY: I don’t think that’s going to fly by HR.

ROESSLER: Right, so that’s why the holding hands is a good option.

SIROVY: So where would this be? 

ROESSLER: Right when you like walk, like the big table and then on the left, like right past it.

SIROVY: Uh huh.

ROESSLER: And then there’s a printer room.

SIROVY: Okay.

ROESSLER: That, there’s like that open area. 

SIROVY: Ohhhh! That’d be super cute. I wish we had more stuff like that here in the office. 

ROESSLER: That’s what I’m saying. 

SIROVY: Like literally I just bought string lights today and I’m like oh my gosh, why didn’t I do this like a year ago? It makes it so much nicer in here.

What are you guys most nervous for in this upcoming year? Because this you guys are going to go through a lot as Maddie and Alex put it they were like talking to each other like 24/7. What are you guys, I’m, not gonna say scared because that’s a horrible way to put it. What are you guys nervous about? 

WHITE: Just like every day like making sure we’re putting out like quality content like I’ve I feel like over time that’s gonna, it’s just going to be stressful to have to like always have that on your mind. I feel pretty confident that we’ll be able to do a good job of that.

ROESSLER: Yeah. I definitely think there’s nothing that’s going to come up that we won’t be able to handle. 

SIROVY: I love that. I’m super excited. I love Maddie and Alex, but I love you guys too. 

ROESSLER: We love you, too.

WHITE: We love you, too, Kaylie. And I also love Alex and Maddie and I want it to be noted I said that before Amelia did.

ROESSLER: Wow. 

SIROVY: He did that.

ROESSLER: Cause I can’t say it now because then it just sounds weird. 

SIROVY: Cause then it just seems like you’re copying him. 

WHITE: It seems like you don’t love them now. 

SIROVY: Spencer, why’d you do that? 

WHITE: It was a power play. 

SIROVY: Oh my god. 

ROESSLER: For the record, I do love Maddie and Alex. 

SIROVY: Let it be noted.

ROESSLER: Let it be noted. 

SIROVY: Let the courtroom know. Will you guys be in contact with each other like 24/7 like the way Maddie and Alex were? Do you plan on doing that? 

WHITE: I mean, I think it’ll probably be essential. 

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

WHITE: It’s less of a whether or not we want to because I would rather never speak to you ever if I had the option.

ROESSLER: That is the preferable method. 

WHITE: But we’ll probably be 24/7, especially when we get in like the swing of things and like have fires to put out every day like Alex and Maddie do.

SIROVY: Cause you will. You most definitely will have fires to put out.

WHITE: Comes with the territory. 

ROESSLER: Well, hopefully we’ll just, everybody will be in the office more. And so then we won’t have to like text or do that communication. We’ll just be able to be in the office together. 

WHITE: And we can just yell at each other from across the room. 

ROESSLER: Right. 

WHITE: I think you should get like, you should get a bell to summon me like. 

ROESSLER: A bell? Yeah, I can do that. I will get a bell. Is there ones that I can, or like a button that I can like customize?

SIROVY: Like a pager.

ROESSLER: Spencer! Yeah.

SIROVY: Spencer pager.

ROESSLER: Spencer pager. 

WHITE: I like this. I like this a lot. 

SIROVY: What was either like the sweetest moment here or the most memorable.

WHITE: Before we get into that.

SIROVY: Oh.

WHITE: I do want to bring something up for funniest moment. I don’t know if you remember this, but do you remember when Alex threw my wallet down like 10 flights? 

SIROVY: Oh my god, it was like 10 o’clock at night 

WHITE: Like 10 stories.

SIROVY: Backstory, we were in Atlanta. We were coming back from like dinner or something? 

WHITE: It was our first night there. I had just, we, me and Maddie were like the last people to get there on the flight. And we had just gotten there. 

SIROVY: Oh, cause we were all in the hotel room. 

WHITE: Yeah, yeah. 

SIROVY: And so we were walking back. And so we had that, we had the hotel room door open and Spencer was like, “where’s my wallet?” And Alex finds it, throws it. It goes out the open door down like 10 flights, more than 10 flights. Cause we were on like what, like 16, floor 16 at that point.

