KAYLIE SIROVY: You’re the oldest aren’t you? Yeah.

ALEX STEIL: If you couldn’t tell by everything about me.

SIROVY: You do give older sibling vibes. Okay.

STEIL: As long as I’m not being told that I’m the youngest. I’m okay with that.

SIROVY: What’s wrong with being the youngest, Alex? 

STEIL: Because if you have the vibe of a youngest, you know what that’s supposed to mean.

SIROVY: I was an amazing younger, younger sibling. 

STEIL: Yeah, because I had to ask if you were a youngest. Like, you don’t act like you’re a youngest child. 

MADDIE ROTH: Oh, does that mean that I act like I’m the youngest? 

STEIL: No. 

ROTH: Okay phew.

STEIL:  But like, you know when you can tell when someone’s a, someone’s a youngest?

SIROVY: When they just act kind of spoiled?

STEIL: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Okay, yeah. I do know what you mean about that. 

STEIL: That’s when it’s like.

SIROVY: Yeah. 

STEIL: Ugh. 

SIROVY: I knew I was spoiled, but I never acted like that. I never tried, I never tried to. Okay, I was the only daughter, the only granddaughter, the only girl grandchild.

ROTH: Me too.

SIROVY: So I got a lot of stuff. But I was picked on by Alex and sometimes my cousins and sometimes Tyler. 

ROTH: Is your brother’s name?

STEIL: I forgot about that.

ROTH: There’s too many Alex’s. They need to get — yeah.

SIROVY: I know too many Alex’s, it’s crazy. There’s like four different Alex’s in my phone. And then I have Alexis on there, and so when I type in Alex.

STEIL: Yeah, I listen to Vivaldi on the way here. 

SIROVY: That’s so funny.

ROTH: I listen to Thot S–t by Megan Thee Stallion. 

SIROVY: I listen to Hozier. 

STEIL: Three different vibes. Two more and we’ve got a full food pyramid. 

SIROVY: Hey everybody, it’s Kaylie Sirovy from the Minnesota Daily and you’re listening to In the Know, the podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. With me in the studio today are my current bosses, the editor-in-chief, Alex, and managing editor, Maddie. Thank you for being with me today. 

STEIL: Thanks for having us. 

ROTH: Yeah, thanks. 

SIROVY: We are just going to be talking about their past year as my boss, as these big bosses of The Daily. First question, what has been the most rewarding aspect of your time here?

STEIL: How do you even choose? Like, there have been so many good things that have come out of this that like choosing a specific one is tough cause it’s like, one of the big things for me was like we now have a community it feels like at The Daily, like, people actually know each other they care about each other. 

My first year I remember there was a quote kind of like at an “end of year review” and someone said, not being in the office, not knowing your coworkers feels like you don’t actually know anyone, you’re just working in a vacuum, and it doesn’t feel like that anymore. And that’s been one of the things, honestly, I’m the most proud of us doing.

Because The Daily is actually a community. It’s like actually a place where people want to be. But, externally, in terms of like actual news production and like what we’re actually providing in terms of a service for the university community, I feel like we’ve just stepped up the quality of our news. And I don’t even know how to kind of elaborate on that, but it just feels like there’s a bigger variety of what we’re actually trying to promote instead of just, “oh, we want all these light, fluffy pieces,” or “we just want these hard hitting pieces,” or “we want just human explainer pieces.” 

We’re varying it up and we’re kind of prioritizing different types of news, different types of journalism. Whenever I tell people on campus that I work at The Daily, they’re always like, “oh yeah, this year’s been really good. Like, I can tell a difference in what we’re, in what you are doing differently.” Again, you being The Daily, and I think that’s been one of the, probably the most rewarding thing for me. 

ROTH: I think to add on to that, it’s been really cool to see people like, start in the summer, and have them maybe not be as strong and I mean that in the nicest way, but then working with them, the staff that we’ve had and just seeing the exponential growth that people have had.

And I mean, if we look back, like, even for you, Kaylie, like looking back on the summer and seeing where you are now, it’s just been the most incredible thing to watch these people grow into really strong journalists, and it’s just been an honor to be able to watch them and help them and be there for them.

SIROVY: Yeah, I had no idea what I was doing when I started.

ROTH: And now you’re an icon. 

SIROVY: Thank you. 

STEIL: Wasn’t it two podcasts that you had under your belt before you got this job? 

SIROVY: Yeah, it was two. 

STEIL: Or offered the job? 

SIROVY: It was two. 

STEIL:  Yeah. 

SIROVY: Yep, one I did, Alberto helped me with a lot of the first one, and then the second one was mostly me. That was fun. Shout out to Alberto. I miss him. 

STEIL: I remember it was the EIC application night and I think either I was waiting to present or waiting to hear the result and we were sitting at, in the front of the office right around that circle table and Alberto walks in. I’m like, what the heck are you doing here? It’s like 9:30 on a Thursday night. He’s like, “oh, Kaylie and I are gonna go record our podcast.” And it was your first one.

SIROVY: Yeah, that’s the only time that he had. That he could cause he was busy. He was a senior. He was a busy man. And so yeah, we were in here at like 9 o’clock at night. 

STEIL: Yep. Yep.

SIROVY: He was great though.

STEIL: I miss him. 

SIROVY: I miss him, too. What do you think are your, some of your best pieces that we’ve put out? 

ROTH: Like our favorite from our staff? 

SIROVY: Yeah. 

ROTH: That’s tough. 

SIROVY: Some, you can just name a few. 

ROTH: I think, I’ll start, I think my favorite is, has been the investigative pieces, just because Alex and I were very blessed to have two very strong reporters work with us. And like, we started this together and it was like crazy and we didn’t know if it was gonna work and we had so many conversations about it and we just got very lucky. They like, there are so many times we’ve talked to them and been like we don’t really know what we’re doing, but just bear with us and then they’ve had to put up with mom and dad so many times. 

But they’ve been incredible and they’ve done some pretty tough stuff and gotten to, like, and turned them into crazy things. Like, I think Hannah and Alex’s double byline with the gun safety on campus, that was crazy. That was really good. And so, I think for me, those pieces in general, I don’t think I can pick a favorite because everybody is crazy talented here. But I think those have been really great to see come to life.

SIROVY: Mm hmm. 

STEIL: I am going to pick a few favorites, but I think the point about having an investigative desk is that it feels like it’s actually made the culture of our newsroom want to do these bigger pieces. Because last year a lot of the things that we were doing were just 700 word stories, publish it, it’s a news story, that’s it. But this year now that we have an investigative desk where people want to look into an issue or feature a person, write a longer story. We’ve had just, again, kind of a bigger variety of what we’re putting out. 

So the reaction piece, quote unquote, to the shooting threat, with Alex Lassiter and Hannah Ward was phenomenal. I mean, we, there was a quote, and I think this is a reason that I liked it so much is, we got a play by play of what the university president was doing the day that this was going on. And that’s, I mean, what journalism is supposed to be, is like, understanding what your leaders are doing. It’s supposed to be understanding the world around you, and I thought that was a really good example of that. 

We wrote a piece about a family who lost a daughter to suicide on a bridge on campus. And this wasn’t an investigative piece, but two reporters, I sent the editor the story idea and said, “this is a tough ask, it’s going to be a big story, it’s your desk, you have the people that can handle it,” and they knocked it out of the park. I think, hands down, it was one of the, it was, it was the best story we wrote this year, or put out this year, and no offense to podcast, but I thought that by far was the best piece. 

 I’m still pretty proud that we beat the Star Tribune and breaking the news of who the university president was. That was pretty cool. And that’s just stuff from this semester. Like, I thought Grace Henrie’s, the two pieces she did about Identity, last year were really good, about the Israel-Palestine, a week or two after the whole conflict started and kind of what students on campus were thinking, I thought that was fantastic. Over the summer, Henry Hagen did a fantastic piece on the tuition decline. Excuse me, the enrollment decline and the tuition increase and kind of what that meant for the university. And our former city editor did a great breaking news piece on the conclusion of the Department of Justice’s investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department. And that was kind of our first real attempt at a breaking news story this year. And I think we knocked that one out of the park too. And those are just, what’s coming to mind. That doesn’t mean that was everything good because I mean, some of the sports feature sports features that we’ve done this year about Al Nolen from our sports editor, McKenna Wucherer I think from Alex Karwowski, and I’m forgetting the player’s name, but Eitan did a great feature piece on a hockey player. And I can’t, I can’t remember the name. 

ROTH: He did a piece with hockey players exploring their faith and he went through a lot to get that piece done. 

STEIL: That one too.

 ROTH: And it was incredible. Is that the one you’re talking about? 

STEIL: No, but Eitan’s great. So there’s actually two. And I mean, there’s just so many to choose from that I think kind of really the point that Maddie was saying was that we just have a great staff this year. Where, sure we can pick our favorite pieces, but everything was really good this year. Again, I feel like the quality of what we’ve been doing has just been raised. 

ROTH: And I think we are just so proud. Like, we feel the same in this sentiment in terms of like, we’re just so proud of everybody because it’s, it’s not really us. Like we’re behind the scenes doing some of these little things, but it’s everybody else that is doing this and we’re just kind of there to make sure things don’t fall apart. 

SIROVY: Yeah, I’m very proud of my desk this year. Oh my gosh, let’s talk about Atlanta. Okay, so for those who don’t know we went the editors that’s, how many of us were there? 

ROTH: 12? 

SIROVY: 12? 

STEIL: I can’t remember 

ROTH: 11? 

SIROVY: Somewhere around there.

STEIL: You, me, Liv, Henry, Devlin, Kaylie, Cole, Spencer.

ROTH: Noah. 

STEIL: Amirah. Noah. I’m visualizing our hiring tracker on our head and Theo. Yeah, and Charlie. So it’s 12 people.

SIROVY: Yeah, it was a conference I believe was the name of it and we all went to Atlanta and we got to meet a whole bunch of other reporters from other universities and we spent a whole week there over, it was over Halloween too, and we went to the Georgia Aquarium, we went to Waffle House.

STEIL: Twice.

SIROVY: Multiple times, yeah. We went to the Coca Cola Museum, even though we were there for work, it was still a grand old time. 

ROTH: Maddie got to meet George. 

SIROVY: George was, is a whale shark, but I don’t think that’s his actual name. 

ROTH: And the love of my life. People can say that his name isn’t George, but I swear to God his name is George. 

SIROVY: On the little sign, it did not say George.

ROTH: Yeah, I’m wondering if I was like, when I was a kid, if like they had a different whale shark and his name was George because I swear, like this is, his name was George. 

SIROVY: It was still really fun.

ROTH: Yeah, I cried. 

STEIL: It was pretty cool.

SIROVY: What was your guys’ favorite memories of that trip? 

ROTH: George.

SIROVY: I could of guessed, I could of guessed.

ROTH: Literally George. But I can, okay, I can talk about another one that, um, wasn’t George because I think everybody knows if they read the newsletters, how excited I was to meet George. And that literally was the best moment of my life. I just remember looking back at Alex and like crying because he knew how important it was. And yeah, that was a, that was a moment, but my second favorite one was Alex’s yellow suit because that was just the most iconic thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

SIROVY: And not too many people got it. I’m sorry to say, but.

STEIL: Yeah, because the so, just to give a little more context, I wore a yellow suit at a journalism conference with a press badge that said yellow press. And for anyone that’s listening that doesn’t know, yellow press/yellow journalism is just liars that pretend to be news. And I figured, I’m at a journalism convention. It’s the only place that people will understand that joke. But yeah, more people thought I was Curious George, like the man in the yellow hat, rather than an actual journalist, or yellow journalist.

SIROVY: I would love to have been Curious George. 

STEIL: Okay, next Halloween I’ll buy another yellow suit. I already gave it away to Goodwill. 

SIROVY: No, you need the, the, then you need his little hat. 

STEIL: I can find one of those. If I can find a yellow suit on Amazon for 20 bucks. 

SIROVY: That’s fair. 

STEIL: A yellow hat is not going to be. 

ROTH: You gave the suit away?

STEIL: When am I ever going to need a yellow suit again? 

ROTH: Oh, that’s disappointing. 

SIROVY: You gave the suit away? 

STEIL: Yeah, someone in Minnetonka Goodwill is going to be going crazy with a yellow suit. 

SIROVY: I bet it’s still there. 

STEIL: Honestly. I wouldn’t blame him. I would not buy that. 

SIROVY: My favorite probably was the aquarium or bowling.

STEIL: That was a good night. 

SIROVY: I had a great old time at bowling. 

STEIL: And we were treated to such good food too. 

SIROVY: Yeah, on The Daily. 

STEIL: It was awesome. 

SIROVY: Shout out to Charlie. 

STEIL: Thank you, Mr. Weaver. 

SIROVY: Thank you, Mr. Weaver. 

ROTH: What was your favorite memory? 

STEIL: Atlanta was a time. That was.

ROTH: It really was.

SIROVY: A lot happened.

STEIL: That was a big week. 

SIROVY: I missed a lot of school.

SIROVY: Okay, what was a really funny moment then? 

STEIL: Probably when we were hanging out in the lobby. Charlie, Cole, and me hadn’t slept. We were going on day two of an all nighter and we were waiting to get into this hotel room and we got there maybe at noon. We were waiting for everyone else to show up. They get there, a good number of people. I think there were still three coming later that night. And we’re all sitting just in this lobby. 

I get with two couches and a table, everyone is crowded around. People are sitting on the floor in between the legs of other people. We’ve been there now for three, four hours. Charlie, Cole, and I are just zonked. I mean, we are, Charlie is falling asleep in the chair. Cole is just, it looks like he’s high, just like zoning out. And somehow I’m not. 

But, everyone’s just like, “oh, we want to go to our hotel room.” And I go to the hotel desk. And I’m like, what’s up with these three rooms? Like, you’re getting ready for a conference. They were supposed to be ready three hours ago. “Oh, yeah, they were ready when you got here.” So then I went to the group and I’m like, “hey, we can go up.”

SIROVY: I didn’t know that. 

STEIL: And Charlie was like, when were they ready? Like, when we got here? 

SIROVY: Who went up to the desk first? 

STEIL: Charlie. Well, it was all three of us. Cole, Charlie, me, when we got there. But that was probably one of the funniest memories, just because everyone was already so tired from travel. That we were just so ready to sit in a bed. And also probably just any of the nights after we had finished the conference. 

And, most of the time it was all of us just in a room hanging out. Any other parts where we were just hanging out as a group, as it like, as a unit of people that just liked being around each other. I thought that was really nice. That was such a long answer. 

SIROVY: You can have as long as answers as you like. Alright, what was the hardest part about this job? Hands down, what was the hardest part? 

STEIL: Managing people. 

ROTH: Yeah. 

SIROVY: Yeah.

STEIL: I knew it was gonna be a part of it. Don’t get me wrong, like I certainly understood that being in charge of a 65 person newsroom. 65 give or take depending on where we’re at in the semester. I knew that managing people was going to be a challenge. But there were so many curveballs this year. Oh my goodness. We’ll just leave it there. But yeah. There’s going to be, at a Daily reunion 20 years from now? 

SIROVY: I’m excited. 

STEIL: Tea is gonna be spilled.

ROTH: I don’t know if people realize how many late night car rides Alex and I went on just to like — .

STEIL: At least three.

ROTH: More than three.

SIROVY: Bare minimum three. 

ROTH: Just to like vent and it wasn’t even like it was never against anybody because like people are human and s–t happens, but we are the only people in these positions that know what this is about. And so like, I can’t go talk to Theo about it because that would be against like our policy. And so it’s like, I have to sit here with him and be like, “oh, this is so frustrating. This is so hard.” 

I think that was, there was just a lot of frustration with certain things and that was just always hard to get through. But I think what I’m very grateful for is having him, because he’s the only person, I said this like a year ago, I’ll say it again, he’s the only person I could have done this job with. And I love him deeply for it. So, yeah, at least I had my best friend to vent to the whole time, so thanks bestie.

SIROVY: He did a little thumbs up so after your year, you guys been through a lot. You’ve done a lot of good. You’ve been through a lot of challenging parts. What would you have as advice for the incoming editor-in-chief and managing editor?

STEIL: It’s the one time that you are gonna be in charge of something where you can be as creative, as inventive as you want. To Spencer and Amelia, they’ve already said that they’re going to have essentially a day of Daily decisions, where they’re just going to sit down in the third floor conference room, which we haven’t used since the summer, and they’re just going to meet and talk about everything that they want to do, like, to get an itinerary of stuff that they want to do for the year coming up, which I think is super cool. 

And they gave me a little hint of what they’re hoping to go towards and things that they want to do. A lot of what they had already said in their presentations and stuff like that, presentations to be EIC. But I think one of the things that makes me most excited is they don’t just want to refine what Maddie and I have done. They don’t want to just make things better. They want to figure out ways that The Daily can be more of a service for the readers. They want to come up with ways where the daily can be more a part of the university community. 

And a lot of the ideas they have are really creative. And I think that’s just really cool that they want to do something with this. Like they want to leave their mark on The Daily. And from what I can tell, it’s not that they want to have a different organization by the time they’re done. They don’t want to have it be, you know, the Minnesota nightly, you know, something like that, something just totally silly, but they want to have a better Minnesota Daily by the time they’re done. And honestly, I mean, any advice I give them, they already know because they’re strong leaders, they’re strong journalists, and they’re just really fucking good at what they do.

ROTH: I think the only advice that I would give is make sure you really like each other because you spend an ungodly amount of time together I think.

SIROVY: On average, can I ask how many, how many hours would you guys spend with each other? Like during a day or during a week? Cause I don’t know. 

ROTH: Too many.

SIROVY: You guys say.

 ROTH: Way too many.

STEIL: I mean, it’s gotten a lot less this semester now that we’re just kind of wrapping up or like we’re wrapping things up. We don’t need to meet every single day.

 SIROVY: But you would? 

ROTH: Yeah, like, we wouldn’t meet every day, but I remember, I vividly remember Alex telling me in June, like, we weren’t even working in May, and he would be like, “Maddie, I’ve texted you every day.” And like, it was just always something.

STEIL: And that was true through December 8. Like, at least December 8. 

ROTH: Holy. 

SIROVY: Oh my God.

STEIL: Like, I think our first day of publishing was May 28. Give or take. 

SIROVY: Somewhere around there.

STEIL: Maybe it was the 27. I don’t know. Whatever Memorial Day was, of 2023. At least, that early, through at least December 8th, we talked, in some capacity, every single day.

ROTH: And we still kind of do, to this day, because like, it’s always, hey, this thing is happening. And we both need to know about it because we can’t, I mean, we can’t successfully run a paper if we don’t know what’s going on because one of us, like, I think the thing that I’ve loved so much about us is we are literally the exact opposite from each other. 

And so Alex is really organized. I’m not. And so he’s always really helpful at like, making sure I know what’s happening, but a lot of times, like, I’m, okay, don’t hate me for this, but I think I’m a little bit more creative than you are. Just a little bit. 

STEIL: Interesting take. Okay.

ROTH: Okay. But I, like, cause there’s a lot of times where I’ll, we like, I’ll say, like, talk to this person. Like, I tell our editors or our reporters, like, talk to this person cause I just know so many people. I’m a lot more emotional in terms of like, just, I don’t know, like being, there for people and relating to them. And that’s not anything against Alex because he’s really good at making decisions. 

SIROVY: Yeah.

ROTH: Like there are so many times where we’ve been in tough situations. And Alex will respond, like, to an email and cc me on it on, like, a tough thing. And I’m just amazed at how good he is at talking to people and how good he is at problem solving. And, like, I am just in awe of you. I think you’re incredible at everything you do most of the time.

SIROVY: We all make mistakes. We all make mistakes. 

ROTH: And I think.

STEIL: Except me. 

ROTH: Yeah, Alex doesn’t make mistakes. Alex is perfect. I just want to tell people like who are listening. I got a yin and yang tattoo for Alex a little bit ago because that’s what we are and no matter what happens with him and I after all of this like we started The Daily together. We started our freshman year.

SIROVY: You started your freshman year?

STEIL: I’ve been a Daily writer longer than I’ve been a Gopher.

SIROVY: That’s awesome. I didn’t know that. 

STEIL: It’s gonna be really weird come May 5, and I’m not gonna be with The Daily. 

ROTH: Yeah. 

STEIL: It’s gonna be weird.

ROTH: To wrap up my point really quick, but yeah, we’ve been here the longest with each other and I just, it’s been a blessing that I’ve been able to do this, that we’ve been able to do this together. And I just, I literally just could not have imagined doing this with anybody else because we are mom and dad, we’re yin and yang. 

SIROVY: You are mom and dad. 