WHITE: I think we’re on floor like 22. 

SIROVY: Yeah. It goes down, like this is, like super late at night. People are just trying to go back to their hotel rooms and sleep. Alex just, you see the wallet go flying out the door. 

WHITE: My favorite part about it is he threw it to me and it hit the ground about four feet before it got to me too, and it rolled off. 

SIROVY: Yup, yup. I remember that. That’s, wow. 

WHITE: Yeah. 

SIROVY: That was funny. 

WHITE: I was lucky. All of my, like, cards landed on the floor right below us, and then my wallet itself, caught by a planter. Like, ten floors below us. 

SIROVY: Yeah, cause on every floor they had like fake planters around. 

WHITE: Yeah. Yeah.

ROESSLER: Here I was thinking Alex through this purposefully down the stairs. 

WHITE: No, he just missed.

SIROVY: No, he just had terrible aim. 

WHITE: He felt so bad. 

SIROVY: He did. I remember, like I saw that happen and I was like, oh my god. I just fell to the ground laughing with I think I was with Amirah and we were just dying. 

WHITE: Full disclosure. It was completely my fault. He said “I don’t want to throw this,” and I said, “nah, you can throw it.” 

SIROVY: Yeah, that was a good time. There’s so many good memories from Atlanta. I’m excited for this year. Are we going to this one this year? 

WHITE: Yeah, 

ROESSLER: We better. 

WHITE: This year’s is in New Orleans. 

SIROVY: Yeah.

ROESSLER: N’orleans. 

SIROVY: I’m excited and last time we went around halloween and that was super fun. But so many memories from Atlanta.

WHITE: It was iconic. Plus, you and Noah with the BarbenHeimer. 

SIROVY: Oh, yeah. I dressed up as President Barbie and Noah dressed up as Oppenheimer. It was super fun and we didn’t even plan that that was just like, that just happened. 

WHITE: Plus you guys dressed up so that we could walk to Waffle House. That was our big destination.

SIROVY: Okay. Yeah, well we couldn’t really go to like a Halloween party because we were at a work conference and so we just went to a Waffle House. 

WHITE: And mostly underage, too. 

SIROVY: And mostly underage, that’s true. 

WHITE: So we can’t go to a bar. 

SIROVY: Yeah, no. So we went to Waffle House. That was a good choice. I took one of the greatest photos I ever have of you, Cole, Noah and Alex.

WHITE: Yeah, yeah. 

SIROVY: Still one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken. They were like all buddy, buddy. It was super cute. 

WHITE: We were cuddling with each other in bed all week, like we got close. 

SIROVY: Yeah.

ROESSLER: Every day is memorable. 

SIROVY: Good answer. 

WHITE: It’s like you’re putting up a sign in my mom’s bedroom or something. 

SIROVY: What? 

WHITE; Make every day count. 

SIROVY: Oh, like the cat poster like, hang in there.

WHITE: Yeah, like some live, laugh, love stuff. 

SIROVY: Oh no. What do your family think about your new jobs? 

WHITE: My mom’s really excited. 

SIROVY: Aww. 

WHITE: Yeah, my dad is too, but my mom is more like, what’s the word I’m looking for? My mom gets like real, real excited about it I guess. 

SIROVY: The only way a mom could.

WHITE: Oh yeah. 

ROESSLER: That’s cool. Honestly, I haven’t really discussed it a whole lot with my parents. When you asked me, like the day you asked me to be your managing editor was like, I texted and I was like, “guess who’s officially the managing editor?” And then I just got like the thumbs up emoji from my dad and my mom was like, “cool.” And then that was.

SIROVY: And that was it. 

ROESSLER: Yeah. And then I wrote about it in my column for my hometown newspaper. And then I got a text from my grandpa, who was like, “congrats on that new job!” And so, they’re supportive.

SIROVY: What have you guys told your, like, your friends and stuff? You’re gonna be like, “hey, this, my life is gonna look drastically different the next year.”

WHITE: I’ve told my friends about it. I think most of them, most of them just like to use it to kind of make fun of me, so. 