ROTH: Yeah, it’s been a time. 

STEIL: It’s been a year. 

SIROVY: It’s been a great time. I couldn’t have asked for more better bosses when I first started here. 

STEIL: We love you, Kaylie. 

ROTH: We do love you. 

SIROVY: Being an editor when you’ve only put out two stories was a nightmare. 

STEIL: I can’t even imagine it.

SIROVY: It was a strange experience. Let me tell you, but it was super helpful because I could come to you guys with anything and you guys were always so understanding of what I didn’t know and you guys were so willing to put my ideas out there and it was just super nice. And I’ve made a lot of friends here, so it’s a great time. 

STEIL: Now the trick is you just gotta make sure you keep those friends at The Daily. 

SIROVY:  I think. 

STEIL: I think you’ll be okay. 

SIROVY: I see everyone at The Daily as either a friend or a potential friend. 

STEIL: That’s so sweet. 

ROTH: That’s a good way to think of it, yeah.

SIROVY: I don’t interact with a lot of other desks. I don’t see a lot of other reporters, but anyone who works here, I’m like, “okay, if I come talk to them, they’re a friend.” 

STEIL: That’s good. I love that.

SIROVY: Because I just weirdly think we’re all so funny here. Okay, what has been the funniest moment at The Daily? One that had you laughing on the ground because we’ve had moments.

STEIL: That’s tough man, dude, there’s a lot of good ones in there.

SIROVY: I know there are moments where I was like crying from laughing, mostly at weekaheads. 

STEIL: Yeah.

SIROVY: You can take a minute.

ROTH: Probably when, did you put on the M0 suit? 

SIROVY: The Mo suit. 

ROTH: Spencer did, but did you? 

STEIL: Spencer did.

SIROVY: You also put it on. 

STEIL: I did when we were doing the campus career day. Or not career day, but the campus club day for freshmen. 

SIROVY: Yes! 

STEIL: And I never actually made it to the stadium.

SIROVY: Cause it was hot out, it was a hot day.

STEIL: It was like 95 degrees, and this thing is made of felt. 

SIROVY: It was in the stadium. 

STEIL: It’s at least a thousand and five years old. I mean, it is just heavier than. 

SIROVY: Cause we told you to go get it and you were like, I’m so excited to go put it on and you were gone for like 30 minutes. 

STEIL: And then I came back without the suit because, so our office is right next to Huntington bank. And for when everyone was a freshman, you know, you do the club thing where you’re walking around Huntington bank. And I go to our office, I put on the suit. I ride down the elevator, and I’m halfway through the parking lot, and I am dizzy. 

I mean, like, I am not there. I’m like, this is not going to be good for another three and a half hours, as long as I was scheduled. So then I went back to the office and put it down, and I get back, and everyone’s, “where in the world is the suit?” You were just gone for 30 minutes, with the one purpose, to get the suit. 

SIROVY: You were determined. 

STEIL: Yeah. And I’m like, you guys, I was about to pass out. 

SIROVY: Would have been a great experience for the freshman to like, be like, that could be your boss. 

STEIL: That would have been a crazy headline: “Minnesota Daily editor passes out during club fair trying to promote The Daily.” Like, could you just imagine walking through the parking lot and there’s just a red Minnesota M.O. just not moving? That would have been crazy. 

SIROVY: That would have been funny. The picture would have been hilarious. 

STEIL: Oh, that would have been the featured image of the year.

SIROVY: Yeah, I forgot about that. 

STEIL: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean there’s so many good memories. 

ROTH: Yeah.

STEIL: Where it’s just like it’s more I remember how the people around us made us feel. Like, I’m not gonna remember every single ridiculous thing that Spencer said, but I’m gonna remember that Spencer said some pretty ridiculous things. And that’s what I think are the funniest moments. Just, no moment in particular, just everything about the people. 

ROTH: Yeah, we’ve had some comedic people here. And I think. 

SIROVY: Especially on the opinions desk. 

ROTH: Yeah, Alex’s list of quotes. Oh, yeah. 

SIROVY: Oh, yeah, we got to talk about the quote book.

ROTH: Like the craziest thing.

SIROVY:  What was the last one in there? 

STEIL: I don’t know. You keep going. I’ll pull this up. 

ROTH:  And I just, I, like, it’s so funny because so many of them are just like out of context. 

SIROVY: Horribly out of context. 

ROTH: Yeah. And just like, I think my favorite one is, the one that sticks out the most, is when I was telling Alex about my best friend, shout out to Jacob, love of my life, and, he was talking about like relationship problems and I was telling Alex about it. 

SIROVY: He remembers. 

ROTH: And I just go, he had a quarter life crisis in a Bubba Gump’s because Jacob and I were at Bubba Gump’s in Mall of America and he’s just like, sobbing over this guy who just broke up with him and I was telling Alex about it and I just thought it was funny so.

STEIL: Yeah. So over the course of the year, we’ve been putting together, as Maddie said, this list of just things that people say, and I just pulled it up. And there are 159 quotes.

SIROVY: That’s crazy.

STEIL: From whenever the Beyoncé concert was. That was the first day that we started. Around then, maybe that wasn’t the first day, because there was one about Charlie. The first one we have is from Charlie during an OP meeting, and he says, “is anyone grossed out from bodily stuff? Like organs?” 

SIROVY: I remember that from the Kahoot. 

STEIL: Yeah, and then, yeah, I mean, so there’s 159 quotes on there and I’ve stopped recording them because Amelia is going to take it over for next year, so she started keeping track. 

SIROVY: We’ve all got something in there. 

STEIL: Yeah. And Amelia, because she took it over for next year, she also created a Kahoot for our last staff meeting. It turns out you can only have a hundred questions on a Kahoot which is so sad. She compiled like the best quotes from this list. And just because, for the people that were there for the context, the people that remember what was going on, that was amazing. 

Like just to know when Spencer said, “space is cool and we should fund it.” Like it was at weekaheads. So he was talking about what a story that someone was going to write was. And the context was, well, not the context, that was the context. What Spencer said was like, “so, this columnist’s column is essentially, I don’t know even how to put this, space is cool and we should fund it.” And that was the full thing. 

And Maddie and I look at each other and we just start laughing. The whole room starts, we’re not even there anymore. And we all settle down and we’re like, “so what’s the actual column,” like what is he actually gonna write? And Spencer’s like, “I just told you.” And it’s just moments like that. We’re just looking back on these things where they’re pretty good.

SIROVY: Some of them. 

STEIL: Yeah.

SIROVY: Some of them we can’t say. 

STEIL: Yeah.

SIROVY: But I think those are the best ones. 

STEIL: Like “imagine being a fish,” from Henry. I don’t remember what that one was about.

SIROVY: Imagine being a fish. I remember one of mine was about, I was talking about the Mothman statue. I was like, he’s got an ass. It’s a statue, but he’s got an ass. 

STEIL: Yeah, that was pretty good. 

SIROVY: Because I completely forgot about that conversation, but I can’t believe you wrote that down. I was like, when did you do that? 

ROTH: Yeah.

STEIL: And I feel like that’s one of the funniest parts about the quote list because some people don’t remember or realize that they’re being put down on this list. So like during this Kahoot there was one from our alumni relations director and it’s going to take me too long to find it, but the quote was essentially, he was talking about dating advice to whoever he was talking to and he’s like, “you need to find a man who plays the piano, period. Maybe he’s really hairy.” I have no idea what he’s, I cannot remember what he’s supposed to, what he’s trying to say by that. 

So this quote makes it into the Kahoot. And the answer is shown, and I look right at Wyatt, the Alumni Relations Director, and he is flabbergasted, hands up in the air, in the most contorted, confused face I’ve ever seen from him. And he’s like, “when in the world did I say that?” And I think that’s one of the funniest things about it that people just don’t remember like even your Bubba Gump’s one. It’s your favorite one, but you don’t remember me putting it down. 

ROTH: I don’t so he said one too. There was like a question that was like which pair said this and it was oh it was person a said like “I like both kinds of coke” and person b said diet and.

SIROVY: It was zero.

STEIL: Zero.

ROTH: Zero. And I vividly remember I was sitting next to Maddie Robinson, one of our A&E writers, and I go, “this is not me.” Like I saw my name and I was like, not me. And then it shows Alex and I. And I looked at him and I was like, “when did I even say that?” Cause I just don’t remember it at all. 

STEIL: It was in the Waffle House after the aquarium. 

ROTH: We weren’t even sitting by each other. 

STEIL: Yeah. Yeah. 

SIROVY: He just, he just overheard the conversation and was like, I’m gonna. 

STEIL: Because it was just the booths and you could really only fit two people on each side, across the aisle. When we were at the aquarium. That’s when we were sitting like front to back. And so you were sitting at the other table you had your George plushie, whatever it was.

SIROVY: A lot of us had plushies. 

ROTH: Peaches. Shout out to Peaches.

SIROVY: That’s my stuffie.

 STEIL: Oh, cause Georgia.

SIROVY: Did you just?

STEIL: I never heard the name. So, now I got it though. But anyway, yeah, you were sitting at the other table and I can’t remember what we were, I don’t remember the context. I just remember we were sitting there and And I said “diet and zero.” I didn’t think it was that funny, but people lost it entirely. It’s like, that goes on the quote list that goes on the quote list. So anyway, anyway.

SIROVY: What do you hope people will remember about you?

ROTH: Ugh. Can I start? Okay. 

STEIL: I gotta think, man. 

ROTH: Okay. The first thing that comes to mind is just, this is going to sound kind of selfish, but just bear with me. We took this place, like, out of the pandemic. We really did cause like last year, we kind of started to come out of it a little bit. 

But Alex and I really like revamped this place and there’s been a lot of people who have just yelled at us this year and have said that we’re not doing enough and that we should be doing this better and this better. And it’s like, all right, if I could just take a moment, Alex and I took this place out of the pandemic, started an investigative desk, got a Native American beat reporter, which is partially Hubbard, but partially us, started breaking news, started quick turnaround stories.

SIROVY: Yeah, breaking news is big. 

ROTH: Like we’ve done so much, and I just want people to like, we, like, we have newsletters. Our sports editor and our A&E editor have newsletters, which is, like, I’m not going to take credit for this because I did nothing. I just sat there and Alex said, “we’re going to do this,” we did the in person editing, like, Alex said that, and I went, “cool, let’s do it,” and we did it.

And so it’s pretty much him, and I was just along for the ride. 

But like, I think what’s so frustrating is Alex is the most hard working person I’ve ever met in my life, and to see people be like, “you’re not doing this good enough or you should be doing this better” has been frustrating as hell because Alex has given his blood, sweat and tears into taking this place out of the pandemic. And I just want people to remember us as like okay this isn’t even about me like this is about him like I just want people to remember him because this place would not be nearly as good as it is right now if it wouldn’t have been for everything that Alex did. And so, when I, when people think of the Minnesota Daily, I want them to think of Alex. Because, he is. 

SIROVY: Shout out Alex. Yeah. 

STEIL: That was really sweet, thank you. Thank you. 

SIROVY: What do you hope people remember you by?

STEIL: I think what I want people to remember is that I didn’t do this for myself. Both internally, I feel like my managing style has been pretty hands off. Like, if you have an idea, let’s run with the idea. Even if it wasn’t mine. I mean, granted, I’ve had, I feel like a few ideas that have made this place better, but you know, if there’s a reporter with a really just phenomenal story idea and it wasn’t mine, I’m not going to say no. 

I think what I’m, again, more want people to remember me as like that they were able to do what they wanted to do that they had the support. That they felt like they had the support behind them to do what they wanted to do, but do what they wanted to do. And I think that also probably extends then kind of also externally too. Cause like, one of the things I did over the summer was just meet with a bunch of community members. Community members, other campus newspapers in the Big Ten, Ivy Leagues, or just kind of papers around here. And I’m just like, what are you doing? What’s going well for you? What are weaknesses you see? Something like that. 

So when I bring that up, really the point that I’m trying to think of is like, the news is a service. And that goes for the people that work for the newspaper, but it also goes for the readers that you’re covering, and the readers that are consuming the news. So when it comes to what I want to be remembered, it’s like, I tried to make The Minnesota Daily as much the product of what the community wants and what the organization needed, rather than something that I just kind of imposed. 

SIROVY: That was very well said. 

STEIL: Thank you. It felt very circular and zig-zaggy at the same time, so I’m glad it made sense though. 

SIROVY: What is that supposed to mean? 

STEIL: It makes sense in my head. 

SIROVY: Okay. 

ROTH: Here’s my closing remark. The Daily has been the best thing to ever happen to me. I love this place with my entire heart and soul. I’ve gotten so much out of it, in term, my boyfriend out of it. So that’s pretty cool. 

SIROVY: Shout out Theo. 

ROTH: But I’ve also just met the most incredible people in my entire life. I’ve gotten to run this paper that I love so much with the person I love so much. And it’s just been a blessing and I am so grateful for all of it.

And I am so grateful to you, meaning Alex, because people can’t see what I’m doing right now. 

SIROVY: She’s staring in Alex’s eyes. 

ROTH: And I just want to say thank you. I know this year was crazy for us, but thank you for dealing with me and sticking through it with me. And I just, thanks for picking me because you didn’t have to. And I know there might have been times where you probably regretted it because I regretted saying yes to you a ton. But we did it together. Because that is who we are. And I love you. I will never not love you.

SIROVY: Aww. 

ROTH: So, thank you for everything. 

STEIL: And thank you for putting up with me a whole lot. 

ROTH: Yeah, it was a lot of time. A lot of Alex time.

STEIL: So many texts, so many calls. 

SIROVY: So many texts. 

ROTH: So many tears. So many laughs. 

STEIL: Not like a Spotify wrap, but like an iMessages wrapped. It would be like, Maddie, at like, 100,000 texts. Family would be second, maybe 5,000.

Like it’s, it’s been wild. So thank you also for putting up with me as well. 

SIROVY: Thanks for putting up with us. We were a crazy bunch. 

STEIL: You guys were a rowdy. Oh gosh. It’s, I think the movie is with Pierce Brosnan and it’s like, there’s two step families that marry into one. The movie has been done so many times over. The story is not unique. But like, that kind of feels like what we did this year, where it’s just two families coming together with all their kids. And it’s just like, somehow we got to figure out how to do this, but on a serious thing, I mean, kind of like what Maddie said, The Daily has been hands down the best thing that I’ve ever done. 

I mean, I already said this in the, in the podcast, but I’ve been, um, working at The Daily longer than I’ve, or I’ve been working. Yeah. I’ve been working with The Daily longer than I’ve been in college. Some of the best professional experiences I’ve had have come from this. I can literally say that I’ve been in a motorcade with the vice president of the United States and the first lady because of this. The amount of professional connections that I’ve made from this have been beyond incredible. The amount of things that I’ve gotten to do to demonstrate that I am competent as a, as a leader, as an employee has been phenomenal. I mean, you, you alluded to this, but like, I’ve worked really hard. I’ve tried to work really hard. 

Since May 5 of last year, I have taken six days off. I have done Daily work at a pub in London, on the San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, at the Jefferson Memorial in D. C., the Louvre. Oh, and Atlanta. Well, that one feels like a given because that was a work trip. But like and the only reason I’m bringing that up is like, this job has taught me what it means to care about what you do because I care about this place a lot. I care a lot about the people, more than anything, because, again, like I was saying earlier, the news is about people. Like, you can talk about a decision that the Board of Regents makes, but the reason we care about that decision is because it impacts people.

And one of the things that I’ve been honored to do this past year is work with people to make, to create a service and to help maintain a service for people that I care a lot about. It’s been a joy to, you know, walk around campus and run into people that I know from The Daily or because of The Daily and it kind of just say like, “oh, I’m doing this for you, we as The Daily are doing this for you,” because that’s what the news at the end of the day is supposed to be about. And I’m just really happy that we’ve gotten to do this. Really happy that I’ve gotten the privilege to do this for a full year. And it’s weird to think in, I think 16 days at this point. 

SIROVY: You’re going to be so free. 

STEIL: Yeah. I mean, I want to do the math real quick. Cause I usually get about, I feel like 250 emails is a good average per day.

 SIROVY: Per day? 

STEIL: So I just did the math. Conservatively by the time I’m done, I will have gotten 21,000 emails that I’ve had to go through every single day or, you know, over the course of a year. And I’m so excited to not feel like I’m attached to my email. It’ll be pretty cool. Shout out to my stats professor for not yelling at me for being on my computer. Cause that’s the one always where I feel like I, it feels like whenever an important email comes in, it’s during that 10 to 11 window. And that’s right when my stats class is. So thank you, Georgia. 

But anyway, it’s been wonderful to be at The Daily. And it’ll be weird to not work here anymore. It’ll be weird to be just a Gopher and not a Daily, uh, worker as well. But I’m so proud of what Spencer and Amelia have already said they’re gonna do. And I’m beyond excited to see how they’re gonna do it and what’s gonna be the end result. Because they’re gonna do really good things with this paper. 

SIROVY: I think we’re all excited. 

ROTH: But they’re not gonna be as good as us because we truly are.

SIROVY: You guys will forever hold our heart. 

ROTH: The most iconic, yes. Love them to death, but I don’t know if anybody could ever possibly beat mom and dad. 

ROTH: Yeah. We’ll just be like distant relatives or something. 

STEIL: We’ll come up whenever there’s a family reunion.

SIROVY: The estranged aunt and uncle.

STEIL: I like that.

 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. 

STEIL: And this is Alex. 

ROTH: And I’m Maddie. 

SIROVY: And this has been In The Know. 

KAYLIE SIROVY: Talked about this back in like October. We were like, oh, it’d be so cool to do a Q&A session with like someone who’s really high up, maybe the president or like an interim president. That never happened. So, I think that would be really cool. 

ALEX LASSITER: I think we need to talk to Steil about that for sure.

Well, not whoever comes after Steil. Yeah, that’s what I meant is ’cause like. Steil, I don’t, he wasn’t against it, but he just never did anything to make it happen. So, yeah.

SIROVY: And he was doing a lot, so we’re never going to hold him against that. Hey everybody, this is Kaylie 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 is one of our, well, newer reporters on this desk, but he was a previous reporter at The Daily. Alex, thank you for joining us. 

LASSITER: Thank you for having me, Kaylie. 

SIROVY: We are talking today about his Board of Regents coverage. This was his beat. He knows all about it. So, let’s start with who you are here at the University of Minnesota.

LASSITER: So, my name is Alex. I am a junior, third year student at the University of Minnesota, journalism major currently. I don’t think I’m going to change it because we are way too deep in that hole. So, but I’m really enjoying my time spent here. I’m a Minnesota native as well. I grew up in Minneapolis, Southwest Minneapolis. The 20 minute drive between my home and my apartment is one of the factors as to why I came to the University. It’s definitely, it makes it easier, but I’ve been really enjoying my time here. Not too much of a paradigm shift because I’ve already been used to the winters. And I’ve been at The Daily for a little under a year now. I think I’m in month 10 of my employment here. So, yeah, that’s, that’s a little bit about me. 

SIROVY: What are some of your, I’ll start with some of your favorite stories that you’ve done?

LASSITER: That’s like asking me to pick a favorite child. It’s really really hard. 

SIROVY: Maybe narrow it down.

LASSITER: Let’s think a lot of my admin coverage is stuff that I’m proud of. I’m very proud of, there’s this one story. It’s so, it feels so different from a lot of the stories I’ve done, but it’s a story about North Dakota State University’s free tuition program. And I liked it because I got to do data for it and then I accidentally edited the graph for a different graph into a different story and the embed code didn’t change. So, now there’s a graph for a different story up there on the North Dakota story.

SIROVY: I didn’t know about that.

LASSITER: I didn’t know about that either until I went back and I double checked it. So, I totally, found it totally by coincidence, but oh, well. 

SIROVY: I don’t think anyone noticed.

LASSITER: Nobody should notice it at least, but I also really enjoyed, I used to work on the research and development beat before going to work on the administration beat. And one of my favorite stories, it was my second story ever. I believe it was about bees and I got to talk to a lot of bee professors at the University. They were talking about all like the 500 different kinds of bees that they discovered and that they categorized across the state of Minnesota. And then the one that I did most recently that I’m absolutely the most proud of.

SIROVY: As you should be.

LASSITER: I worked with Hannah Ward on the investigative desk. And the two of us, we pooled our efforts. It was after the school shooting threat. Recently, I believe it was in, was that February? 

SIROVY: That was February. That was like a week or two after we came back. 

LASSITER: It just, it feels like February last year. Time just kind of flies. 

SIROVY: It’s, my sense of time is very skewed right now, but that’s okay.