SIROVY: Oh my gosh. 

WHITE: Which is fair, I deserve it. 

ROESSLER: No, why would you say that?

WHITE: Oh, I need to be kept in check. 

ROESSLER: You can do like the power play though, you can be like, “yeah, but I am like the Minnesota Daily.”

SIROVY: I am Batman. 

WHITE: I’m going to just like pull a Clark Kent and just like rip off my shirt and there’s just going to be my other Minnesota Daily shirt under it. 

ROESSLER: Right. 

WHITE: Every like social function I go to for the rest of the year. 

SIROVY: We need to get more t-shirts. 

WHITE: We do. 

ROESSLER: We do need more t-shirts. 

SIROVY: And more stickers. I love the stickers that they, the sticker that they did last time. It was like, “if I had a nickel for every time a gas leak went off, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?” 

WHITE: I want more of like Ivan’s weird stickers about like aliens and Julian Assange.

SIROVY: Yeah, where’d he get those?

WHITE: I have no idea. 

ROESSLER: I think we need Moe stickers. 

WHITE: Yes.

SIROVY: We need Moe stickers.

ROESSLER: We need to bring Moe back into the spotlight.

WHITE: We need to figure out what happened to his hat. 

SIROVY: He has a hat?

ROESSLER: I don’t know. 

WHITE: He had like a flat bill hat. 

ROESSLER: I have a picture.

WHITE: There’s like a hole on top of it where it used to go. 

SIROVY: I had no idea he had a hat. 

WHITE: I don’t know if someone stole the hat or if it just fell off, but 

SIROVY: Oh my god, it even says his name! That’s so cute! 

ROESSLER: I went to a Northern Exposure, like, photojournalism conference, and then one of the speakers, she was like, “yeah, I graduated here, I worked at The Daily,” and then pulled up this old picture! And it’s Moe! And I was like, no way. 

SIROVY: That’s crazy. How do you guys plan on, cause I know this is kind of a boring question and they kind of asked it in the presentations that you were supposed to answer. But again, super busy job. How do you guys plan on doing that with like your schedule? Like, I’m just curious myself cause like, I’m an editor. And I have another job after this and I have full time schoolwork and it can get very overwhelming. You guys that’s like doubled. 

WHITE: I plan to spend a lot of time here after class. I know that. My class loads gonna go down a little bit next semester. I had to load up a little bit last couple months, but so I’ll have a little bit more free time next semester, so shouldn’t be too horrible. Eventually, I won’t have to take Italian anymore. And then my schedule will really clear up.

ROESSLER: You’re taking Italian? 

WHITE: Unfortunately. 

SIROVY: Language classes take, they are five credits. There’s so much homework for no reason. 

WHITE: Yeah, I’d take four semesters worth. Yeah, mi chiamo Spencer. That’s about as far as we’re getting today.

ROESSLER: I quit after 3015 of Spanish. Just cause two hours long of Spanish class was not for me. 

SIROVY: Yeah, no. Oh, you took Spanish? I took French. 

WHITE: It’s crazy that you took a language class that starts with a number that isn’t one.

SIROVY: Yeah. 

ROESSLER: I went to Spain and I was like, I should probably have a little more under my belt because my host mom didn’t speak any English and so that worked out. 

SIROVY: Lots of hand gestures, probably. 

ROESSLER: Right, lots of me using Spanish dictionary and showing her my phone.

WHITE: Did you learn the language better that way? 

ROESSLER: I did. I mean, we sat down for dinner every night and talked and she would, she didn’t correct me a lot, but like when she did correct me, it was really helpful. 

SIROVY: Oh, that’s sweet though. 

ROESSLER: Yeah, she was incredibly sweet. 

SIROVY: People say that they love study abroad, but I just, that’s a lot. To like go to another country for, was it a semester?

ROESSLER: It was a semester. Personally, I think going anything less than a semester isn’t worth it. 

SIROVY: Really?

ROESSLER: Like, of course it is worth it and it’s going to be a, you’re going to have a great time. But like, it wasn’t until like the, like halfway, three quarter mark that I was like really like, okay, really getting into it. This is like actually being able to enjoy it. 