LASSITER: Yeah, but anyways, Hannah Ward and I from the investigative desk, we teamed up on that. And I got to talk to a lot of folks who were involved with the investigation and with the police response. And I learned a lot about the police side of things as well. And I hadn’t gotten to do an investigative piece like that before and it was very, very enlightening. It just made me feel like I was a detective. 

SIROVY: So then how did you kind of switch to your administrative side?

LASSITER: So I, as I mentioned, I started on the research and development desk when I first joined The Daily over the summer. I was here over the summer and we had another Board of Regents reporter, Henry Hagen. He is now the editor of Campus Activities. And so, with Henry gone, we needed somebody to step in and fill the Board of Regents beat and something that we joke about on the admin desk or joked about rather was how we never had a full desk ever from the time that I joined to the time that I left. We never had a full desk of five people and go figure, I continued that trend, I suppose by coming over to podcasting. 

SIROVY: That’s kind of a thing for a lot of desks, though, if we want to talk about that.

LASSITER: But anyways, it was myself and I think one other person from campus admin over the summer who stayed between summer and fall. And so since I technically had seniority on that desk, I was bumped up to the campus administration beat. And I definitely enjoyed it. I really got to hit the ground running. I knew a lot of people on the desk and I knew a lot about the University already. So it wasn’t too hard for me to step into that role. And I came in at a really, really good time because there was a narrative through line that kind of kept me going the entire time on that desk which was the Board of Regents’ presidential search. 

It started, or it didn’t rather start, but they kicked it off primarily in October, and it just recently came to a close with the election of Dr. Rebecca Cunningham as president, at the start of this month, actually. So, that, basically, that whole thing took up, like, maybe 90 percent of what I did on the desk. It was such an intensive process, and I was very, very honored to be part of the desk for that entire search.

SIROVY: I knew if, and if we were covering anything Board of Regents, you would be a part of it. I knew that. How many meetings do you think you went to? 

LASSITER: Gosh, let me, let me count. Okay. So they had none in January, which was exceedingly great. They had one October. I want to say one November, maybe two December. That sounds right. One Feb, no, two or three Feb. I want to say the ballpark of definitely under 10, but high above five. So I want to say seven or eight. I think that sounds about right.

SIROVY: And what did they talk about in these meetings?

LASSITER: Oh man, what didn’t they talk about? Uh, these meetings, depending on what they were covering or what types of agenda items they had. Would go anywhere between three to seven hours per.

SIROVY: Oh my goodness.

LASSITER: Yeah, longest meeting I had by far. 

SIROVY: Oh my goodness.

LASSITER: Longest one I had by far was the Rebecca Cunningham presidential selection meeting because they interviewed each presidential candidate for I believe it was an hour and a half per. And yeah, that meeting, that meeting went on for a long while, a long while. I got to talk with a lot of the regents and everybody was tired by the end of that thing. I got to the boardroom, the meeting room at nine in the morning, and I didn’t leave that building even not like to get lunch or anything. I didn’t leave the building until I want to say 5 pm. It was actually a 9 to 5. 

SIROVY: That, literally, you did a whole job right there. 

LASSITER: Yup. 

SIROVY: Whole job day. 

LASSITER: No 401k or anything. 

SIROVY: No benefits. 

LASSITER: Seriously, they gotta pay my dental if I’m covering eight hour long meetings like that. 

SIROVY:  I had no idea they went on, that went on for that long.

LASSITER: Yeah, not many people did. That was kind of my job, was to sit there and take the brunt of it and just condense it down so you could spend only like, 10-15 minutes reading about it instead of eight hours watching the entire thing happen before your eyes. 

SIROVY: Did you like it? 

LASSITER: I tolerated it. It was, I enjoyed it. No, I enjoyed it. We, myself, my editor, Liv Hines and a Star Tribune editor were all there. We were the only three reporters in the room from start to finish. Uh, there were public information people there, there were public relations people there, people from student government, people from student relations, but we were the only three to be there from start to finish. 

And we walked out of that room. We were all just totally exhausted and we walked into the next room. And lo and behold, there are like 10 other reporters from different TV, podcasting outlets, et cetera. And they’re all asking questions to Rebecca Cunningham about stuff that she already answered during the meeting. And we’re just like.

SIROVY: So, you were being the better reporter is what I’m hearing. 

LASSITER: I mean, not to brag or anything, but we did break the story of the meeting coverage. Broke the story of the election decision, and we even beat the PR email on both of those. And so I think that is the crowning achievement of my career. My short journalistic career at the University of Minnesota is getting to say that I not only sat there for eight hours, but I did it first. 

SIROVY: No, you should totally brag about that. I, that day that that story broke that you that you wrote. We were so like impressed. We were so proud. We’re like, Oh my gosh, you guys did this. We beat everyone. That is an incredible achievement. It was a good day. 

LASSITER: The first thing that I did after I was done was I raced over to Noodles and Company and bought myself a big old bowl of mac and cheese. Cause like I said, I skipped lunch, to make that happen. 

SIROVY: Yeah, which maybe not was a good thing, but you know.

LASSITER: Yeah, no, I’m not encouraging that. I’m just saying that that was probably the best meal that I’ve ever eaten in my entire life. 

SIROVY: So I’m guessing the people in that meeting, did they get to know you as you sat in on a lot of these? 

LASSITER: Yeah, I’ve actually, I got to meet a ton of people from University relations side. As I mentioned, that Star Tribune reporter, she and I covered basically the same beat. And I met her, I think on my third story for the admin Board of Regents beat. I was covering the construction kickoff party of Fraser Hall. Which, that’s a currently ongoing construction project on the University. They are transforming it. It used to be a law building. Then it was in, like, a support services building. Now it’s a chemistry building. 

SIROVY: And it will be in construction until, like, ‘26, right? 

LASSITER: Easily, easily. It’s like the chameleon of the University buildings. It’s played many different roles in many different colors. But they kicked it off back in October, I want to say. Governor Walz was there, Interim President Jeff Ettinger was there, and so this was like my first higher up event that I was invited to, and I was just a student with a backpack. I met this Star Tribune reporter there who covered these beats, Liz Navratil, and she and I kind of connected because we cover a lot of the same events. And so I’d see her at a lot of the Board of Regents meetings. 

I’d see her at a lot of like, there was a task force on academic health that I was covering and I saw her there as well. I’d see her basically everywhere I was, she was too. So, she and I kind of connected on that level. There was also, I got to know a lot of the University PR people. And I did tell the story before you walked in about how I’ve just met the University president yesterday or the interim president Jeff Ettinger. I was getting lunch, he was getting lunch, and he just came up to me and started talking as we were waiting for our Panda Express. 

SIROVY: God, I love our jobs. 

LASSITER: Yep. So, you just meet people, and you know people, and if you run into them, great, and it’s super, super, it becomes easy to reach out to them too, which is phenomenal because if you’re that high up in the University, you want to have quick contacts with these people and quick access to them. So, it definitely provided me with a lot of new connections that I’m extremely grateful for. 

SIROVY: Was that last presidential interview meeting, was that the most difficult meeting that you were in on or? 

LASSITER: I want to say yeah, I want to say yeah, because not only was I note taking, but I had to write each section of the interview. So there were three interviews, as I mentioned before. One for each candidate, lasted about an hour and a half each. I had to write the section of the article on top of all the notes that I was taking because we were publishing updates live. 

So, as an article, or as a candidate was done being interviewed, I had to have that section of the article ready to go within like 10 minutes after they took their break because we were updating the website as we wrote.

So when I say that I was doing that work for eight hours, I wasn’t just sitting there twiddling my thumbs. I wasn’t just like note taking. I was actively writing my piece for all eight hours. 

SIROVY: Was Liv also?

LASSITER: Liv was there. She was live tweeting everything. So she would be collecting quotes from folks. And then her live tweets were also hyperlinked within the article. And I swear that if Liv was not there, I probably would have actually lost my mind. Because having that, having that other Minnesota Daily rep in support. We did have some folks also, I believe, from opinions there. They were sitting in on that meeting. And it was either that meeting or no, it was the one where they announced the three candidates.

SIROVY: Okay.

LASSITER: It’s so, so people were coming in and out for various points in the search. They were the public interview forums, which people were talking or Minnesota Daily people came. Those were across all campuses. We had the ones where the candidates were announced and then the one where the designate was selected, so it was a very lengthy and very, very surprisingly public process as well. So, I was there for all of them, which meant that I was just kind of like that, that little bridge across all roads. 

SIROVY: You were representing us, you were representing students. 

LASSITER: I got to see many people, I got to meet many people, and it was, overall, it was a very tiring and taxing experience, but it was a very fruitful one, so I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

SIROVY: What was one of your most surprising moments during either one of these meetings or while you were writing or the stuff you learned about? 

LASSITER: Well, I really, really wish that I could say that things that happened were off book. A lot of these meetings, I heard from my desk editor that the person who covered the Board of Regents beat before me last year, it was a more contentious board. It was a more argumentative board and so meetings would go off kilter and they would. 

SIROVY: Oh.

LASSITER: Yeah, people would start arguments, board members would start arguments with each other and this was back when Joan Gable was our president too. So, it’s just a little bit more contention all around. But this year things, and it sucks to say this, but like things were like a clock that worked smoothly. But I wish they weren’t, you know, like I just a little bit more drama would have been. 

SIROVY: Give me the juice, I want it.

LASSITER: I would say there were two protestors or two groups of protestors that interrupted two of the meetings that I was at. The December one was interrupted by students for a Democratic society. 

SIROVY: Oh, I remember that. 

LASSITER: Yes.

SIROVY: I remember seeing that, yeah.

LASSITER: Yeah. And so they stood up, they said their piece, they marched out, and I got to snap a few pictures of them as well in action. It was a great demonstration. And then there was also some unidentified student group at Laura Bloomberg, one of the other presidential candidates, at her public forum, her public interview forum.

There were one or two unidentified student groups also in favor of Palestine, and they stood up near the end of the interview process. And she handled it really, really well, I think. Didn’t happen during either of the other two forums on the Twin Cities campus. So I think it might have just been because it was a Friday. 

SIROVY: I was gonna say, maybe they know something we don’t?

LASSITER: No, I think it was just because it was a Friday. Everybody has more free time on a Friday.

SIROVY: That’s true. 

LASSITER: But, I’d have to say, yeah, just the student engagement and the protester engagement. That was probably the most, I mean, it was all off book, obviously. Nobody says, hey, I’m gonna schedule a protest and come up in here during your time. Try and stop me. 

SIROVY: That would be a little weird.

LASSITER: It’s a really interesting way of getting to see the student voice as well and getting to see what issues they’re concerned about because if students feel like they aren’t being heard or something, that’s probably the best way to get them to the administration, the higher administration, because everybody’s there. 

SIROVY: And we don’t, we don’t have that contact with higher administration all too much. The highest people that we see maybe on like a weekly basis is maybe like our advisors, our professors, maybe the head of a department, we don’t go much higher than that.

So, to be able to have, like, a public forum like this where they can speak out is, I think, pretty important. 

LASSITER: I think so, too. 

SIROVY: What was the public saying about your stories? Was it, did they really enjoy seeing your stories? Did they not look at your stories?

LASSITER: That’s a good question. It’s a very good question. For I think, the best way to put it is that they’re there for, they’re like information pamphlets. My stories were like information pamphlets. They were a lot of facts and a lot of explanatory stuff. But when you’re going on a tour, typically you don’t want to grab an information pamphlet. You just want to go to the place. So, not too many people checked out, like, my routine stories, Board of Regents, healthcare task force, any of that. 

And if they did it was for the perspective of somebody who was speaking at one of these meetings, maybe, or an announcement that was happening at one of these meetings. The stories that I found that had the biggest reach were not actually the meetings themselves, but they were stories that directly impacted and said in either the headline or the subhead what the thing was all about. So the three I think that had the biggest impact, and that people came to the most was there was one about the data breach that I did over the summer.

SIROVY: That was a big one. Yes. A lot of people were concerned about that. ‘Cause I know we got emails about it as University students like, hey, your information may not be so safe. And then this is a little quick note about me, but my dad works in Minneapolis, right? And since he’s connected to, like, the Minneapolis school district, so am I technically.

So, I got an email about my data breach from here and from the Minneapolis public school district. 

LASSITER: Oh, no. 

SIROVY: So that was the whole other thing that I had to worry about. 

LASSITER: Yikes. 

SIROVY: And I don’t know if other people saw that, but I also had to think about that. We had a data breach, the Minneapolis Public School District had a data breach, and I think a few others, so.

LASSITER: Yeah, I don’t remember if the Minnesota or the Minneapolis Public School District’s data breach was that, how far back did that affect?

SIROVY: I don’t know, but I know I got letters from them. They were like, you should probably plan and maybe stop your credit. I was like, okay.

LASSITER: Because I graduated in 2021. So, I think I might’ve been affected by that one too. 

SIROVY: Yeah. 

LASSITER: So yeah, I was also on two sides of that coin.

SIROVY: Yeah. They were like your address may be out there. Your social security may be out there. 

LASSITER: I was definitely, I remember.

SIROVY: Your name, your birthday. I was like, okay. Great. 

LASSITER: I remember those emails. 

SIROVY: Thank you. I live in Monticello, but thank you. 

LASSITER: I definitely remember getting those emails as a former student. So yeah, thank you for reminding me that I might be getting targeted on two fronts now.

SIROVY: I think we all are. It’s okay. 

LASSITER: But yes, I did. I did that story. I think that was the first story that The Minnesota Daily wrote about the topic and so I also looked into the lawsuits going on against the University because that was a huge point of interest. They’re still ongoing. The Board of Regents are still holding litigation meetings to discuss everything, and obviously, of course, they are because it’s a very slow process in suing anybody for anything. A lot of students tuned into that one because they were looking for resources or just concerned generally about the ramifications of it. 

The next one that I did that had quite a bit of reach was, there was unfortunately a student who had passed away recently. I believe it was January of this year. A lot of students on campus, his name was Sumith Maddi. A lot of students on campus knew who he was, and a lot of students knew that he had gone missing. And so, it was breaking news when they found him, unfortunately, deceased in the river. And a lot of students were looking for answers to that. 

And so, when that story broke, when I published that story the morning that we found out, a lot of people engaged with it. And they’re like, thank you, because this is how I found out. And I can’t remember the third one, but those are the two that came to mind most just because they impacted the most people. I think they had the, oh! The presidential elect, of course. I was going to bring this one up.

SIROVY:  That’s one of our higher ratings. I remember seeing big numbers for that one. 

LASSITER: Is it really? 

SIROVY: Yes.

LASSITER: That’s great to hear, but I mentioned that I had spent eight hours in that meeting and there were two separate pieces that came out of that meeting. I pitched this to our editor-in-chief and to my editor because they were both very concerned. They knew this was a very important and big meeting, and a lot of people are going to be there. So I pitched to them, I said, hey, let’s do two stories for this piece. 

Let’s do one story that is just full of all the interviews from the meeting and the context and the background of the meeting itself. And then we’ll do a brief for whoever wins. I typed up three briefs. One for each of the candidates possibly winning. I did that about a week before, and then as we got closer and closer to the decision, I started tweaking all three of them. And then as it seemed like one candidate wasn’t gonna get selected, I just dropped that one and started tweaking two of them. 

And then finally, of course, as we know, Dr. Rebecca Cunningham won, and so I polished that one up, went to the post meeting, press conference, finished it, published it. Many more people engaged with that one than the actual meeting details themselves. So, I think the best way to put it is just stories that had a direct impact on the University of Minnesota community and told them how they were impacted or they were affected. Those are the ones that got the most traffic. 

SIROVY: I think it’s a good way to put that. What were the Board of Regents asking these presidential selects?

LASSITER: A lot of them were in relation to University facing issues right now. This is a very big year for the University in terms of healthcare especially. There’s a merger going on between the University or not a merger, but a partnership going on between the University and CentraCare.

That’s new, that’s budding, and that’s going to result in a new medical school campus being opened up in St. Cloud. The University and Fairview are renegotiating their contract and that is going to result in the University buying back their teaching hospital from Fairview as well. 

SIROVY: Oh, I didn’t know about that one.

LASSITER: Yeah, I know. It’s a very, very big year for medical stuff. And then, of course, the governor’s academic health task force on recommendations for the University of Minnesota, or the future of academic health at the University of Minnesota. So, that is all happening right now, and I’m pretty sure that’s why they chose Dr. Cunningham to be their final choice because she has a very well versed background in healthcare, both on the ground and in the administrative level. And so they asked a lot of these questions that were being directed towards the candidates from the board were about their past, about how they think they’d be well equipped to handle the current issues that the University is facing, and then some, they tried to get personal.

They tried to get like, have like, personal anecdotes be told about, team building and instituting, or fostering a sense of community, which I think is good because you need, a sense of community to be fostered at the, a place like the University where so many different voices are going to be being heard and so many different people are going to be working together.

SIROVY: There’s what, 50, 000 people here? 

LASSITER: 55,000 people I think. 

SIROVY: 55!

LASSITER: I know, right? 

SIROVY:  Oh my gosh. You don’t see, you don’t see us all in one place, though. 

LASSITER: If you tried to pack that many people into a room, I think the walls would pop. 

SIROVY: Anything you want to say about your previous coverage or how much you like it here? I don’t know.

LASSITER: I mean, if you asked me to say how much I like it here, I could go on for another hour, I think. But, it was just my time. I say that as if I am dearly departed from this world. I’m not. Uh, I’m still very much here and alive on the podcasting desk. I’m very excited to spread my wings and try my hand at a few different types of stories. Try my hand at writing different types of stories because admin coverage, to be frank, it’s great and it’s necessary, but it’s also so tiring. And sometimes, for a very creative person like myself, I just need to take a break and I need to try something new and try something different.

So I’m extremely grateful for my time on the admin desk. I learned so many things there that I just would not have if I wasn’t in that position at that time. I formed so many connections, like I said, that I would not have formed if I was not there at that time. And I think, hopefully, the admin desk and the whole of The Minnesota Daily capitalizes on some of those connections that I’ve made during my time there, but I am very very excited to continue on podcasting to get a lot more creative and goofy with my stories. 

SIROVY:I love goofy stories. 

LASSITER: And, to just have a good fun solid time. 

SIROVY: Maybe that’s why I like it here so much because I could just do whatever. I don’t have to follow.

LASSITER: Exactly. 

SIROVY: I don’t have to follow a super strict or.

LASSITER: I mean, hey, you’ve been sitting here talking to this goofball for like, what, half an hour, so.

SIROVY: Well, you had a lot of interesting topics that you were covering and you knew just about anything that we could ask for that, so I think that your coverage of it was super important, especially, with the latest one you did with Cunningham being named president and everyone’s seeing it, and I just think you did a really good job, and I’m so excited to have you here.

LASSITER: Well, thank you so much. I’m excited to be here. 

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.

LASSITER: And I’m Alex.

SIROVY: And this is In The Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hey everybody, this is Kaylie Sirovy from the Minnesota Daily and you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota.

A little fun fact about me is that I have three tattoos on my right arm. I got one as soon as I turned eighteen, eager to mark the occasion. I chose a design with timeless appeal, something I knew I would cherish for years to come. As time passed, I found myself returning to the tattoo studio annually, each visit adding another layer of self-expression to my arm. The tattoos I have reflect my evolving tastes and passions, serving as a visual timeline of my journey through life.

The point is I love tattoos, but does the rest of the country? Data from the Pew Research Center can show us. According to their 2023 survey, 32% of adults have adorned themselves with at least one tattoo, marking an increase from previous years. This hints at a growing acceptance of tattoos, especially within the younger generations as it also shows 41% of those aged 18-29 are tattooed.

The roots of tattooing are etched into human history, spanning across diverse civilizations and cultures scattered throughout the globe with origins dating back millennia. Some reaching as far as 5,200 years ago. Evidence of tattooing can be traced across a vast array of cultures, from the ancient Egyptians to the Greeks and across a frozen expanse to Siberian nomadic tribes. Looking to the south, the Nubians of Africa and the indigenous peoples of South America also had tattoos.

Venturing across the Pacific Ocean, one encounters the rich tapestry of the Polynesians tattoo culture, where intricate patterns served as both a testament to identity and their societal standing, according to anthropology professor David Lipset. 

DAVID LIPSET: Now in these cultures, traditionally, men and women received tattoos as part of their membership in particular identities in society that we call statuses, and so they received tattoos when they became adults. When a man became an adult and was eligible to marry, for example, or a woman became an adult, could marry and have children, or when they joined particular groups of people, secret societies or other groups of people, artists or political leaders. They received tattoos that represented their maturity, represented what rank in society they held and what groups they belong to in society.

SIROVY: Meaning tattoos served as a visual language through which individuals communicated their place within the intricate web of societal structures. They were badges of honor, declarations of allegiance and testaments to one’s journey through life—a living canvas basically. That idea hasn’t changed much. Rylee Anderson, a seasoned tattoo artist at Dinkytown Tattoo with 15 years of experience, says that he sees a lot of tattoos that intersect with people’s identities.

RYLEE ANDERSON: You know there’s a lot of people that will get tattoos in celebration of their sexual identity or like their gender identity and stuff like that. And even though I’m a, you know, straight white male, I don’t know what it’s like to go through that, but I think it’s awesome that I give these people a way to express themselves through these designs that kind of touch on these very intimate subjects for them. You know, I’ll see a lot of people, the different ethnic backgrounds that will get tattoos that are a celebration of their culture and their ethnic history which I think is always a wonderful thing to be able to do for someone.

SIROVY: In Polynesian cultures, tattoos held a profound significance that extended beyond mere decoration. According to Lipset, they were also thought to be alive.

LIPSET: They were thought to have power that not only bestowed power to their wearers but also communicated with them. So, if you’ve seen the Disney animated feature of Moana, one of the major, one of the heroes of the movie in the narrative, is the so-called demigod Maui.

One of the things, one of the ways that they depict Maui is that some of his tattoos are alive. Some of his tattoos move across his body and communicate with him, approve of something he’s done or disapprove of something he’s done. And that general idea is actually consistent with, or the traditional ways that, you know, tattoos were thought about in pre-contact or in traditional Polynesia.

SIROVY: According to Lipset, Polynesian’s tattoos were integral components of a communal identity. They were emblematic of shared narratives, beliefs and cultural heritage. Nowadays, they are more representative of individual expression. My tattoos, for example, are flowers, lightsabers and plant vines. Those reflect who I am, not what my community or status looks like. Anderson said that he sees a lot of people get tattoos inspired by their favorite music, video game, or anime.

ANDERSON: I do a lot of stuff that is from different fandoms, like Lord of the Rings or whatever. And it’s a way for people to express like something that they just love that means so much to them. And they get to wear that on their skin. 

BLU: I have some clients too that get tattoos because they have parts of their body that they don’t like. Like maybe their legs aren’t as attractive as they would like to be, and so they come to me and get tattoos to make them more attractive. And I have seen these people brighten up when they start covering those areas and like it changes their whole perspective about their self confidence and their way they show themselves to others, and it’s kind of nice to be part of that too.

SIROVY: Meet Blu, another artist at Dinkytown Tattoo, who has been part of the team for about two years. Both Blu and Anderson shared a recent surge in trends among their student clientele, with a particular emphasis on lettering, angel numbers, and fine lines with abundant foliage motifs such as ferns and herbs. Blu mentioned that when students make their decisions, it’s often a culmination of various factors all coming into play at once.

BLU: It’s a lot of everything. Sometimes people who come in with friends or in a group can be a little persuaded by other people in the group, which I’m a bit against because it’s their body and their tattoo and they should be a bit clear headed in terms of not these kind of outside sources as much, especially right before the process.

You can get all those opinions before you come in the shop, but yeah, there’s, you kind of have to trust your gut a little bit. Usually people kind of, they have this like little voice in their head that kind of knows that that’s what they want. And it depends on society a little bit and on the friends a little bit and people’s lifestyles and everything.

SIROVY: In modern Western tattoo culture, whether driven by peer influence or broader cultural trends, there is a choice. That doesn’t mean that everyone will choose to get a tattoo as 85% of untattooed Americans say they are not likely to get a tattoo in the future. But as social media continues to dominate our lives, it can also influence a great deal, according to Anderson.

ANDERSON: There’s this old saying that I remember hearing in, in the beginning of my tattooing career that was, and it’s a little risqué, but it was basically tattooing isn’t just for sailors and *censored* anymore.

Because back in the day, like the people that you saw that were tattooed were sailors, women of the night, so to speak, in those types of places, in those port towns, bikers, you know. People that were freak shows, like people that were a lot more rough around the edges, but yeah, now you’re seeing, you know, I tattoo scientists, and I’ve tattooed people that work in literally all walks of life.

SIROVY: Although you can see just about anyone with ink on their skin now, there are notable variations between genders. Data from the Pew Research Center also revealed that 38% of women sport at least one tattoo, compared to 27% of men. Moreover, this trend is particularly pronounced among younger adult women aged 18- 29. 

While tattooing trends and numbers change here in the United States, the same might not be said for indigenous tattoos in New Zealand. There is a Māori practice where women traditionally adorn their chins with tattoos, a practice that some still uphold today, while others are rediscovering it. These tattoos typically consisted of parallel lines etched onto their chins, serving as symbolic markers of their adulthood and societal status.

LIPSET: The determination of that, you know, wasn’t really a matter of selection. It was if you became an adult woman and you, you know, had the resources to compensate the tattoo artist, usually with food, then it was something you wanted to do because it was a matter of prestige.

The idea of choice is not really part of the choice of the artist or the choice of the tattoo receiver. It’s not really part of the process. Except in a country, in a culture like, you know, our own, which is so based in individualism.

SIROVY: Economic downturns, like the 2008 recession, can sway those personal tattoo trends and ideas. Despite tattoos being viewed as a luxury, their popularity depends on quite a few things.

ANDERSON: Tattooing is a luxury. It is not a necessity. It is not something, it’s not a utility. You know, it costs money and they are expensive.

So I was not seeing a lot of people getting tattooed as much back then. However, you know, the TV shows has really propelled tattooing into the forethought of a lot of folks that maybe hadn’t thought about it as much before. And because of the individuality aspect of the tattoos that was presented in these tattoo shows really made people feel like, oh man, like I can express myself through this.

So it made kind of this huge boom over the last, yeah, like, I mean, last like 10, 15 years has been insane. And especially since COVID has happened. I went into that whole deal thinking, oh, tattooing is over, man. Like, you know, when we had to be shut down for three months, I was really worried about the state of tattooing and what that was going to look like once we were able to go back to work.

Boy, was I wrong because it has been an insane uptick in people getting tattooed and becoming tattooers over the last four years, especially it has been absolutely insane. It’s been great for business. I think we’re finally now starting to kind of level out from that because we didn’t have a slow season for the last four years up until this, this, you know, winter. So, it’s kind of an interesting thing to see how much that has changed. 

BLU: I agree with everything Riley said. I’ve noticed that I have super diverse clients like everyone from college kids getting their first tattoo to 60-year-old women getting their first tattoo.

SIROVY: Tattoos are like snapshots of personal stories and cultural shifts. From the ancient traditions of Polynesians to today’s binge-worthy tattoo reality shows, they’re not just ink on skin—they’re statements, conversations and expressions of who we are. Despite ups and downs, tattoos have stayed in the spotlight, evolving with society’s tastes and tech. In our world of hashtags and viral trends, tattoos are more than just body art—they’re bridges between people and generations and cultures. So, whether you’re a college student getting inked for the first time with your best friends or a 60-year-old embracing a new chapter, each tattoo tells a story.

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: Hey everybody, this is Kaylie Sirovy from the Minnesota Daily and you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota.

A little fun fact about me is that I have three tattoos on my right arm. I got one as soon as I turned eighteen, eager to mark the occasion. I chose a design with timeless appeal, something I knew I would cherish for years to come. As time passed, I found myself returning to the tattoo studio annually, each visit adding another layer of self-expression to my arm. The tattoos I have reflect my evolving tastes and passions, serving as a visual timeline of my journey through life.

The point is I love tattoos, but does the rest of the country? Data from the Pew Research Center can show us. According to their 2023 survey, 32% of adults have adorned themselves with at least one tattoo, marking an increase from previous years. This hints at a growing acceptance of tattoos, especially within the younger generations as it also shows 41% of those aged 18-29 are tattooed.

The roots of tattooing are etched into human history, spanning across diverse civilizations and cultures scattered throughout the globe with origins dating back millennia. Some reaching as far as 5,200 years ago. Evidence of tattooing can be traced across a vast array of cultures, from the ancient Egyptians to the Greeks and across a frozen expanse to Siberian nomadic tribes. Looking to the south, the Nubians of Africa and the indigenous peoples of South America also had tattoos.

Venturing across the Pacific Ocean, one encounters the rich tapestry of the Polynesians tattoo culture, where intricate patterns served as both a testament to identity and their societal standing, according to anthropology professor David Lipset. 

DAVID LIPSET: Now in these cultures, traditionally, men and women received tattoos as part of their membership in particular identities in society that we call statuses, and so they received tattoos when they became adults. When a man became an adult and was eligible to marry, for example, or a woman became an adult, could marry and have children, or when they joined particular groups of people, secret societies or other groups of people, artists or political leaders. They received tattoos that represented their maturity, represented what rank in society they held and what groups they belong to in society.

SIROVY: Meaning tattoos served as a visual language through which individuals communicated their place within the intricate web of societal structures. They were badges of honor, declarations of allegiance and testaments to one’s journey through life—a living canvas basically. That idea hasn’t changed much. Rylee Anderson, a seasoned tattoo artist at Dinkytown Tattoo with 15 years of experience, says that he sees a lot of tattoos that intersect with people’s identities.

RYLEE ANDERSON: You know there’s a lot of people that will get tattoos in celebration of their sexual identity or like their gender identity and stuff like that. And even though I’m a, you know, straight white male, I don’t know what it’s like to go through that, but I think it’s awesome that I give these people a way to express themselves through these designs that kind of touch on these very intimate subjects for them. You know, I’ll see a lot of people, the different ethnic backgrounds that will get tattoos that are a celebration of their culture and their ethnic history which I think is always a wonderful thing to be able to do for someone.

SIROVY: In Polynesian cultures, tattoos held a profound significance that extended beyond mere decoration. According to Lipset, they were also thought to be alive.

LIPSET: They were thought to have power that not only bestowed power to their wearers but also communicated with them. So, if you’ve seen the Disney animated feature of Moana, one of the major, one of the heroes of the movie in the narrative, is the so-called demigod Maui.

One of the things, one of the ways that they depict Maui is that some of his tattoos are alive. Some of his tattoos move across his body and communicate with him, approve of something he’s done or disapprove of something he’s done. And that general idea is actually consistent with, or the traditional ways that, you know, tattoos were thought about in pre-contact or in traditional Polynesia.

SIROVY: According to Lipset, Polynesian’s tattoos were integral components of a communal identity. They were emblematic of shared narratives, beliefs and cultural heritage. Nowadays, they are more representative of individual expression. My tattoos, for example, are flowers, lightsabers and plant vines. Those reflect who I am, not what my community or status looks like. Anderson said that he sees a lot of people get tattoos inspired by their favorite music, video game, or anime.

ANDERSON: I do a lot of stuff that is from different fandoms, like Lord of the Rings or whatever. And it’s a way for people to express like something that they just love that means so much to them. And they get to wear that on their skin. 

BLU: I have some clients too that get tattoos because they have parts of their body that they don’t like. Like maybe their legs aren’t as attractive as they would like to be, and so they come to me and get tattoos to make them more attractive. And I have seen these people brighten up when they start covering those areas and like it changes their whole perspective about their self confidence and their way they show themselves to others, and it’s kind of nice to be part of that too.

SIROVY: Meet Blu, another artist at Dinkytown Tattoo, who has been part of the team for about two years. Both Blu and Anderson shared a recent surge in trends among their student clientele, with a particular emphasis on lettering, angel numbers, and fine lines with abundant foliage motifs such as ferns and herbs. Blu mentioned that when students make their decisions, it’s often a culmination of various factors all coming into play at once.

BLU: It’s a lot of everything. Sometimes people who come in with friends or in a group can be a little persuaded by other people in the group, which I’m a bit against because it’s their body and their tattoo and they should be a bit clear headed in terms of not these kind of outside sources as much, especially right before the process.

You can get all those opinions before you come in the shop, but yeah, there’s, you kind of have to trust your gut a little bit. Usually people kind of, they have this like little voice in their head that kind of knows that that’s what they want. And it depends on society a little bit and on the friends a little bit and people’s lifestyles and everything.

SIROVY: In modern Western tattoo culture, whether driven by peer influence or broader cultural trends, there is a choice. That doesn’t mean that everyone will choose to get a tattoo as 85% of untattooed Americans say they are not likely to get a tattoo in the future. But as social media continues to dominate our lives, it can also influence a great deal, according to Anderson.

ANDERSON: There’s this old saying that I remember hearing in, in the beginning of my tattooing career that was, and it’s a little risqué, but it was basically tattooing isn’t just for sailors and *censored* anymore.

Because back in the day, like the people that you saw that were tattooed were sailors, women of the night, so to speak, in those types of places, in those port towns, bikers, you know. People that were freak shows, like people that were a lot more rough around the edges, but yeah, now you’re seeing, you know, I tattoo scientists, and I’ve tattooed people that work in literally all walks of life.

SIROVY: Although you can see just about anyone with ink on their skin now, there are notable variations between genders. Data from the Pew Research Center also revealed that 38% of women sport at least one tattoo, compared to 27% of men. Moreover, this trend is particularly pronounced among younger adult women aged 18- 29. 

While tattooing trends and numbers change here in the United States, the same might not be said for indigenous tattoos in New Zealand. There is a Māori practice where women traditionally adorn their chins with tattoos, a practice that some still uphold today, while others are rediscovering it. These tattoos typically consisted of parallel lines etched onto their chins, serving as symbolic markers of their adulthood and societal status.

LIPSET: The determination of that, you know, wasn’t really a matter of selection. It was if you became an adult woman and you, you know, had the resources to compensate the tattoo artist, usually with food, then it was something you wanted to do because it was a matter of prestige.

The idea of choice is not really part of the choice of the artist or the choice of the tattoo receiver. It’s not really part of the process. Except in a country, in a culture like, you know, our own, which is so based in individualism.

SIROVY: Economic downturns, like the 2008 recession, can sway those personal tattoo trends and ideas. Despite tattoos being viewed as a luxury, their popularity depends on quite a few things.

ANDERSON: Tattooing is a luxury. It is not a necessity. It is not something, it’s not a utility. You know, it costs money and they are expensive.

So I was not seeing a lot of people getting tattooed as much back then. However, you know, the TV shows has really propelled tattooing into the forethought of a lot of folks that maybe hadn’t thought about it as much before. And because of the individuality aspect of the tattoos that was presented in these tattoo shows really made people feel like, oh man, like I can express myself through this.

So it made kind of this huge boom over the last, yeah, like, I mean, last like 10, 15 years has been insane. And especially since COVID has happened. I went into that whole deal thinking, oh, tattooing is over, man. Like, you know, when we had to be shut down for three months, I was really worried about the state of tattooing and what that was going to look like once we were able to go back to work.

Boy, was I wrong because it has been an insane uptick in people getting tattooed and becoming tattooers over the last four years, especially it has been absolutely insane. It’s been great for business. I think we’re finally now starting to kind of level out from that because we didn’t have a slow season for the last four years up until this, this, you know, winter. So, it’s kind of an interesting thing to see how much that has changed. 

BLU: I agree with everything Riley said. I’ve noticed that I have super diverse clients like everyone from college kids getting their first tattoo to 60-year-old women getting their first tattoo.

SIROVY: Tattoos are like snapshots of personal stories and cultural shifts. From the ancient traditions of Polynesians to today’s binge-worthy tattoo reality shows, they’re not just ink on skin—they’re statements, conversations and expressions of who we are. Despite ups and downs, tattoos have stayed in the spotlight, evolving with society’s tastes and tech. In our world of hashtags and viral trends, tattoos are more than just body art—they’re bridges between people and generations and cultures. So, whether you’re a college student getting inked for the first time with your best friends or a 60-year-old embracing a new chapter, each tattoo tells a story.

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: Hi everybody, this is Kaylie Sirovy from the Minnesota Daily and you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. 

Today, in sort of a columnist clash style, with me in the studio are two opinion writers from the Minnesota Daily to discuss whether or not we have a good nightlife here on campus.  Thank you Natalie and Michael for joining me today. 

NATALIE TRIMBLE: Thank you. Hi. 

MICHAEL FRALEY: Thank you for having us. 

SIROVY: Let’s start with Natalie. What is your perspective on our nightlife here? 

TRIMBLE: Okay, so I have, in my opinion, just such a fun perspective on this. I personally am an advocate for the nightlife that the U provides for the students. I mean, obviously it’s not something that we discuss in classrooms and everything, but we have a great area to sort of play around, go check out nice bars, especially 21 plus.

And also just a great, like, I feel like the students here, whether you’re a freshman, a senior, anywhere in between, you can always find something that works for you. And I love that. I love there’s plenty of parties, house parties, like I said bars if you are of age, of course. 

As well as, I know there’s a lot of like music events and stuff that are put on through, cool different areas and regions of Minneapolis and St. Paul. So, I definitely think there’s a lot to look at and do. And I think that it’s a great, we have a great. space to do our thing outside of school and classes. 

SIROVY: And Michael, what do you think? 

FRALEY: So I would personally agree with some of that. I think you can have a lot of fun at apartment parties and house parties. But I think the biggest thing as someone who is above 21 is that our campus kind of sucks for anyone above that age in terms of nightlife because the only real place you can go is the Kollege Klub. And, you know, you can go to Sturbs and Sally’s, but that’s a 30 minute walk. And Sally’s especially is populated with a lot of high schoolers at this point.

And then, additionally, in Dinkytown as well, I mean, there’s Blarney’s and Bloco. But both, I mean, Blarney’s has had a lot of incidents lately, so has BloCo, and you know, the lines each night for those are about two miles long. So, and on top of that, they also tend to let in a lot of underage people. And so I think, I mean, there is the option to go downtown, but you have to Uber there, and then that’s kind of a pain as well.

So, I think overall it’s not the best for a 21 plus person. Again, I think you, you definitely can find things to do, but what it really to me boils down to at the end of the day is that our campus doesn’t really feel much like a college town. I think, at least compared to, I mean, just other Big Ten schools off the top of my head, like Madison and Indiana.

I mean, Bloomington, Indiana is quite the college town, and we just kind of feel like an extension of the city. So I don’t, it might not be the best way to describe this, but it’s almost like a certain vibe you get from a college town that I just don’t think we really have here. And I mean, more than that, I just don’t think there’s that many options for going out places at night that are realistic.

TRIMBLE: See, I think that’s sort of what makes our nightlife more enjoyable is that it isn’t just like a college town vibe. I know that Madison, while I’ve never been there, is very college town. I know a lot of people that have been there to visit people or who go to the school and well some college bars there are just.

You know, the place to be for them. I think what I like about our nightlife is that you do kind of get to escape from like college at night if you really want to. I’m a transfer student, so I think I have a different perspective on the nightlife here, and I think it’s really cool. 

SIROVY: Oh, where’d you transfer from? 

TRIMBLE: DePaul University in Chicago, which is very much like commuter school and it’s Chicago. So, obviously there’s a lot to do, but there’s a lot of expenses that come with doing that and so I get what you’re saying about having to like uber places. Get your steps in, that’s my advice. Get your steps in. I, personally, have the luxury of knowing people who don’t always drink when we go out.

So, I don’t have to pay for an Uber every time. Of course, like you do have to be wary of that, but if you’re expecting to go to a bar, then you’re expecting to spend money anyways. And specifically with KK, their entrance fee is a little bit upsetting. 

SIROVY: How much is it? 

TRIMBLE: It varies on the night. 

FRALEY: Some nights it gets up to like 30 bucks on special occasions. Normally it’s eight, but yeah. 

SIROVY: Yikes.

TRIMBLE: Five to eight. And then if you want to pay for like a fast pass to get through the line, it’s 20 or more sometimes.

SIROVY: There’s a fast pass?

TRIMBLE: Yeah, I’m calling it a fast pass. I don’t know if that’s what it’s called, but there is like a, oh, it’s line leap. That’s literally the app’s name that you get the tickets.

SIROVY: Oh my goodness. 

TRIMBLE: But yeah, you can do that if you’re uninterested in staying outside during cold seasons. I don’t personally do that. I am a strong warrior and I stay outside if it’s cold. However, like I said I feel like specifically if you’re not someone who’s 21 and able to get into a bar like like KK, Sal’s is known for just like being a fun environment for like new or younger students. Whether that be early happy hour, whatever they’re doing with their underage lives. That’s a great environment that really also lets you feel like you’re connecting with people from your college.

I personally don’t go to Sturb’s, but I’ve heard, you know, mixed reviews. But like I said, I think what’s nice is the campus is so sprawled out. It’s a huge campus. So, while those places may be inconvenient for some students who are maybe in the Dinkytown area or closer to Marcy Holmes or Como, there’s bars in each little neighborhood that students live in.