SIROVY: Oh, that’s fun though. I want to go to Dublin. 

ROESSLER: Dublin would be so fun. I want to go to Scotland so bad.

SIROVY: Me too.

WHITE: I want to go to Australia after graduation. 

SIROVY: Why Australia? 

WHITE: I think they’ll understand me.

SIROVY: That’s very vague, but very specific. 

WHITE: I think they’ll get it. I don’t know. 

SIROVY: I think they will. 

WHITE: I also want to tumble with a kangaroo. 

SIROVY: The kangaroo will absolutely destroy you. 

WHITE: Have you seen that one video of the dude punching it to save his dog? I could do that. I could get there. 

SIROVY: That was adrenaline. That was in the moment.

ROESSLER: Isn’t Australia the one with like the giant spiders and bugs and stuff? 

SIROVY: Yeah and the very poisonous ones. Yeah. 

ROESSLER: Yeah, I don’t think I could that.

WHITE: But like, have you seen Mad Max? It’s cool, dude. 

ROESSLER: I’ve not seen Mad Max. 

SIROVY: Isn’t Mad Max like set in the future? 

WHITE: It’s post-apocalyptic.

SIROVY: Yeah. That’s probably why. I have also not seen Mad Max. 

ROESSLER: Anyway, sorry, I interrupted your question of what you’re gonna do to.

SIROVY: That’s okay. It’s more of an open forum here. Anything else you guys want to talk about? 

ROESSLER: Bringing back the Kahoot. I think we should make that a semester thing. 

WHITE: Agreed.

SIROVY: They used to it like every month for our all staff meetings 

ROESSLER: Every month? 

SIROVY: Yeah. 

ROESSLER: Okay, but are people gonna like be tired of like the quote Kahoot every month? 

SIROVY: Well, it was different every month. So one time it was like pop culture another time it was like Daily history. Yeah.

ROESSLER: The Halloween.

WHITE: One time it was Halloween. Me and Charlie still have beef about that to this day.

SIROVY: Care to explain? 

WHITE: Because he had a question that was, what is the worst Halloween candy? One of the options being circus peanuts. 

SIROVY: Ohh. 

WHITE: And the correct answer, according to the Kahoot, was candy corn. And I will not stand for that.

SIROVY: I love candy corn. 

WHITE: I do, too. 

ROESSLER: I also love candy corn. 

SIROVY: It gets a lot of hate for no reason. 

WHITE: No reason. 

ROESSLER: Not the pumpkin candy corn. 

SIROVY: Not the pumpkin one. 

WHITE: Absolutely not. 

SIROVY: The original. 

ROESSLER: Yes.

WHITE: Yes, but circus peanuts better than candy corn? Ridiculous statement. 

SIROVY: No. No.

WHITE: Ridiculous statement. 

SIROVY: They’re not.

ROESSLER: We spent practically an entire, like when we were meeting up for the EIC application stuff. We spent pretty much an entire meeting going over the circus peanut versus candy corn and we even pulled up like a website where we could buy it in bulk. Do you remember that? 

WHITE: I do we found out how much would cost to get like 200 pounds of circus peanuts and it was way too much. 

ROESSLER: It was way too much, but like 20 bucks you can get a decent amount.

WHITE: I think it was nuts.com. 

ROESSLER: It was nuts.com! And then Charlie was like, “yeah, this, this place is awesome”. And was just like going through the website of nuts.com. 

SIROVY: That’s so funny. I also wanted to mention before I forget that this episode is our 150th.

ROESSLER AND WHITE: Whoo!

ROESSLER: Yay!

SIROVY: Yay! I’ve been doing this for a year. So I mean I’ve put out a few myself, but we started back in like 2018. We finally got to 150. It’s exciting.

ROESSLER: What have been your favorite stories so far? 

SIROVY: My favorite story? Can I be a little biased?

WHITE: Oh, yeah. 

ROESSLER: Please.

SIROVY: I love the stories that I put out. 

ROESSLER: Has there been one in particular that you’ve really enjoyed?