So I think that it’s great because like, unless you’re exclusively going to bars outside of your immediate area, you have other bars that you can enjoy. Like, my walk to KK or Bloco or Blarney’s, while I do not go to Blarney’s, that’s all within a five to ten minute radius for me. So I just think, and even, even if you’re not a bar fan, because not everyone is, and not everyone is willing to spend money every time they go out. And also not everyone is a fan of bar environments or going somewhere where you sort of are expected to drink. Well, you don’t have to, of course, like that’s sort of what a bar environment provides for people. 

Like I said, the house parties are really fun, especially for like younger students I feel. I mean, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve preferred bar environments, but that’s most of the time should be a free place for students to attend and get to know people. On top of that, frats, sororities, all of those things that make you feel like you’re in a college environment without necessarily being too much of a hassle. 

SIROVY: I feel like the big thing though, with sororities and frats is the safety aspect. Michael, you brought this up. You want to talk about more about this? How safe do you think that our nightlife is? 

FRALEY: So, couple things, in terms of frats, sororities, like those definitely are fun, but in my experience at least, just maybe a couple times as a freshman or sophomore, and then you kind of get to the point where it’s like, okay, well I’m 21, I’m not going to go to a frat party in mosh pit with, I mean, I could be wrong. I don’t want to speak for other people, but I don’t want to go to a frat party and mosh pit with 18 and 19 year olds.

So, it definitely is fun for a time, and of course there is the safety issue as well. Not only those, but you know, when you’re walking everywhere, I think the reality of our campus is it’s not the safest at all times. And yes, you have options like GopherTrip and some shuttle, the scooters even. There might be something else I’m forgetting. But, probably not a, scootering? Probably not a good idea when you’re drunk. 

SIROVY: I have seen people on the scooters though, like, having the time of their lives. 

FRALEY: I bet it’s fun while you’re doing it. 

TRIMBLE: I know of a person who was gently struck by a vehicle while drinking and on a scooter. Not me, it was not me. 

SIROVY: Did you witness this?

TRIMBLE: No, it was a roommate at the time. And luckily she is fine, but yeah, no, I get the scooter. The scooter thing isn’t the best when you’re intoxicated. Don’t recommend that.

FRALEY: Yeah, and  I just feel like those services are kind of unreliable. Like you gotta wait for the gopher shuttle to come around and then you’re walking, you know, maybe 20 minutes in the cold.

Not that that’s like, that big of a deal. It’s just a slight pain. But, you know, overall, I mean, you mentioned too that kind of the vibe that a place like Sally’s has. I agree that it, you know, for young people especially, there is like a happy hour, three to six there on a Saturday. It’s definitely fun.

But it’s, it’s kind of the only place you can go to get that. Right? Like, nobody else is, nobody’s going to Blarney’s happy hour three to six or Bloco happy hour three to six. You only get that at Sally’s and I just think, not that there’s anything, I would hope that we would have more places where you could get that kind of vibe, for lack of a better term. 

TRIMBLE: Well, I do agree that our campus specifically at night isn’t the safest. I think especially coming from a school that was also pretty large and in a big city. And obviously safety is always a concern for college students and specifically like feminine presenting people. I think there are ways to ensure the safest commute to these places, like maybe going in groups. 

Ubering if you need to, and if you have the ability to, or just staying nearby, staying where in an area where you’re comfortable and know a lot of people and know that things safety wise haven’t like come up frequently. Obviously like KK, Blarney’s, Bloco. All of those bars are in a relatively busy sort of chaotic part of the campus area. But I mean. 

SIROVY: How safe do you feel inside the club? 

Natalie: I’d say I feel depending like, Blarney’s not my favorite. I’ve heard some pretty freaky things that have happened there that I don’t, not only do I just not enjoy the energy that Blarney’s brings, but yeah, I’ve heard some like stories regarding safety there. But when I’m at specifically Kollege Klub. 

I have a great time and I’m not really concerned. Of course, I’m always on the lookout for my safety, but like, I’m not ever really concerned about something happening to me there. Also, the security at Kollege Klub is surprisingly very serious and like, yeah, they take their jobs very seriously and people get kicked out if they get too rowdy. It’s like very interesting because it is run by college students. 

SIROVY: How different is the security say at a more open bar like Sally’s versus like the KK?

TRIMBLE: I know that in, like, recently, at least since I’ve transferred to the U, when I first started coming here, Sal’s was really an easy place for everyone to get into. And as I’ve spent more time here, I’ve noticed that Sal’s has, their security is stricter with fake IDs and behavior in line and if people are causing too much of a commotion inside. I have seen like people get escorted out and before I didn’t see that. So, definitely there’s a difference between Kollege Klub and Sal’s, but like in my personal opinion, I obviously don’t have like stats on this. 

But like, I think that the safety overall in places have gotten pretty ramped up in comparison to how they were when I first came here. And I think that’s good. Obviously, safety, depending on who is providing it, like police don’t always make students feel the safest. Obviously depending on demographics and just whatever the case may be, but, I know that like security at Kollege Klub is literally my peers and it’s funny. 

But no, they do a good job.And I think that has to be considered. I think also just like knowing this the safety concerns bars like that have decided that they maybe need to be a little bit more strict or careful with the behaviors they’re allowing in those spaces and and things. 

SIROVY: Michael, do you feel the same way?

FRALEY: I do. I will say I know Sally’s has had a bunch of incidents at least over my time here in the past couple years. But and I think they are doing a better job at least, but Blarney’s, I know recently, I could be getting the details wrong on this, but like a month ago they had an incident where, I think it was like 3 or 4 girls got roofied, and they switched to 21 plus for a a little bit of time. I think a couple weeks.

But now they’re apparently back to letting underage people in. So I, you know, I think Sally’s is doing a better job from what I’ve heard. It doesn’t seem like Blarney’s really, it’s still kind of, it can be suspect there to say the least. Just, you know, in my experience being there. They kind of let anyone in there.

And sometimes you’ll see, you’ll go in there and you’ll see like 30 year old adults. And it’s tough because, you know, you can’t really just not let people in. But I think as a college student especially. I mean, if you’re 19 years old and you go into a place like that and there’s 30 year olds in there, it’s kind of like, what are we doing here? What are we doing? 

TRIMBLE: I hear that because obviously I don’t necessarily enjoy that. It feels rather like you’re just being scoped out or like watched by older people that know that this is where college people go to hang out and do things. Like there’s no way that they’re like, oblivious to the fact that when they go to this bar compared to maybe an age appropriate bar for 30 plus like, you know, you’re going to find a lot of like, the age group of people you’re looking for whatever it may be.

So yeah, no, I get that especially being like, identifying as a woman and a young woman, and not only just going out here, but like I dress up to have fun and like that’s a part of my going out thing is like my roommates, my friends and I, we love to get ready together. We love to, you know, like have wine or cocktails before going out and like you want to look good and feel good when you go out.

And so that can be definitely, unfortunately, a part of your safety concerns, but like I said, just that’s part of like, having self responsibility as well when you’re going out. Obviously, you’re not in control of everything safety wise that may come up and happen to you, but doing your best to make sure you go with people you trust, you meet up with people you like and know, and you’re just on the lookout, you know. Don’t take drinks from people that you may not know or feel like are giving you a bad vibe.

Like, just there’s things that you can do to avoid it because obviously if you’re a person that likes going out, that’s not necessarily going to stop you from going out. So like you, you go out with the awareness of the fact that, of course, bad things happen a lot and they could happen around you to you, to people you love and care about, but like you just have to do your part and making sure when you go out, it’s a good, safe time. But Blarney’s, yeah, no. I don’t attend there ever.

FRALEY: But to me, I mean, that’s kind of, that’s kind of inherently the problem. Like, I would say the same thing happens at Bloco, too. I mean, there were some people in there that you just, you wonder why they’re there. And I think that happens at Blarney’s and Bloco and then, you know, for a lot of people it’s like, okay, well those are the only options. 

And then, you know, maybe you don’t want to haul 30 minutes to Sally’s, right? And I will say where I totally agree is that I think KK is pretty safe. Like, I’ve never been in there and felt unsafe, so, but I mean, I know incidents happen at Blarney’s. I mean, sadly it’s not as much anymore, but, so I think there is kind of a problem there for people who just don’t really have, it’s just not a lot of options. 

SIROVY: You guys didn’t really talk about this, are drinks too expensive and does that act then as a deterrent to going out?

TRIMBLE: I think it depends. I feel like definitely going out is a price you have to be willing to pay depending on where you’re going. But I know like Sal’s because they know that a lot of the people that come there are students. They do host a lot of happy hours and, and like where things are incredibly cheap in comparison to if you go to like a liquor store to buy all your own alcohol beforehand or you go to a different bar that maybe. Like, I really like speakeasies now, like I’ve been getting into that now that I’m older. 

SIROVY: Yes, those are becoming more popular I’ve heard.

TRIMBLE: Speakeasies and like North loop has a lot of nice bars. Like I wouldn’t consider Basement Bar nice, but it’s something that I’ve noticed college students are exploring now. Um. And like Cuzzy’s is right next door, which I’ve never been to.

But like those bars don’t really cater as much to college students and the prices that they’re willing to pay. So you have to, I think you can find places that provide cost friendly, you know, experiences for you. Like, I don’t know. Como Tap is one we haven’t talked about yet, but if you’re in Como, like, that’s a really popular place.

SIROVY: I’ve heard a lot of people like Como Tap. Yep. 

TRIMBLE: Yes. I don’t know, really. I go there, but I don’t go there frequently, and I don’t really know when happy hours are things like that. But I know when I go there, it’s not like the most expensive place ever and obviously like you can save on commuting to these places. If you’re not in those areas by taking public transportation, especially if you have your U card with you, like you just, you know, that’s a really helpful tool that I use. 

Walking if it’s safe and not too far. The bus. While  Gopher Chauffeur can sometimes not be the most timely thing, like, it’s definitely a resource that’s made to help students get places for free and safely. So I don’t know. I think there’s ways that you can budget if going out is something that you want to do regularly or you know, there’s ways to make it work. Yeah. 

FRALEY: I would honestly agree for the most part. I mean, quality of the drinks now with a lot of these deals, especially at Sally’s is questionable sometimes, but I do, it does generally seem like a lot of these places, I know KK specifically, has a ton of different drink deals. 

Sally’s does as well. I think they all do a pretty decent job of catering. But again, the quality is kind of, at least in my experience, at somewhere like Bloco, it’s not the best. But, I would totally agree in terms of that there are places that don’t really cater to that college, I guess, pricing.

TRIMBLE: I think also in regards to like the quality, they’re college bars and they know they’re college bars. So they’re just not, you know, like people our age aren’t really going, unless you go to a speakeasy where I do expect that I’m paying more and that I’m paying for good quality stuff. I’m going to like Sal’s or KK or wherever it is I’m going, Como Tap, with the expectation that it’s just going to be something that I’m paying not as much for. 

So, I can expect that it’s going to be not as good of quality. And that’s what, I don’t know, I think that’s fine. And also in regards to like, other campuses. I think the U has a good, I think the nightlife here is really fun and I like the city experience that you get from it because it’s not exclusively college energy, if you know, obviously age is a factor, but like assuming that you’re of age. Yeah, like you can go for a bunch of different vibes if you feel, you know, like I said, speakeasy, North Loop, just having nice bars. 

Not necessarily always going to KK or wherever you may be going. Yeah, I like it. And in regards to other campuses and their nightlife, I think that if you’re in a college town and you’re there for all four years, like that could become rather repetitive, boring, difficult to feel like you’re meeting people who are of the same age as you. So I like this. I like it and I stand strongly in that.

FRALEY: I think that, well, that’s completely fair, and I will say, at the end of the day, I think what matters most is that you have people to join you in these experiences. And I think, you know, if you’re with the right friends, it doesn’t matter how crappy the bar is you’re at, you can still have fun, but I would say that that doesn’t mean that our nightlife couldn’t be better in a lot of ways. 

Which you know, I think, ultimately having more options would help improve that, but, you know, it is, it’s not, it’s not the worst, right?But, yeah, I think what matters most, honestly, is just having people to do these things with. 

TRIMBLE: I agree. 

SIROVY: Well, if you guys don’t have anything more, I think we can wrap it up. 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. 

TRIMBLE: I’m Natalie. 

FRALEY: I’m Michael. 

SIROVY: And this is In The Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hi everybody, this is Kaylie Sirovy from the Minnesota Daily and you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota.

On the quiet St. Paul campus, down a nondescript hallway in the Andrew Boss Laboratory of Meat Science is the Meat and Dairy Salesroom. A unique destination where students showcase their skills by offering a diverse selection of meat and dairy products that anyone can come and purchase. From delectable cheeses to savory bacon, creamy ice cream to juicy hamburger patties, and mouthwatering pulled pork to premium steak cuts; this place is just like your local, educational butcher shop.

Everything in there comes from either the Meat Science Laboratory or the Joseph J. Warthesen Food Processing Center, also known as the Pilot Plant. According to Ray Miller, the coordinator of the pilot plant, it serves as both a teaching and research facility, bridging the gap between laboratory experimentation and large-scale production.

RAY MILLER: So, you wanna see if something that’s been working in the lab will actually scale up to at least a minimum amount, a pilot scale, and then if that all runs well, then you would take it to production where you’re making thousands of pounds, millions of pounds of whatever it is, a day or a year.

SIROVY: Besides being a teaching facility, they also bring in clients from around the country who want to run their experimental trials and carry out their research, develop new products or new ingredients, or take waste products and create something out of them. 

The salesroom has been evolving ever since its creation in the fifties and sixties Miller said. Back then they were just doing research on dairy products, so cheese, ice cream and butter. With any experiment, there are control batches, he said. So, after these experiments were done, researchers would have these batches, have nowhere to go with them, and end up throwing them out because they got too old.

MILLER: And so they were like, well, what can we do to at least recover some of our costs for ingredients and such for these products that we’re making in these experiments? And so, that’s when they decided they would start running a salesroom, but make it low key, non competitive with other major food companies in the area who might fund research or do research here. And so that’s kind of how the salesroom started.

SIROVY: It started out slow, but over time, local residents came to recognize that one day a week, they could access quality products in the area. It stayed that way until the late seventies, early eighties Miller said.

MILLER: That’s kind of when I came in and we started making, up to that point, they were making like three flavors of ice cream and maybe 2 or 3 different type cheeses. And so we started expanding that to where, you know, we would start offering more ice cream flavors and got up to like 25 to 30 different flavors that we were making. They wouldn’t all be in there at one time, but they would, you know, there would be at least a minimum of 7 or 8 flavors. And so once we did that people started, you know, we started to get more business in as we had more variety.

SIROVY: Miller recalls that around 2015, the dairy department started talking with the meat department, which at that point had been selling bulk meat from the basement of the Andrew Boss Meat Science building.

MILLER: And they said, well, what do you think if we combined and made the store available for folks to get both meat and cheese and ice cream? And so, that’s when we ended up, you know, going into a business with the meats folks as well. And it’s been very successful, and really helped both sides. 

SIROVY: During my interview with Miller, I had the opportunity to go into the pilot plant. With Miller as my guide, I donned a hairnet and saw firsthand the production processes behind the cheese and ice cream sold in the salesroom. While no production was underway at the time, it was incredible to see nonetheless. Walking through a room filled with giant stainless steel machines and learning how it all works. I was also directed to a wall featuring an observation deck, accessible to students curious about the process. Seeing all the work it takes to make ice cream and cheese, I certainly had a newfound appreciation of dairy production after my tour. 

MILLER: This is cheese making down here. So we’ve got these various vats that we put the milk in. We get the milk in a large tank, refrigerated tank like that. So we can hold it. If we need to hold it overnight or whatever to make the next day and then put it through a pasteurizer plate, plate heat exchanger here.

Down on this end is kind of our ice cream processing. So this is where we mix it all up in a tank like this. So you take your cream, your milk, your sugar, your nonfat milk solids, and maybe a stabilizer for binding the water better. Heat it in there, then run it through a homogenizer. That simply breaks the fat down to smaller globules, so that they don’t separate out and when you eat your ice cream you don’t get a greasy mouth feel in your mouth. 

SIROVY: That would not be too pleasant. 

MILLER: No, so a very important piece. And then we’ll put it through again another plate heat exchanger that’ll cool that mix down from 155 Fahrenheit to like 40 degrees in a matter of seconds in that plate.

Ice cream is usually a two day process, so we’ll make the mix one day. Then we age it overnight in a cooler or a jacketed cooled tank. And then the next day is when we’d freeze and that’s what this is. This is the actual ice cream freezer. So it’s a vertical barrel in here. This is the barrel, the diameter of that and inside that barrel then is a auger that sweeps the surface, so the ice cream freezes on the sides of the barrel. It’s cooled down by Freon. And then, um, then that blade comes around and keeps scraping that surface off where the ice cream is frozen. Finally, it comes out here at about 22 degrees Fahrenheit, so it looks like soft serve at Dairy Queen.

SIROVY: As for the meat production side of the business, Jordan McCallum has been the meat lab supervisor for the past 3 years.

JORDAN MCCALLUM: Yeah, it’s really fun because I get to work with the students, um, teach them about meat cutting, processing. I also get to work with the general public. So we do demos like at the State Fair, um, for various 4-H groups, um, grocery store meat cutters. We get to do a lot of work with a lot of different groups of people, so it’s really interesting. Every day is different, which I really love.

I did a couple 4-H groups, um, last year and kind of talked about meat processing. And they were divided by age group, so I kind of catered differently to the different age groups, but one of the groups was like elementary age kids. So, we made cheddar hot dogs, which was really fun, and they had a blast, and it was really fun.

SIROVY: McCallum says that the meat they acquire is designated for either educational or research purposes. Animals used for research come from various campuses within the university system, not solely the St. Paul campus, but also from research stations scattered throughout the state. For instance, the organic pigs are sourced from Morris.

MCCALLUM: We’ve been doing a lot of work with them. The way they’re raised, there’s different standards for organic pigs versus conventionally raised pigs, so a lot of the studies we do are based on nutrition. So, they’re looking at different feeds, and how they’re feeding animals, and how that impacts the meat quality. So that’s been interesting.

SIROVY: Some of the classes that students studying meat science take look a little different than the classes most of us are probably familiar with.

MCCALLUM: So we have a livestock and carcass evaluation class. So they look at the animals live, and then the animals come to the meat lab, and then the students come back and they get to look at the carcasses. So, when the animals are live, they’re trying to evaluate what that animal’s going to look like.

So, how big that ribeye is going to be, what the fat’s going to look like, um. What that carcass is basically going to yield so, they try to guess that while the animals live, then they come back after harvest, look at the carcass, do actual measurements for educational purposes. And then all those carcasses that we bring in, whether it’s for classes or research, all that product is what ends up in our sales room.

SIROVY: In addition to dairy and meat products, the salesroom offers a few other items. These include honey, seasoning salts from a Minneapolis-based company, and during the fall season, apples which were grown and developed at the University of Minnesota McCallum said.

MCCALLUM: So we have honey from the bees on campus. We have maple syrup that is produced at the Arboretum.We have apples in the fall that are grown for apple research at the Arboretum. So, we get different apples throughout the season, so apples get ripe at different times. So, we had Honeycrisp. We had First Kiss. We had Sweet Tango. 

SIROVY: While the exact count of customers isn’t meticulously tracked, Miller estimates an average turnout ranging from 100 to 150 people. This figure varies, with some days witnessing a line out the door, while on others, only a few handful of customers. Regardless of attendance, the generated revenue goes directly to financing the meat lab, ensuring its continued operation.

MCCALLUM: It’s to pay our students, and also just maintain equipment and be able to purchase ingredients and things like that, that we have to add to the meat or purchasing the animals that we have to bring in for meat processing.

MILLER: We hire usually somewhere two to four students per semester, uh, to work in the pilot plant. They help us with cleaning, set up, analysis. Yeah, and production of the different things that we make in there. And so those students, of those students, usually there’s one or two that are kind of just mainly focused on the sales room. So, their job is to get all the cheeses cut up and the ice cream stocked in the store each week, keep track of the, you know the cases, the cheese case and the ice cream case in there and make sure they’re looking good and are labeled properly and such.

SIROVY: Just like with any small business, there are ups and there are downs. Both McCallum and Miller agreed that the biggest issue they face is the salesroom being so small. It’s not a giant grocery store, it’s a small room with refrigerator cases and freezers. Some have considered expanding it, be it the room size or hours open, but at the moment, that’s not possible.