SIROVY: This was like the second one that I did as an editor, but I talked with people from the Mill City and like their artists about one of their exhibits. It was like a queer history and like all the spaces in Minneapolis that were for queer people, but then they would either get like a lot of hate or they had to be secret during that time. And Iike older people now like look back on it, and they’re like “yeah I remember that being like a super fun safe place,” and I was like that is adorable. 

And it was super fun talking to the artists with that and that was like my, that was during the summer that was my second story as an editor. So, I think I did a great job on it. And I really liked it because I learned a lot and then the second one I did is the one about the meat and dairy salesroom because I found out about it and I was like why has no one told me about this before my three years here? Like, it’s incredible. Like, I can get ice cream and bacon and all that good stuff on campus from students. What? 

WHITE: All the heart desires. 

SIROVY: Yeah, Midwestern girl at heart. That’s all I want. Those have been some of my favorite stories, but stories that my reporters have put out. Kindra did one last summer about like the anniversary of Roe v. Wade being overturned. I thought that one was really, super important. And then this one, they literally just put it out, the marathon training story that Alex and Cece did. 

I don’t know if you guys have listened to it, but it’s super funny because Alex went to one of the marathon training classes like workout and like ran with them like an 8k. It was crazy and he was like talking in the microphone and like we put the audio in and it was super funny cause he’s like, “yeah, that was horrible, but also amazing.”

ROESSLER: Isn’t he a runner though?

SIROVY: Yeah, he said he did like running in like high school and like does workouts and stuff, so like it wasn’t horrible. But it was just super funny and like they were trying to get in contact with a professor, but that professor is in Paris scouting out the Olympic like running track like the loop.

ROESSLER: Yeah 

SIROVY: With like one of his runners. 

ROESSLER: That’s crazy. 

SIROVY: So, that one was super fun, even though they and like they just put it out. 

ROESSLER: Yeah, I know one of the people who are, who is in the marathon class.

SIROVY: You do? 

ROESSLER: Yeah, because he plays I play in the pep band for the men’s hockey and he is in the band with me and he like showed up one day and he’s like, “guys I’m super tired today.” And I’m like, “why,” and then he’s like “I ran 18 miles this morning for my class,” and I was like, “what?” Me, personally, I don’t run. So the fact that you ran 18 miles and are still standing? Crazy.

SIROVY: That’s a miracle. 

ROESSLER: And he doesn’t listen to music while he runs. He doesn’t listen to anything.

WHITE: Wow.

SIROVY: Just straight thoughts. 

ROESSLER: Just straight thoughts or I think he said he’ll like try to remember lyrics to a song. Like try to remember as much as he can and so like he had, he like plays his own songs in his head, but I was like, “good for you, man.” Like I just, I could never. 

SIROVY: You’re better than most of us. 

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

WHITE: I think if I ran over like two miles right now, I’d end up in a hospital. 

ROESSLER: Yeah, 

SIROVY: I hate running. I refuse to. If I’m, even if I’m late for a class or I’m late for the bus, I don’t run. 

ROESSLER: I would rather run backwards than run at all. 

SIROVY: I don’t know why we had to do the mile in like middle school. 

ROESSLER: Yeah.

WHITE: I’m a little confused about the running backwards thing. I’m not going to lie.

ROESSLER: I’m surprisingly good at running backwards. 

SIROVY: That’s cool.

ROESSLER: I can run really fast backwards. 

WHITE: How fast? 

ROESSLER: Really fast. 

SIROVY: Spencer, fun fact about you. Go. 

WHITE: I have a fake tooth. That’s what I use every time. 

ROESSLER: Lame. New one.

WHITE: I’m actually just like not that fun. I lead a depressing existence, and there’s nothing that interesting about me, so I don’t even know where to go with this. And I’m just deeply hurt that you guys think that, you know, my sadness is so funny. 

SIROVY: We all say that we’re sad, though.

ROESSLER: Alexis had a quote on the Kahoot that was like, “I don’t need seasons to be depressed.” I was like, mood. 

SIROVY: We are stressed out college kids. Good times. I don’t know. That’s a little bit about me. A little bit about you guys. Anything else you guys want to talk about. They’re giving me shrugs. 