MILLER: That’s been brought up over and over again in the past, like 15 years or so. Some that would really like to do that and others who are kind of hesitant. What it would take is, to really expand, to make it worth expanding is kind of a little bit of a change in philosophy because in order to produce enough products, if you’re going to expand. For example, now we sell some of the ice cream up to the student center here.

But we’d never be able to supply Minneapolis campus stores as well. And we do supply Campus Club over there with cheeses. They buy a lot of cheese from us, but if there were more catering services or places like that that want it, we’d have a hard time, again, supplying them. So to do that, you kind of have to get into more of a production type mode and that means something else is going to be removed, be it your educational, your ability to train students in the educational part of it, or the research part of it would suffer.

SIROVY: In theory, expanding it is a great idea. Miller also emphasizes its feasibility, citing established precedents at other universities such as Wisconsin, South Dakota, Cornell and Penn State. These institutions boast larger facilities and a more extensive array of products compared to the current offerings at the U salesroom. 

MILLER: And part of the reason it never did expand right away was again, as I said, the department heads when I first got here were very much against that, in that they didn’t want us to compete with Land O’Lakes or General Mills or other companies that are in the area that sell, you know, cheese and ice cream and stuff. Which to me I never really saw that because like we’re selling this amount.

These guys are going to be scared that we’re somehow taking business. It’s just, it never made real sense to me, but they were my supervisor. So I couldn’t really say much. So, but now it’s much more, you know, we’re looking for visibility. We want people to know we’re here and that we’re doing this and that we’re producing really great products as well as doing good research.

SIROVY: According to their website, that product selection comprises approximately 17 cheeses, 37 ice cream flavors, and an assortment of meat products, spanning from whole carcasses to marinated chicken wings, blueberry summer sausage, and my personal favorite, the maple-flavored snack sticks. I’ve been there approximately 2 times, but each time I went, there were both students and the general public alike.

MCCALLUM: Every week is so different. So it’s hard to say exactly like a really memorable day. I think it’s really like heartwarming. I think it’s just really cool that the university allows us to kind of take an educational piece and then turn it into something for our customers. Along with the pilot plan, it’s just, it’s really neat that the students get to experience food processing right on campus. 

Especially on the meat side of things in animal agriculture. This is kind of like the center point of animal agriculture. So, it’s really cool that the students get to experience and learn how to process meat. And be involved in the educational side of it, but then also be involved in the processing and the retail side of things as well. It’s kind of full circle. 

SIROVY: The Salesroom is open to the public on Wednesdays from 2:00-5:00 p.m. in Room 166 of the Andrew Boss Lab of Meat Science on the St. Paul Campus. 

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: Hey everybody, this is Kaylie Sirovy from the Minnesota Daily, and you’re tuning into In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. Today’s episode is a bittersweet one, as we bid farewell to a friend and colleague. Our guest today is Cole Bursch, the talented A&E editor. 

COLE BURSCH: Hey everybody. 

SIROVY: Cole, it’s wonderful to have you on the show today. How are you feeling as you embark on this new chapter in your life?

BURSCH: Yeah, I feel pretty good. Stressed with finals and stuff, but it’s been a really fun fall too. You know, we went to Atlanta. I feel like we’ve all bonded a lot, especially the editors. So yeah, it was definitely bittersweet. 

SIROVY: We learned a lot on that trip. 

BURSCH: We did indeed. Yeah. 

SIROVY: I saw you guys like sleep deprived. 

BURSCH: Yeah, just, we had to become closer by circumstantial happenings, just with not sleeping and being dumb college students, so.

SIROVY: No, well, I was sleeping. You guys were awake. 

BURSCH: Oh, yeah, no, I wasn’t talking about you. You were being very responsible, and I mean, we were too, but it was just, yeah. 

SIROVY: It was a good time. So let’s take a trip down memory lane first. Can you share some highlights from your time as the editor or as the reporter?

BURSCH: Yeah, I’ll probably go back to the beginning first because so some of my favorite memories were when I was a reporter so I wrote like a freelance review in December 2022 and then the former A&E editor James was like you should just be a writer and I was like, okay. We’ll see how that goes. And that semester, so last winter semester was like the hardest semester of my college career because it was taken like all higher level classes.

But I was also, you know, being a reporter for the first time, like at a pre professional organization. So, very stressful, but super fun and my favorite story was this one I did on Caleb Wright. He’s like a local music producer. Produced for Hippocampus, Milo, if you know who that is. And a lot of other people, too, like Samia. Yeah, she’s like real big, like The Current is always doing stuff on her. She’s from Brooklyn, but anyways, I got to interview him and he was just like super down to earth, cool guy.

He was like holding his baby while he was talking to me on the phone and through the interview process I kind of uncovered some personal stuff that he ended up sharing with me and it just made the story a lot better. And I don’t know. It was just really cool for me because I grew up, when I was in high school, that was like when Hippocampus was first getting big and I’ve also listened to some other bands. He’s been in through the years. So yeah, that was a big highlight for me. 

SIROVY: Yeah, I remember when I was in middle school, my brother was in high school. And so he made me listen to hippocampus. 

BURSCH: Yeah, it was a crazy time, high school. 

SIROVY: Yep, sure was. So, how’d you then move as a reporter into an editor? 

BURSCH: Yeah, so I think it was very like informal process at that time. James was, he was graduating and he kind of just was like, if anyone’s interested, and I was like, well, I don’t know. I’ll give it a shot. Yeah, I ended up being the only one who’s interested. And so I guess that’s like how I got it. But no, yeah, that was pretty special. And then, yeah, from there, the summer was a lot more chill. I was, I think it was a little bit of like a deceptive in terms of how much work we are actually going to be doing because I don’t know, I think when you’re not doing school this job can feel pretty easy, but you know balancing the student life and being an editor is a lot more hard. So 

SIROVY: It’s tough, let me tell you. I first started as an editor this summer Yeah, I had it was just working and I was like and then school started and I was like, oh no.

BURSCH: Yes. Yes, and this is my last semester obviously too. So I’m just been like, yeah, I don’t know, because I like doing Daily stuff more that, sorry to all my professors right now, but I like it. I like it more than I like doing The Daily more than going to class and doing that stuff just because it feels more like what I want to do with the rest of my career. So, it’s easy to just like pour myself into The Daily and then like forget about my responsibilities as a student. But yeah. It’s been a fun ride this fall, for sure.

SIROVY: No, I totally understand that. I’m like, I just want to work on my little podcast. Yeah. I don’t want to do assignments. That’s boring. 

BURSCH: Yeah, I don’t want to do a two point assignment that, you know, is going to take me an hour and a half for some reason. 

SIROVY: And it’ll be graded two weeks late. What have been some of your favorite stories that you’ve either made or your reporters have made?

BURSCH: So I’ve written a few stories this fall too, even though I’m the editor and one of them that I got to do was on dial tone. They’re like a local band, but they’re also students. They’re like all honor students, which is crazy. And I think the article turned out really good, but just the process of doing the reporting for that story was like super rewarding. Like I just kind of, I got to sit in their room where they recorded all of the music for their first album.

SIROVY: That’s super cool.

BURSCH: By themselves. It was like a closet like they were like, that’s where we’ve recorded the album and that was super cool. And they were just really kind, generous people. So, that was awesome and super talented, too, check Dial Tone out if you’ve never heard of them. But I mean all my writers right now are super talented so it’s like kind of hard to choose a specific story.

 I really liked, I know this isn’t like a, it wasn’t like a lot of reporting that went into this, but Alexis hadn’t really, Alexis Letang is one of my writers and she hadn’t really done like a movie review before. And she did this like really beautiful review on the new Priscilla Presley like biopic.

Yeah, and that was really cool, cause I’m like a super big fan of that director, and to like have somebody else do that story was really cool, cause she just noticed things that I didn’t even notice when I went to go see it for myself, cause I just like that director, Sofia Coppola, a lot.

So, that was awesome. Ethan Lambert, one of my other writers, he’s done some great stories, um, he gets a lot of like cool access with different artists, so he did, I’m totally going to butcher the name of this band because I don’t know them. I think it’s Brian Jonestown Massacre or Jamestown Massacre, but he got an interview with the lead singer of that band. And the guy was just like super eccentric, so it was like, it was really, it was really crazy. He like swore a whole bunch. 

SIROVY: Oh my goodness. 

BURSCH: Just was a goofball. So, um, yeah, that interview by Ethan was really cool. And yeah, Max, I can’t think of a specific story from my other writer, Max Mueller, but he always has like interesting ideas.

He’s done some cool stories on like the interaction between like technology and art. So he did like a cool one on. Artificial intelligence and 

SIROVY: Yeah, I read that one. That was really cool.

BURSCH: AI influence on music and how it’s like completely changing the music industry so yeah, just a lot of different weird and eccentric ideas I guess.

SIROVY: That’s what you guys can do at A&E though.

BURSCH: Yeah, it’s the fun desk.

SIROVY: This is kind of like a basic question, but are there.

BURSCH: We like basic here.

SIROVY: Do we? 

BURSCH: Yes. 

SIROVY: Were there any stories that were really hard to either come up with or get like sources for or whatnot? 

BURSCH: That’s a great question. Well, yeah, no, I forgot about that one. This is one I wrote when I was a reporter last winter. So, I got to interview one of my favorite comedians, Sam Morril. And that process was like super complicated because he’s like a big comedy name like he sells out theaters. So, I’d never like interacted with someone like very serious publicist. And she was like very generous and kind. But that process took like a month and a half of pre-reporting and emailing back and forth, like trying to find a date where he could get on the phone with me. And then like, I didn’t even get to like, I didn’t like get this guy, this comedian’s number.

She like called me and then like transferred me to his phone and it was like really odd and a new experience for me as a reporter. But that was like super cool. He ended up just being like really personable and I took a lot of the things he said in the interview out because he was just making jokes that were like super inappropriate and funny and like talking about, yeah, anyways, but then we ended up just talking about like basketball, too because he’s a big basketball fan and he was like talking to me about the Timberwolves, which was really cool. So yeah, but that was like a hard process to get to the interview and then like super rewarding and I was like, oh, I’m so glad that I took all that time to do the reporting because it turned out really cool, so. 

SIROVY: Those are the best kind of stories though. 

BURSCH: Yeah, exactly. 

SIROVY: The ones that take like the longest I think are always like, there’s so much more behind it. 

BURSCH: Yeah, so much more depth too. You’re just like, wow. He asked me to get a drink.

SIROVY: Did you? 

BURSCH: Yeah, no. I don’t know, I’m not, I was, I DM’d him like the night of the show because I went to the show too, but he never responded, so. Oh. If you’re out there, Sam, I’ll still get a drink with you someday. 

SIROVY: So, in what ways do you feel you’ve grown both personally and professionally during your time here? 

BURSCH: Great question. Yeah, professionally, I feel like I didn’t know how to actually be a reporter like I had done a lot of interviews, but when you’re writing like three stories every two weeks, which is the quota for a lot of like just staff writers at The Daily.

That’s a lot of reporting and a lot of things that you have to just do like ahead of time. So like, even though that story with Sam [Morril] might have been like one of the longest reporting processes I had. It was like pretty normal for me to do reporting like two or three weeks in advance.

And you know, that taught me a lot about like just how much you have to be on top of your shit basically to be a good reporter. And then when I became an editor, like I was, I would say I was okay editing my own writing, but then like it a completely different set of skills that I kind of had to learn on the fly when I became the editor, too.

And now I feel like I’m better at editing my own writing and recognizing what good writing is too. So, that’s all been like the professional stuff, I guess. But personally. I don’t know. I feel like I, well, cause I transferred here, so I didn’t really have a lot of friends at the university or anything. And that’s been kind of meaningful to me.

Like the connections that I’ve made. The connections I’ve made here, like since, especially this fall, like when we all went to Atlanta, like we, like I was saying earlier, we all kind of became better friends, I think. 

SIROVY: I would all call you my good friends at this moment.

BURSCH: Yes. Yes. Totally. Much love to the homies at the Daily. Definitely. But, so that’s been super rewarding and also just learned a lot about like work-life balance cause in the future like if I’m working a journalism job, like I’m not gonna be, you know, doing six other side projects like I currently am in my life, so.

SIROVY: Yep. Yep. No, I totally get what you mean though, cause I was also just, I wouldn’t say thrown into being an editor. I knew what I was getting into.

BURSCH: Well, did you? 

SIROVY: I knew what I was supposed to do. 

BURSCH: Yes, yes.

SIROVY: I just didn’t really know how to start, but I totally know what you mean about like that work-life balance. And especially like editing your own stuff, cause my stuff doesn’t go through copy edits. So I am the one that is editing everything. 

BURSCH: Yeah. That’s a lot. 

SIROVY: Yeah. So, cause it’s kind of hard to copy edit when it’s people’s voices. 

BURSCH: Yeah. Totally. 

SIROVY: You can’t change a whole lot. 

BURSCH: Yeah. Exactly. I felt similar to that like when I’ve written, I think there’s two stories this fall, but like balancing the editing, you know, on a given week I have like six or seven stories I’m editing from all the writers on the desk. And then having to then comb through mine and write a story. I was like, I’m glad I’m not doing this every week. This would be crazy. 

SIROVY: Yeah, it can get a lot sometimes, but yeah, I don’t know. 

BURSCH: It’s all worth it I think.

SIROVY: I love putting out the stories. I love reading your stories and you started the newsletter.

BURSCH: Oh yeah, true. I forgot about that. 

SIROVY: How has that been going? I’ve been reading them every week. 

BURSCH: Oh, thank you. No, that’s been also super rewarding because it kind of started out just like as a brainstorm and it took a while to get off the ground like we didn’t really start until like October just because everything was so busy and we were going back in person, which has also been a big part of, I think everyone’s closer now here at The Daily, which is cool because of that. But yeah, it was just a lot of brainstorming between Alex Steil and also Theo, the sports editor, cause he started his own newsletter too, shout out to the rouser.

But um, yeah, no, it’s been fun. And I feel a little disconnected from like the impact of it. It was cool though like my roommate’s little sister is like a sophomore something at the U and she was like, oh I’ve been reading your newsletter. I was like, what the heck is this person? 

SIROVY: People actually read it? What.

BURSCH: I just thought I was just going out into the void, but yeah, no, so that it’s been cool to like get positive feedback about it and have kind of like something that I can have as my own because I like write a little blurb, you know, but then I also like add like my song of the week.

So, that’s been fun. I’ve just been coming up with goofy songs. I’m like, I hope this isn’t okay, some of them. I’m like if the editor in chief listen to this song, I don’t know if you’d be thrilled with me having it as the song of the week, but I don’t give a crap.

SIROVY: Oh, it’d be fine. I feel like Maddie would appreciate it though.

BURSCH: Just like a Migos song. Just like trap music. I’m like this is you guys everyone should be listening to this. 

SIROVY: Everyone, yeah I love reading your newsletters, I love reading Theo’s newsletters, and the one that Maddie and Alex put out.

BURSCH: Yeah, that one’s good too.

SIROVY: I didn’t really read the newsletter during the summer, but then I started reading it during the fall and I was like, I’ve been missing out on some stuff. 

BURSCH: Yeah, no, there’s some goofy little snippets and anecdotes from Maddie and Alex too on their newsletter. 

SIROVY: I love hearing what you guys are up to.

Yeah. It’s fun. Just goofy. So, um. Life. Just life. There was, there was one, I think it was the week of Thanksgiving. Theo put out one, and I thought it was incredible. He’s like, he was talking about, like, the Thanksgiving leftovers. Mmm. But in terms of like the reporters. It was really interesting. I was like, how did you come up with that? 

BURSCH: Interesting. Yeah tells you how great of a friend I am because I have not read one of his newsletters but. 

SIROVY: You haven’t? You guys put these out together.

BURSCH: I hope he finds out by listening to your podcast that I haven’t listened to or read any of his newsletters, but now I feel like I have to go do it since I’ve said this publicly.

SIROVY: Well how public is it? I don’t know. 

BURSCH: Millions of listeners out there. 

SIROVY: I’m like, yeah. What are your plans for graduation, after graduation, or do you have any?

BURSCH: Yeah, right now I’m like, I don’t know, I’ve been telling a lot of people this which is just like funny, since I’m working at like a really prestigious student newspaper.

But I don’t know, I might just go into like social media marketing or something like sell my soul to corporate America, which is totally okay with me. I just want to make a little bit more money right now. I’ve like worked like two or three jobs like all of the years I’ve been doing college. So, I’m pretty ready for like a change of pace like a steady job and like just kind of chilling out on the like customer service, food service work which, you know, I have a lot of love for, but it’s not for me anymore. I’m getting too old. 

SIROVY: I was a retail worker during the summers. It’s not for me anymore. I don’t want to go back.

BURSCH: You know, and shout out to all those people like hope you can unionize and hope everyone gets better pay. But yeah, it’s not for me at the moment, so yeah, I’ll probably go towards something like that. I mean, I’m always going to keep writing though, so we’ll see. I’ve just been kind of trying to get through to graduation low key, so I don’t have like a set plan at the moment, but I’m kind of, yeah, I’m kind of okay with that though. I’m like, yeah, I’ve just been focusing. 

SIROVY: It’s especially since you’re graduating, got to make sure that you actually graduate.

BURSCH: Yep. Yep. That is the plan. 

SIROVY: That is the plan. Um, so your major, is it, is it just journalism? 

BURSCH: Yeah, it’s just journalism. Just journalism. 

SIROVY: Okay, that’s not what I meant because some people have double majors and then they add different stuff. I know what you meant. 

BURSCH: I’m just giving you a hard time. 

SIROVY: No, I know. Do you have any advice for either your reporters or future journalists?

BURSCH: Yeah, well, I don’t know. Try to get as many published clips as possible if you’re thinking about being a journalist because that’s like how you become a journalist is having real work out in the world. You can’t just like, I don’t know, I’ve met people who even are like in the Hubbard school and they just like, maybe they do an internship their senior year where they get some published clips, but that’s all or they don’t.

And they just graduate and they don’t have any published clips and it’s like totally fine because like I said, I’m not even sure if I’m gonna go straight into journalism. So, it’s like whatever, but if you really want to be a published writer, I think you just have to continually try to get on some type of you know published website that has credibility.

SIROVY: Or make your own.

BURSCH: Exactly. Yeah, I mean you can you can do that too. You could start a blog. Just publish your work y’all. Yeah, I guess the other big piece of advice I have is don’t overextend yourself. I’ve done that so many semesters where I’m just like working way too many hours at another job while being a full time student or vice versa and you know, sometimes I took a long path to graduate college like I’m 24, so yeah, take your time with college like there’s no rush.

I think that’s a such a misconception about like yeah, well no not a misconception but like a cultural norm in America for sure where you’re like, you have to figure out your whole life and your career by the time you’re 23 and it’s like, that’s just not real. 

SIROVY: And you have to start when you’re 18. 

BURSCH: Yeah, no, like I don’t, if I was doing the same things that I was doing when I was 18, I mean, I might be in like a federal prison. Like I’m joking, but I’m glad that I’m completely on a different path. And so I don’t know, just take your time. The college is really expensive too. So, you know, yeah. Some people just need to take it slower and I support all those people out there. Oh I think the other thing I was gonna say too is if you’re if you’re trying to be a great writer to like cause my goal is to like someday maybe write a book or something like that, but I’m just like not super in a rush to figure that out because a lot of the greatest writers of all time were like in their 40s when they got their big work. You know, their big break or whatever like commercial success like sometimes you just need to live life to be a good writer so, don’t put too much pressure on yourself, everybody.

SIROVY: Words of wisdom, indeed. Are you gonna miss the daily? 

BURSCH: Am I gonna miss the daily? Hell yeah. 

SIROVY: What are some things you might miss most about being either a reporter or an editor? 

BURSCH: Causing trouble at weekaheads with Spencer and Noah, shout out Spencer White and Noah Mitchell.

SIROVY: They were definitely chaos at times. Oh my goodness, the stuff I learned. 

BURSCH: Was Noah the one who was describing, no, he was doing that to somebody else, but yeah, Noah’s so funny. Yeah, we would just start talking about the most random sub like cultures things. I think one time we had like a 35 minute debate on the greatest late night host of all time, which is obviously Conan, so.

SIROVY: I remember that, yep. 

BURSCH: If you disagree with me, you’re wrong.

SIROVY: As I watch Stephen Colbert. 

BURSCH: Hey, now Stephen’s alright.

SIROVY: And I saw Trevor Noah at a show this past November. 

BURSCH: Oh, cool. Like a comedy show? You went to a Trevor Noah show? Oh, that’s sweet. Yeah, wonder what he’s gonna do next. We’ll see. Yeah. The Daily Show’s doomed, though. Hot takes from Cole. 

SIROVY: Hot takes from Cole. We should have done that earlier. I would have loved to have a whole conversation with you guys about that. 

BURSCH: Yeah, just get Spencer and Noah and I here, we’d probably like get banned from campus or something.

SIROVY: Alex would probably have a few things to say. 

BURSCH: Yeah, Alex, yeah, Alex might do, yeah. 

SIROVY: Um, but, yeah before we wrap up, is there anything you’d like to share with our listeners? 

BURSCH: Yeah, I mean, subscribe to the scene. I’m pretty sure the next editor, Alexis, she’s gonna be doing the newsletter still for A& E, so I’m sure there’ll be a lot of cool things in there and I think it’s like an easier way to kinda keep up with local arts news than necessarily you know, I don’t always have time to go to a website and like click on the arts and entertainment section and just sit there and read articles. So, I think the newsletter is a sweet way to do that. But other than that, I don’t know. Peace and love, yeah.  

SIROVY: Peace and love. We’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for any of your future work that you do. 

BURSCH: Oh, thank you. 

SIROVY: Yeah, of course. 

BURSCH: We’ll see. 

SIROVY: You’re gonna do it and it’s gonna be great.

BURSCH: I might become an investment banker or something.

SIROVY: Don’t do that. Don’t. 

BURSCH: Sell my soul completely. 

SIROVY: You’re so much better than that. 

BURSCH: Yeah, I’m not going to do that. I’d be so sad.

SIROVY: It would be a complete end of the spectrum if you did. You started as an A& E editor, ended as an investment banker.

BURSCH: I don’t even know what an investment banker is. I just said that. 

SIROVY: Soulless corporate job.  

BURSCH: Yeah. That Wall Street. No, I’m not gonna do that. 

SIROVY: No, don’t do that. 

BURSCH: Don’t worry, everybody, 

SIROVY: Don’t worry. It’s all good. Thank you for your dedication, creativity, and incredible impact you’ve had as an editor. It’s been really great to get to know you and we wish you all the best on your new adventures. 

BURSCH: Well, thank you very much, Kaylie. 

SIROVY: You’re so welcome. As always we really appreciate you guys tuning in. Feel free to email us with comments or questions at podcasting@mndaily.com. I’m Kaylie. 

BURSCH: And I’m Cole. 

SIROVY: And this is In The Know.

SPENCER WHITE: So yeah, Michael Hsu, who I interviewed about Sasquatch, he just texted me right now. Governor Tim Walz, a tweet about doing something about Bigfoot cause there have been so many sightings in Minnesota and he’s wearing a shirt that’s like got Sasquatch all over it. 

KAYLIE SIROVY: This is like actually from Tim Walz’s like Twitter account?

WHITE: Here. 

SIROVY: Oh my God. “We have to get to the bottom of this. Bigfoot sightings across the state of Minnesota. Have you ever seen a squach?” Oh my god. 

WHITE: Yeah, so the boys in blue are on it. 

SIROVY: Boys in blue. Alright, hello everyone, I’m Kaylie Sirovy, your host from the Minnesota Daily, and you’re tuning into In The Know, the podcast that brings you all the latest on the University of Minnesota.

This episode I have here with me Spencer White, who is the opinions editor.

WHITE: Hi, I’m Spencer. I’m the Opinions Editor. Thanks for having me. 

SIROVY: And today we’re talking about one of his stories that he did about cryptids, Sasquatch. 

WHITE: Yeah, originally it was going to be about the Dogman of Minnesota.

SIROVY: Who is the Dogman? 

WHITE: So that’s the thing, the Dogman is kind of hard to pin down, believe it or not, but it’s supposedly like a werewolf type thing in like northern, like the Iron Range, northern Minnesota, and I was gonna write about that with interviews from this guy, Doug Hajicek.

Who did like, he lives in Blaine and he did a Sasquatch and stuff like that, and I wanted to talk to him about the Dogman, but it kind of got derailed because he just really, really likes Sasquatch. 

SIROVY: Okay, and so the story was specifically about Sasquatch, right? 

WHITE: Yeah, yeah. And I guess the most interesting part, not necessarily being Sasquatch so much as it was the Minnesota regent who was into Sasquatch, Michael Hsu. Very nice man, by the way. I had a great time talking to him.

SIROVY: So, how’d you get in? How did you know that he was into Bigfoot? Who was it? Hajicek? 

WHITE: Highcheck, yes. Well, we were in Atlanta for our little journalism convention and I stepped out of like an awards ceremony or whatever to talk to Doug Hajicek about Sasquatch on the phone. And I told him, ‘Oh, I’ll call you back in like 10 minutes. I need to go back inside for something.’ I call him back and he tells me, ‘oh, I was just talking with my friend who knows your boss.’ I’m like, that’s an ominous thing to say. 

SIROVY: So scary. 

WHITE: Yeah. I was a little worried. And I was like, ‘oh, do you want to elaborate?’ He’s like, ‘yeah, I was talking to Michael Hsu, former regent of the University of Minnesota.’ I was like, ‘oh, okay. Are you guys like friends?’ And according to Doug, they’re like really really good friends. They’re former neighbors. 

SIROVY: Oh my goodness. 

WHITE: Being a former regent, some people at the Daily had Michael’s phone number, so I just got a hold of him and asked if he wanted to talk and he, I talked to him for like an hour or so about Sasquatch. I still text, well, as I mentioned, I still text him, so. 

SIROVY: Oh my god, specifically about Sasquatch, or about like? 

WHITE: Oh yeah, just completely about Sasquatch. 

SIROVY: Oh my goodness, that is incredible. Atlanta was like a week ago, too. 

WHITE: It’s really interesting like that a guy like that you would never expect someone, I mean like I mentioned in the story, but the last thing I expected to ever talk to a like regent of the University of Minnesota about was like Bigfoot or like mythical creatures, you know?

SIROVY: So, did you have any like what was the biggest surprise for you writing the story? 

WHITE: I mean, the biggest surprise was mostly just like how it came about because it literally was just I called this guy who I knew was like a big Bigfoot guy, and he just was like, ‘oh, by the way my like best friend is a regent at the U, and also is super into Bigfoot.’ Like, hell yeah. Like, I’m down. 

SIROVY: What, cause I know there’s a few quotes in my head that I remember specifically from this story specifically about that old Sasquatch footage. 

WHITE: Yeah. I think the quote itself is, I was talking to Michael the Patterson footage from 1967, I believe, and he said, that they like confirmed, no, it was a female Sasquatch. And that raised some alarms for me. I was like, okay, how do we know that? And the answer, of course, was the large breasts of the Sasquatch in the footage. I mean that’s kind of the nature of stuff like that where when you’re when you’re into like I guess the cryptid stuff that can get a little bit weird, get a little bit wacky I think. 

SIROVY: Do you believe in any of the cryptid stuff?

WHITE: They’re like a really big interest of mine stuff like that. I am a skeptic in that sense, I’m not a real believer. Really, I think I can I’m more convincible when it comes to like aliens or something like that, but like I don’t think, I don’t really think that Bigfoot’s real, especially when it gets in the like, I’ve talked to a lot of people about it, like working at the Daily and just generally, and like you’ll talk to someone and they’ll be like, well the reason we haven’t found it is because they’re inter-dimensional time travelers. It’s like, I think at some point.

SIROVY: The cryptids?

WHITE: Yeah, yeah, like Bigfoot.

SIROVY: Okay, okay. 

WHITE: That they’re like metaphysical beings and at some point it’s like I feel like we lost track of what’s going on here. Yeah, it’s like some of them are like something threw a pine cone at me in the woods and I was like yeah, I saw a beacon from God and the hairy man came out of it. It’s like, okay, let’s let’s hold on, but I mean, I think it’s all like interesting stuff and like I think it’s for the most part like harmless, too.

Yeah, like that’s the thing that in my, in my column, I didn’t want to like, I didn’t want to like make fun of Doug or like Michael or anything like that because like, though there are some things they said that are like a bit silly or something like that to like the general public, like what they’re doing is really like inoffensive and like not terrible.

SIROVY: Just a fun hobby.

WHITE: Yeah. They’re like having a good time. They’re like getting out. 

SIROVY: They’re talking with people. 

WHITE: Yeah and the book they published back in 2006, I think is like pretty, pretty well, pretty highly regarded. Like because it doesn’t like necessarily say, hey, like Bigfoot’s real. It’s like, ‘hey, there’s like weird things happening.’ Here’s evidence for and against Bigfoot. Like it’s pretty, it was pretty well made stuff. Like something Michael said was like, his like friends would like to get their kids into like school and, like, science and stuff would like give them that book. Yeah, because it’s like something more fun than just like learning the table of elements.

SIROVY: Yeah, I would say learning about Sasquatch is better than learning how a compound is made. 

WHITE: Yeah. Unironically, like trying, like watching and like talking to people about Sasquatch has forced me to like learn more about like anthropology. Just because like the terms being used, like it’s like, well I’m going to do some Google searches into like actual anthropology stuff, read some things.

SIROVY: So like cultures or histories or like folklore? 

WHITE: Like more like, um hominids stuff like that, like development of humans, I guess. 

SIROVY: Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. What were your thoughts while writing this? 

WHITE: I was so excited. I was having so much, before I was the editor most of like my favorite columns were like doing stuff like this, like talking about kind of weird stuff. Like I interviewed ghost hunters Bigfoot hunters Scientology, well, I didn’t interview the Scientologist that was tricky, but I talked about Scientology. Bikers stuff like I got all over the place. 

So, it’s always a lot of fun for me to like talk to people like that who like are really like in depth believing like what they say and like it’s a bit absurd to some extent, but it’s like, it’s way more fun than being like, alright, I’m going to interview this guy about like economic shit. But yeah, no, it was a lot of fun and it was just really exciting because it’s like, it was something that was, it started off so different than like the end product and it just kept like building really. By the end I was, I was so pumped for it. 

SIROVY: Yeah, I remember in the hotel, you were writing this and you were just like, yeah, this is, this is good, this is good stuff.

WHITE: Yeah, I was like, I remember we got like five of us went to get food and I was just like on my laptop just like having a blast. 

SIROVY: Well, I think it makes it a lot easier and you become a better writer when you write about stuff that you’re interested in. Yeah, yeah, and like more fun stuff,  you know?

WHITE: Yeah, I totally agree. And. I mean, it also made it really easy, like, I think that column itself is mostly quotes, I’m pretty sure, or at least a good chunk of it is, which is kind of rare for opinions columns, but it was just so much fun with like cause they gave me so much to work with and they had so much to talk about that it really just made my job so easy.

SIROVY: Well, you have some stuff in here about your own opinions. But, yeah, you say at the end of it I’m very skeptical about these kinds of things, but they are a whole lot of fun to talk about. So, did you have any challenges writing this story? 

WHITE: Yeah, the main, I did, it was supposed to come out the day before Halloween, so it would be in our little Halloween newsletter, but it ended up coming out on Halloween, missed the newsletter.

And the reason was because the night I was going to get it done is when I was talking to Doug Hajicek and he told me he knew Michael Hsu. And I was like, I’m not putting this out without talking to Michael Hsu. Like I just Of course, yeah. I’m not doing that. It’s not worth it. So we push it off a day. I got to talk to Michael Hsu, and it just really, I think it really I think that column would have been nothing without Michael Hsu. 

SIROVY: Oh yeah, he definitely had some amazing stuff to say yeah.

WHITE: Yeah, I think that like that was the biggest challenge because previously I was struggling with finding sources.

SIROVY: Well, yeah, I think not too many people are whole professionals about the whole Sasquatch thing. 

WHITE: Yeah, you’d be surprised. I wasn’t gonna go back to the Minnesota Bigfoot research team. I kind of scorned them in the past. 

SIROVY: You scorned them? That’s, okay. 

WHITE: I kind of, I made fun of them in a column like a year ago. 

SIROVY: Columns do that sometimes. That’s why they’re columns. 

WHITE: Yeah, so I couldn’t go back down that well, but I went into this Facebook group of like encrypted hunters.

SIROVY: Oh yeah. Yeah. You talked about that in your story and like. The Minnesota Skeptics? 

WHITE: No, that was, that was a group of people that like don’t believe anything like that, and those people like immediately were like trying to vet me and like didn’t believe I was a real person. That one, that was funny in its own right, but like that was like the first guy I talked to was from them. And like he was a really interesting guy, Travis Peterson. But like it didn’t really have the, I guess the gravity that I wanted. You know? Like. He’s a very, he’s a very well spoken guy, and a very, very, very nice guy. I had a great conversation with him.

But, in terms of like the story itself, if I had only gotten him, which is what it was looking like for a little bit, it would basically just be me kind of vaguely talking about cryptids and being like conspiracies are whack, right? But, I got in this other Facebook group of like, Sasquatch hunters, and they got me in touch with Doug Hajicek. I mentioned before, he produced the show Monster Quest, some other stuff. And, yeah, from there, it just kind of happened. 

SIROVY: Did the Facebook group, did they, were they originally like, are you gonna make fun of us? Or?

WHITE: Oh, no.

SIROVY: They were totally on board the whole way?

WHITE: The moment, the moment I was there, they were just like, oh, this guy’s on our side.

SIROVY: I love that. 

WHITE: I mean, it seemed, admittedly, like, if I were them, I would be a little more skeptical of some guy showing up and going, hey, who wants to be interviewed for this? Because like especially given it, my I guess, I guess I’m pretty low on the bar of journalists, but like it took one Google search for them to find out that I’ve made fun of people like them many times. So, but hey, I’m that, they did me well they got me in touch with Doug and Michael so and Though I had great conversations with both of them. So 

SIROVY: Yeah, that’s I love that. I would have, if I were doing the story, I would have also have been having a blast like I can’t imagine the fun writing this like I remember during because at the beginning you kind of talk about like the certain cryptids that like people know about and I, you talked about Mothman for a few sentences, and I remember talking to Alex, who’s our editor in chief, he didn’t know who Mothman was, and so I literally had to show him a photo of like the statue of Mothman. And I remember, I remember thinking like, yep, this is why we write. 

WHITE: Well, I don’t mean to put you on blast, Kaylie, but more specifically, you showed him a picture of Mothman’s beautiful butt, and how sculpted and firm it is. 

SIROVY: I did also show that. I, well, I, okay, I should say I showed him the,  what, the front of Mothman first, then I was like, wait a minute, you gotta look at the behind also cause like, they put it on the statue, they knew what people were gonna look at. 

WHITE: It’s a magnificent ass. 

SIROVY: It is. It really is, but do you hope that after, after reading this and after writing it and after getting like a comment and what people say about it, do you wish for them, your readers, to take away anything from this story?

WHITE: I mean, the way I kind of ended it off was talking about like conspiracy generally and like how detrimental it can be, but I think, I think there’s like a really fine line to walk in terms of conspiracy, because I think, personally, conspiracy is super fun. 

Even if you like go into it like thinking it’s like Not true. That’s the word I’ll use. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of fun to think about oh, what if there are like aliens or what if there’s something in the woods? We don’t know about. It can be a lot of fun. The problem that really comes in is when it gets taken too far or like when it’s manipulated or used in a way to like cause, like, harm. Like, you can see that a little bit with, um, with, like, UFO people. UFO people can get a bit crazy because. 

SIROVY: They want to cause mistrust?

WHITE: Because like it’s believing in UFOs and UAPs as they like to call them. 

SIROVY: UAPs?

WHITE: Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. That’s how you know someone’s in too deep on UFOs. If they start calling them UAPs. 

SIROVY: Good to know.

WHITE: They’ve crossed the line somewhere. But like there’s like an inherent like governmental distrust that comes with that. And personally, I think governmental distrust is a good thing. Because like, they do shady things constantly. So like and that’s kind of like what our role is as journalists to like look into that whatever. 

SIROVY: We gotta research.

WHITE: Yeah, yeah, the problem is we research.

SIROVY: There’s facts to back it up.

WHITE: When you’re just some dude who’s like yo my buddy said that he saw in a spaceship and the government is covering it up. It’s like, okay. At some point here we need, like there needs to be actual evidence of something before you just go like pointing fingers and like causing trouble. And it really becomes a problem when like I did a story about UFOs way way back like early days at the Daily for me. And there, it was this group I hit the name escapes me now, but it was like MUFON Minnesota UFO Network and MUFON, they had like a almost like a trauma response team that would go and talk to people who had like experienced, air quotes, experienced like abductions or something like that.

And they’d go talk to them through it or something. But it’s like, they didn’t have anything in place to like determine, oh, has this, does this person need to talk about how they were abducted by a UFO? Or do they need like the help of a psychiatrist? And it’s like just some, like, some like 50 year old woman going there and like being like, she was a very nice lady I spoke to, but when she just shows up and it’s like oh my god, tell me about how you were probed.

That’s crazy, dude. Oh, it’s like that’s not what is, who is that helping? Like these are people who seem to be in some way like going through trauma and you’re just like showing up and saying, ah man, damn, aliens are whack, huh? 

SIROVY: Maybe not the response that you want. What do people think about that story? Do you remember? 

WHITE: I remember I got like an email about it, but I don’t really remember. I think it did well, I don’t know. We don’t get many comments at The Daily here, so you guys should, you guys should figure that out, listeners. 

SIROVY: Well, I should say that opinions does get a lot more comments than a lot of these other desks.

WHITE: That is true. They’re never very nice, though. 

SIROVY: No, like the most recent one that you did of mice and majors.

WHITE: Yeah, that guy called a tabloid journalist. Someone, someone got mad that I implied you could become a therapist or psychiatry, psychiatrist with a psychology major, which you can do. 

SIROVY: You, I’m pretty sure you can. 

WHITE: There are some extra steps after it, but you can start there.

SIROVY: You can definitely have a background in it and become a therapist, yeah. 

WHITE: I will go to great lengths to not be wrong about this.

SIROVY: Yeah, no, well I feel like especially since it’s from opinions that more people are willing to share their opinions. 

WHITE: Oh yeah, I kind of like it to be honest. Like, I like to talk the talk, you know. 

SIROVY: Like to keep the conversations going?

WHITE: I like when, I like when they S talk me so I can S talk them back is how we’re gonna go about saying it. But, I mean, MeatEater. I want to get into him a little bit. 

SIROVY: Yes, MeatEater. He’s a commenter, or he was.

WHITE: He was. MeatEater, if you can hear me, please come back. I miss you so much. MeatEater never left a nice comment in his life, and he was great. MeatEater would just show up on about two columns a week, just rip into whoever wrote it, just making fun of them and that was it. That was his whole deal and I haven’t seen him in months. So, MeatEater if you’re out there, please please come back.

SIROVY: Maybe he was a scorned ex employee of the opinions column. 

WHITE: I had a theory that he might have been one of the other columnists at the time, but I never had anything to qualify that. So, that’s just a conspiracy that I made up. 

SIROVY: We do it all the time, don’t worry.

WHITE: That’s what, that’s what media is all about, I think. Making things up and lying to the people. 

SIROVY: Do you remember one of his, do you, is there like a comment of his that you remember specifically like word for word? 

WHITE: Not word for word, but cause a lot of them would be like really like a paragraph that’s like relatively thought out and like is really mean, but like is like well, well written. But every once in a while he’d just do one. He’d be like, this is garbage. 

SIROVY: Just not even any critiques or feedback. Just this sucks. 

WHITE: He was an all time hater. He is in the hater hall of fame. 

SIROVY: Wow that, I wonder who you have to be to have that much hate in you. 

WHITE: I don’t know, but I hope he comes back one day.

SIROVY: No, I remember hearing about that this past summer, like MeatEater. I was like who is this person? I kept, I was like, why does he do that? Why does he do what he do? Do you have any favorite cryptid or folklore stories? That you like researched about?

WHITE: I haven’t gone the most in depth on this, but like, it was one of my favorites when I was younger. Chupacabras. I like Chupacabras. I like the name. I like that it means goat sucker. 

SIROVY: He would steal goats from like farms and stuff. 

WHITE: Suck their blood right on out of them. 

SIROVY: Like a goat vampire.

WHITE: And I really, I really wish, I remember as a kid being like, I wish I had a chupacabra friend, and I don’t know if I want that. I don’t think that was a well thought out plan by like, nine year old Spencer. 

SIROVY: Maybe you just wanted a friend. 

WHITE: Fair, fair. Hurtful, first off. But fair. 

SIROVY: You know, I remember as a kid, like, cause there used to be this show, Finding Bigfoot. It would come out like every Sunday night, and me and my family would sit down and watch it just about every week. And I remember being terrified that Bigfoot was real. I’m like, I cannot believe that there’s this creature out there who just is giant and scary. And I remember hearing about all like the different like variations between like the states. Like down in Florida it’s Skunk Ape. 