ROESSLER: I don’t know. 

SIROVY: I’ve been on that Zelda grind. 

WHITE: Fair. 

ROESSLER: I don’t play enough video games. 

SIROVY: I’m the only one in my house, out of my roommates that plays video games. And so I feel weird, like, when they’re doing homework and I’m playing a video game because I’m procrastinating on my homework and they’re doing, like, mechanical engineering homework. 

ROESSLER: Oh my gosh. 

SIROVY: And I’m like, I’m just fighting a fictional monster here. 

ROESSLER: My roommates are biomedical engineers and then they’ll be, like, grinding on work and I’ll be like, doing the mini crossword and like the wordle.

SIROVY: That’s what me and Spencer and Sophia do during media law. 

WHITE: Amen. When I’m there. 

SIROVY: Yeah.

ROESSLER: I can’t believe you don’t go as much as you do. That class stressed me out, like I always made sure to be there. 

SIROVY: It stressed me out. 

ROESSLER: Cause she doesn’t post any like, notes or anything.

WHITE: Do you want to get stressed out even more?

ROESSLER: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Oh, don’t.

WHITE: I wrote my case brief in 45 minutes this morning, 1100 words. 

ROESSLER: This morning?

WHITE: This morning. It was due at 9:00, turn it in at 7:45. 

SIROVY: I don’t know how he did that.

ROESSLER: How did your Lavender article go last night? 

WHITE: Turned it in at like midnight. It was fine.

ROESSLER: There you go.

SIROVY: See you just always get it done. I don’t know how.

WHITE: I put myself in a pressure cooker and I make diamonds. 

ROESSLER: He goes to locked in land. 

SIROVY: That’s a good way to describe it.

WHITE: I had Noah cheerleading.

SIROVY: You got your emotional support bestie. What are you gonna do when he’s not here anymore? 

WHITE: I don’t know. I think he’s going to live in Dinkytown next year though. I think he’ll be around. 

ROESSLER: Has he found a job yet? 

WHITE: He’s working on it. He’s gotten a few leads, but who knows where those will go. 

ROESSLER: That’s my favorite question to ask Henry. “Have you found a job yet?” The answer has been no so far. 

SIROVY: “I’ve just been job hunting.” 

ROESSLER: God, I love Henry. 

WHITE: I love Henry.

SIROVY: I love Henry, too. I’m going to miss him. Who’s gonna be the opinions editor? I can’t remember.

WHITE: Claudia Garcia. 

SIROVY: How exciting! 

WHITE: Yeah. Yeah, it’s kind of depressing to pass my child off, you know, to someone else being the opinions desk. 

SIROVY: She’s gonna do a great job. 

WHITE: It’s in good hands. Yeah, Claudia’s been around for a while. She knows what she’s doing. 

SIROVY: I love that. Okay, you guys have anything else? 

WHITE: I want to apologize to Amelia for being so adversarial today. 

ROESSLER: I don’t know what you’re talking about. 

WHITE: This is just how I am all the time. That makes me feel worse almost. 

ROESSLER: It’s okay, I can take it. Yep, I bartend. Come at me with your worst.

SIROVY: Oh no, where do you bartend? 

ROESSLER: I bartend in Faribault

SIROVY: Really? 

ROESSLER: My aunt and uncle own the bar.

SIROVY: Fun.

ROESSLER: So they let me work. 

WHITE: I was about to say Faribault, Alaska, but that was.

SIROVY: No, there’s Faribault, Minnesota. 

ROESSLER: Nope.

WHITE: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Yep, that’s okay.

WHITE: I don’t even know if there is a Faribault, Alaska.

ROESSLER: Why did you think Alaska?

WHITE: I don’t know.

SIROVY: I think there is though. 

WHITE: It’s just what, I think there is, but it just, in my brain I was like in Alaska? 

SIROVY: Anyway, okay. As always, we appreciate you listening in and feel free to leave us an email at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments, questions, or concerns. I’m Kaylie. 

WHITE: I’m Spencer. 

ROESSLER: I’m Amelia. 

SIROVY: And this has been In The Know.