WHITE: That is awesome. Yep. Skunk Ape. Skunk Ape. I love that.

SIROVY: Yep. He’s in the swamps. Oh. 

WHITE: Oh, he’s smelly. Talking about Finding Bigfoot. My like original, I wouldn’t call it love or passion, but I guess intrigue and like stuff like this would be when I was  like I mentioned it in the column, but when I was a kid, I’d be like driving late at night with like my family like going somewhere, and my dad would always throw on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell or I guess probably George Norry, I don’t know, doesn’t really matter, one of the hosts of Coast to coast AM.

And Coast to Coast AM, if you’re unaware, is just like an old radio, well not really old, it’s still on, but like a conspiratorial radio show where they talk about Bigfoot, UFOs, ghosts, stuff like that. They take a lot of callers who’ll just call in and be like I had an experience with a ghost, and Art Bell or George Norrie, whichever, Art Bell was superior, but that’s neither here nor there, would just go into it and talk about talk to them and like almost always just take him at face value and it was it was wonderful.

SIROVY: Is that where you like first learned about like conspiracy theories?

WHITE: Yeah, that was my introduction to it. This was a very very young age, but I was like sitting in the backseat like four years old like oh my god dad UFOs are real. He’s like, I don’t know. 

SIROVY: I think there’s always a time where we’re as kids were like, oh my god UFOs are real and then you grow up. You’re like, I don’t think they are, but yeah. Do you have any thoughts on the rest of the story that we didn’t talk about? Any big moments, any big light bulb moments? 

WHITE: I mean, there wasn’t anything really light bulb. It was mostly just like, it was kind of a, of a snowball type thing where it started off like really, really small.

And like the scope of it was kind of stupid, to be honest. Like, I didn’t really know where I was going with it, and it just really picked up steam. 

SIROVY: But you had an idea. 

WHITE: But I had an idea. And I was saved by Michael Hsu and Doug Hajicek. They got me where I needed to go. 

SIROVY: No, I, after reading your, this story, I was like, oh my God, all my friends need to read this. This is awesome. I had no idea. 

WHITE: Promotion, let’s go. 

SIROVY: No, I talk about them. And I talked a little bit about that story that you put out recently, the of mice and campus one. 

WHITE: No, Of Mice and Majors. It was a campus caucus. I’m a big alliteration guy. 

SIROVY: Yeah, because the title of your story is Creatures on Campus.

WHITE: It’s a go to, it’s a go to. Did I mention they invited me to look for Bigfoot? I don’t know if I mentioned that.

SIROVY: No, you didn’t!

WHITE: It was not like a formal invitation, but Michael Hsu did imply that in the future I could look for Bigfoot with them. 

SIROVY: That’s incredible. Are you going to if they ever like formally offer it? 

WHITE: If they formally offer it and I like have the capacity to do so, I will.

SIROVY: That’s incredible. 

WHITE: Doug has some land in like it’s not his necessarily, but where he does a lot of his research is this cabin in like northern Canada, I’m pretty sure. So, that’s a bit of a trek, but I, if the opportunity arose, I’m not saying no to that. 

SIROVY: No, that would be an amazing experience. That would be so fun.

WHITE: Someone I, similarly, someone I interviewed for like my previous Bigfoot column, he has some land in Brainerd, I’m pretty sure or near Brainerd, and he has offered, he has said if I wanted to, I could go out to his land. 

SIROVY: You must love your job.

WHITE: Oh, it’s, it’s so great. It’s so awesome. 

SIROVY: Being like, I mean not formally offered, but like sort of invited to go hunt for Bigfoot. That’s amazing. You don’t really get that with a whole lot of other jobs, I would say. 

WHITE: No, no. You don’t get that with most jobs at The Minnesota Daily. 

SIROVY: No, definitely not. I can’t say that I’ve had people be like, Hey, you want to go Bigfoot hunting? Or you want to go try and find some UFOs? No. 

WHITE: Look, I know some people. I can get you in touch if you want that to change. 

SIROVY: I appreciate the offer. Oh my gosh. So, I also did want to ask, how long have you been at The Daily? 

WHITE: This is my second year at The Daily. I started last fall as a columnist. Became the opinions editor at the end of last school year. Here I am now. 

SIROVY: Here you are now, and you’re doing a great job. 

WHITE: Thank you.

SIROVY: We all do really good jobs here. But I’m just kind of tooting my own horn. Well, I think that is the end unless anything else?

WHITE: No, we can end here. I’ve said about all I can say at this point I mean, I wrote an entire column about it and spoke for how long.

SIROVY: Go read it if you want to. The story is incredible. 

WHITE: Yeah, and leave a like and a comment, please.

SIROVY: I don’t know. Well, they can do likes on the website. Most people usually don’t, though. No. That’s fine, though. 

WHITE: They don’t respect us.

SIROVY: They don’t respect the student journalists? No, no. No, I can’t imagine why. Well, this has been a wonderful talk with you, Spencer. I have enjoyed hearing your opinions as the opinions editor. I’m sure you have a lot more. This episode was just me, Kaylie Sirovy, and Spencer White.

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

WHITE: And I’m Spencer. 

SIROVY: And this is In The Know.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Hello, everyone. I’m Kaylie Sirovy, your host at the Minnesota Daily, and you’re listening to In The Know, the podcast that keeps you updated on all things related to the University of Minnesota. Joining me today in the podcast room is the talented Alex Karwowski. Welcome, Alex, and thank you for being with us. 

ALEX KARWOWSKI: Thanks for having me. I’m very excited. I’m a sports reporter at the Minnesota Daily. This is like kind of my second year, I think, in the Daily. I was here last year. I’m here now, so. That’s two, right? Two. Fun times.

SIROVY: Awesome. So today our focus is one of your recent stories, the Gopher Rowing. It recently won a Best of Sno Award. 

KARWOWSKI: So I’m not gonna lie: I had no idea what that was until Theo dropped that in our little sports chat. Apparently Best of Sno is like, so we submit our stories on Sno, which is like a platform that we use to submit stories. And so each day Sno, like the people there, will pick the best story published on their site that day and they get like 100 submissions per day and only 10 percent make Best of Sno, and that rowing story won that award. So it was the best story published on Sno that day. So that was really cool to figure out.

SIROVY: Well, congratulations! Did you know immediately that you got the award? 

KARWOWSKI: No. So, like I said, Theo mentioned, like, we had a top story on the sports desk that day. That was Claire’s, like, homecoming story. Shout out to Claire and then he goes, oh, by the way, this story won the Best of Sno award, and I was like, What is that? And I looked it up, figured it out, and I was like, ‘oh, that’s cool,’ and then, like, I was seeing all the other schools that have, like, published, content that has won the Best of Sno award. Minnesota Daily has like four or five, so, like, I was very, like, from this year alone. So I was very proud of myself to see that I was part of those few reporters that have worked on the Best of Sno publication. 

SIROVY: You say Gophers Rowing, but what exactly? 

KARWOWSKI: So, originally the idea came from Theo over the summer. He was like, ‘I want to send a reporter out to the rowing team’s like practice just to see what it’s all about,’ and I was like, ‘dude, I can do that.’ So, we talked to Scott, who is the sports information director for rowing, and he got me out on that boat, and it was really, really cool cause let me tell you those women, they know what’s up. Like I was biking there like six in the morning, and I was like ‘wow, this is very peaceful, but I’m also really tired,’ and they were out there rowing before class started. It was like from seven to nine, and let me just say, like I could just tell from their faces, there is so much like mental energy that comes into rowing like I think more so than people realize.

They were focused and it’s like such a team sport. Like each stroke has to be together and they really got to be like listening to whoever’s like making those calls out on the boat. It was definitely an experience and like the, even the views like on the Mississippi river, if you read the story, you can see there’s a Pennywise thing I don’t even know what it is, but it’s like just floating on the river and I was like, ‘oh, that’s really weird.’ There’s like sandstone caves and there’s just like so much like different kinds of like art that you see out on the river and it was, it was really cool.

SIROVY: That sounds awesome. I can’t imagine being out on the boat with the girls. How did you go about researching, what kind of, what did you want to talk about for this story? Was there any specific detail that you knew that you wanted to include? 

KARWOWSKI: Not necessarily. I did a little bit of like research as to like what I wanted to ask for questions of the interviews. I did a little bit of research on the coach’s background. A little bit like looking at some of the athletes and the awards that they’ve won and kind of what they’re like, experience with rowing was like, but like outside of that, like in terms of like the sport of rowing, I didn’t do a whole lot of research.

I really wanted to go like an open slate, just like an open mind, which I did. It’s kind of how I go in with a lot of my stories is just see what’s up when you report and look for a storyline within that and I think it’s like once I was out on the water and saw the amount of energy they were putting in and they ran like a lap before the practice started, they did everything together, they got the boats out together, they put them back together, they were out on the boats together, they were switching people on the boats, and I think it’s I was like, ‘you know what? I could never do this.’ These athletes, like I said, they know what’s up. So, it’s really, as the headline says, it’s not for the faint of heart. Like, you have to be committed to rowing in order to be successful on that team and I think that’s kind of the storyline that I went with. 

SIROVY: What do they do in the winter? 

KARWOWSKI: So, obviously we live in Minnesota, and it’s very cold in the winter. So when that season comes around the rowing team will go inside in their boathouse, and what they have is like this, this thing called the tank. It’s like an infinity pool, but for rowing. So it’s like, the water will move with the boat, and it’s, it kind of simulates just being out on the water, and so that’s kind of like what they use mainly in the winter. Aside from that I was told that they sometimes run stairs in Mariucci, just to keep, like, physically conditioned.

And then they’ll also be on their rowers, just like what you see at the gyms, those kinds of rowers, and then there’s, they use that for data collection. They have their weight room in the Bierman Athletic Complex and they use that for a lot of, like, data collection. At the beginning of the season and just to keep physically conditioned during the off season when rowing is not in season.

SIROVY: So when is the rowing season? Is it in the spring? Fall? 

KARWOWSKI: So there’s two seasons, much like tennis and golf. There’s a Fall season and then there’s a Spring season. The spring season is kind of like when they get very competitive, especially, that’s when they kind of row against other Big 10 teams. And that’s really when the like main part of the season starts for a lot of like for rowing and then also like golf and tennis. 

SIROVY: Awesome. How did the team feel about you being there? Were they like super excited to talk about their sport? 

KARWOWSKI: So from the people that I talked to, they were all super kind and very welcoming to me. I think, I don’t actually know this for a fact, but I think like, when I was there, I was in like the boathouse with Scott, the PR person for rowing, and the coach like, I think, I think she said, ‘Oh, we have a reporter from the Daily’ because I saw like almost all the athletes like look back and seeing me just standing there.

So it was really funny, but I think they were pretty excited to see me there cause it’s kind of like a niche sport and you know, they don’t receive a lot of coverage, so it’s really nice to give them that. Because, you know, they’re student athletes and rowing is, as I said, very clearly a sport.

SIROVY: And it’s definitely very challenging. I, from what I can tell, it looks, not for the faint of heart, as you said. So, were there any like specific challenges that you faced while doing this story? 

KARWOWSKI: The only real obstacle that kind of like was, I wouldn’t even say it was much of an obstacle, but it was something that I had to kind of jump through, was kind of the jargon that they used, when they were speaking, and they have like different, there’s different types of like oars that they use too.

Like I said, I don’t remember the kind, like I remember looking it up because they just had like a whole different, like so many different kinds of oars, and there’s like specific ones that do different things and yeah. 

SIROVY: Well, that’s pretty cool. I mean, I’m sure all the sports have their own kind of jargon. So, it’s kind of interesting to see what the rowings is. So were there any kind of, I would say unique or memorable, like certain moments when you’re doing your reporting. Was there like, ‘oh my gosh, this is so cool.’ 

KARWOWSKI: I think honestly, just the fact that those athletes can like, they get to be out on the water every morning and just kind of like, take that all in. That was so cool and I think even just getting to the boathouse was such a memorable experience cause it was like dark and like before everyone was awake and the streets were like totally empty and I was biking and I was like ‘this is so peaceful like this is awesome. I should do this like more often,’ but then like being out on the water like I was so tired. I was, even the photographer was like, ‘I can’t wait to take a nap after this,’ and I was like me too, but like ‘this is so cool’ and just being out on the water like that, that was an experience in and of itself. 

SIROVY: So, would this, would you say that this is one of your favorite stories that you’ve done, or best stories that you’ve done? 

KARWOWSKI: I don’t know. I’ve done a lot of really cool stories this past year. This one’s definitely like, I will be using this for when I apply to jobs later as one of my better stories.

SIROVY: As you should.

KARWOWSKI: But I wouldn’t say it’s, I don’t know that it’s my favorite. I mean it was cool, but like I’ve definitely written some other stories that I feel like, I mean the reporting was cool, but I feel like the conversations for me are really what would make the story so memorable for me, and not that these conversations were bad, but I’ve had a lot of great conversations with so many different athletes that I would be like, this is the best thing ever. 

SIROVY: Are there any that you want to mention? 

KARWOWSKI: . Shout out to Amaya Battle for creating an Instagram. Go ahead. Follow it at @battletimeflicks. That was my favorite story that I’ve ever written. Great conversation with Amaya and Mara on that story. Easily like that is always at the top of my like, applications for jobs and stuff and whenever people are like, ‘what’s your favorite story you’ve ever written?’ I always say Amaya Battle, searching for the perfect shot and now she works here!

SIROVY: So do you want to continue being a sports reporter?

KARWOWSKI: So I love sports reporting. It is easily my favorite thing. I didn’t always know that I wanted to be a sports reporter. I thought that I wanted to do politics at first, so my minor is in political science, but when I was first applying to the Daily, I was like, I applied and I never heard back, and I kept applying for the staff reporter position. I just never heard back my freshman year. So at the end of my freshman year, I saw that they were hiring on the sports desk, and I was like, ‘Oh, I could just apply here,’ work on the sports desk for, and then hopefully, like, maybe get a job at the staff reporter desk.

Turns out, I really actually enjoy sports reporting. I did like a little bit of sports like stuff in high school where we like streamed games. So that was really cool, and I think I was just reminded of like how much I love doing that, and, honestly like sports stories are so, so cool in my opinion, just because like there’s so much great like athletes out there who have overcome adversity and have done so many cool things that just make me like feel so inspired and I want to be the one to tell those stories to inspire other people because I’ve definitely had that experience when reading different sports stories.

SIROVY: That is incredible. I love that you get to do that and that you get to have fun doing it. I get to have fun doing this, so it’s incredible to see that the sports stories get their moment to shine as well. So is there anything else that you kind of want our listeners to know?

KARWOWSKI: Subscribe to the Rouser, the Minnesota Daily brand new sports newsletter. You can learn about the reporters on the desk. There’s a lot of us. We’re all very cool people. I think that’s the big one. Keep reading sports stories. They come out a lot and those athletes, they are incredible people, and I love talking to them, and I hope you love hearing about them. 

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

KATE PETERSON: So the legend is that there are 225 carved owls all around Walter Library.

KAYLIE SIROVY: Welcome to In the Know, the podcast brought to you by the Minnesota Daily. I’m Kaylie Sirovy and that was Kate Peterson, an undergraduate services librarian. 

PETERSON: Owls are a thing here, specifically because the architect or the architectural team was, we think, and maybe Rachel knows more about this, but we think, the idea of knowledge and owls was sort of connected and they really wanted this to be kind of classical.

SIROVY: Standing in the Upson room of Walter Library with its carved stone fireplace and beautiful oak features, I believe the architects really nailed that classical feel. It even withstood the test of time as Walter Library is now 100 years old! While some things have remained consistent, such as the presence of the owls, as Peterson mentioned, many aspects are different. When the library initially opened, it boasted roughly 500,000 books. Today, the number has surged to about eight million. Rachael Clark, a library assistant at the U, says more.

RACHAEL CLARK: Construction started in 1922. The cornerstone was laid in 1923. They moved in the summer of 1924, and the final dedication of the building was Halloween 1924. 

SIROVY: Since the Minnesota Daily was launched at the end of the 19th century, you can find Daily articles on the libraries archive page about the dedication of Walter and how grand it was compared to other libraries at the time. One article from 1923 said and I quote, “the new library is the third most expensive state built institution in Minnesota.” 

CLARK: So another thing to note, at the time this was built, this was just the library. There was no Walter in the name. It was just the library, or the new library, the main library.

SIROVY: The name “Walter” was not adopted until 1959 in honor of Frank Keller Walter, who helped in the planning and was the University of Minnesota’s Librarian from 1921 to 1943. It wasn’t the first library on campus, either. That title goes to a building called Old Main.

CLARK: It was just kind of tucked away in a corner and it was some encyclopedias and dictionaries and basic things like that. Universities like to all compete with each other to see who can have the most books, have the best study space. So that sort of pushed them into putting a library in Burton Hall. That space, we shared it with a bunch of other people, so that also still wasn’t ideal. So then they eventually got the funding to build a brand new, separate, purposely just for the library, building on campus that was all ours.

SIROVY: In the age of digital books, why are the physical spaces of libraries still important?

PETERSON: I think that libraries play a lot of different roles. Certainly when many incoming students or students think about the word library, they tend to think of our buildings and then they often think of books. So those are good, and we definitely provide a whole variety of study spaces for students because we know students like all sorts of different spaces. So we really work hard to have a lot of variety for students so that they can be really productive to get all the things that they need to get done.

SIROVY: Students have different preferences when it comes to their study environment. Walter Library has it all. While some prefer quiet spaces, others enjoy the ambiance of coffee shops like myself. There are also those who find solace in individual study rooms. Some people even opt for unconventional settings like the Toaster, which offers a distinct and unique atmosphere for their study sessions. Another library assistant, Lacie McMillin, shares her perspective.

LACIE MCMILLIN: I really love that like the libraries are really focused on supporting students as a whole these days, you know, there’s not all these like super rigid rules like there were back then when Walter was first built. You know, we really tried to cater to a bunch of different students’ needs with different, you know, spaces in our libraries. We’re always just trying to make the library as least intimidating as possible.

CLARK: Yeah, and to me the libraries are here to connect students with the resources they need for their studying, for their research.

SIROVY: When I was given a short tour of the library by Peterson and Clark, I saw that students were making the most of the space. There were students in every room, people coming and going, and it was full of life. I was there for a short while, but I saw what libraries can provide, a safe space.

MCMILLIN: We’re here for students and it’s more than just getting a book that you need for class, like it’s really just kind of like supporting you and your lives while you’re here attending the University of Minnesota. 

SIROVY: That support is being shown through the events they organize. In the case of Walter 100, there will be a series of events scheduled throughout 2023 and 2024. This past week, they hosted a birthday celebration, inviting students to participate by crafting love letters or postcards. Right now, a scavenger hunt is underway, challenging participants to discover hidden owls around Walter.

PETERSON: We always want to invite students to come into our spaces and we also want to try to reach students not in our spaces as well, because we know that students might have a past experience with a library that wasn’t pleasant and that might be the last place that they might feel comfortable. We’re just trying to think again of like where are students at and what’s going to be most helpful for them and then listening to students as well. We’re always happy to get feedback from students about what they would hope for our spaces and or our collections.

SIROVY: One such feedback would be in Wilson library on West Bank, the sensory friendly study room. According to Peterson, that was purely a student suggestion and they were able to make it happen.

PETERSON: One of the other things would also be that we’re definitely focused on making sure that our collections, the books, the online books, the materials that we’re getting are as inclusive and representative of all of, you know, humans and people that are publishing things and that definitely has not always been the case in academic libraries. There were many choices made about what was going to be collected and what isn’t going to be collected. So we are now really focused on being much more, again, diverse, getting those voices that might not have been heard.

SIROVY: What hasn’t always been around in this library either is technology. Around the 2000’s, the library underwent a renovation to incorporate technologies that were obviously not there during the 1920’s, like adding computers and updating the light fixtures. 

CLARK: It was really important that they wanted Walter to still have this beautiful classical look during the renovation. While also putting in new technologies and new things into the building.

SIROVY: Walter Library boasts a rich and extensive history, and you can learn its story by visiting the temporary exhibit on display in the esteemed Upson room October 19, 27, and November 9. You can pick up postcards, stickers and bookmarks to celebrate Walter 100.

MCMILLIN: Definitely, you know, come to some of our events coming up. Let’s celebrate like how much libraries have changed throughout time and, you know, all the fun things that we’re doing these days.

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 or questions. I’m Kaylie, and this is In The Know.