The Twin Cities declared its first snow emergency on Nov. 18, raising discussions on alternative de-icing methods and the impact of road salt on water quality. This comes as Minnesota celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, which seeks to protect U.S. waterways from contaminants

Road salt typically relies on sodium chloride, which can accumulate in soils and waters and negatively impacts the environment, Andy Erickson, research manager at St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, said.

Salt melts ice on the road, which turns to water when the salt breaks into sodium and chloride, Evan Anderson, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency GreenCorps member, said. The dissolved salt goes down storm drain, flows into waterways and can end up in our drinking water.

Since saltwater is more dense than freshwater, it sinks to the bottom near the sediment and freshwater sits on top. This can prevent minerals and oxygen from recycling and can kill fish.

Additionally, if oxygen can’t make it down to the bottom of a lake, it can lead to algae growth and green lakes, Vinicius Taguchi, a doctoral student studying stormwater ponds, said.

The ​​Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s benchmark is currently one teaspoon of salt per five gallons of water, a level that’s harmful to aquatic life.

“Since the salt dissolves, most of it won’t be visible, but we’re certainly feeling the effects,” Taguchi said. “We’re starting to develop chronic increases in salt concentrations in the lakes.”

Taguchi said he worries people will not care until the problem has become expensive and aquatic life is irreparably harmed.

The sodium in salt also accumulates in soil, which can change the soil properties and limit the amount of water that moves through the soil, Erickson said.

In contrast, chloride typically moves through the soil and environment unmitigated, which can impact waterways and groundwater when it leaches into waterways during melt or rain events, Erickson said.

“We are seeing in Minnesota, specifically, there are a number of water body surface waters that are what we call ‘impaired by chloride,’” Erickson said. “There’s too much chloride in the water to sustain the beneficial properties we want for that water body, whether that’s healthy fish or healthy habitats for the ecosystem biodiversity.”

Since road salting has increased over time, the precipitation in Minnesota is barely enough to flush out the salt, resulting in salt trapped in soils from past years, Erickson said.

“Let’s say we outlawed road salt today … We might have decades worth of salt still in the soil that’s going to continue to transport down to ground water and our drinking water sources for potentially decades to come,” Erickson said.

Alternatives to salt

“I think it’s important to realize that salt is needed just to maintain the level of safety that we currently have on roads,” Anderson said. However, there are no environmentally-friendly de-icers and all salt alternatives will have some impact on the environment, he said.

At the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, Erickson researches sodium chloride impacts on the environment as well as potassium acetate as an alternative.

The University of Minnesota currently uses untreated sodium chloride and some acetates to melt ice on campus, Tom Ritzer, assistant director of landcare, said.

Sodium chloride salts can typically only melt ice when it’s warmer than 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Other chloride salts such as calcium chloride or magnesium chloride can work at lower temperatures, but they are expensive and have similar environmental impacts, Erickson said.

Many cheap “home-remedies” such as pickle juice, cheese and brine that have been used as de-icing strategies are not better for the environment either because they still contain a significant amount of salt, Erickson said.

One alternative Minnesota used in the past was sand, which increases friction and traction on roadways.

“Sand is an alternative that I like because it’s not going to stay in the water,” Taguchi said. “When the ice is gone, you can sweep up the sand and collect it.”

Taguchi said he believes collecting the sand after is necessary because it can cause flooding in lakes and streams. Sweeping streets and installing stormwater catch basins can prevent sand from entering waterways, he said.

Sand though does not always stick and can bounce off the road when conditions are icy, which defeats the purpose of adding sand for road traction, Erickson said.

The University has researched a Scandinavian technique that directly applies a boiled water-sand mixture to roadways.

“It actually kind of turns an icy roadway into sandpaper, and that’s great for traction,” Erickson said.
The University uses sand when temperatures are at extreme lows and chemicals become ineffective, Ritzer said.

University landcare also has an anti-icing program, which includes applying salt brine before storms to reduce the need for applications later, Ritzer said.

The state of Minnesota has also started using chemical anti-icers as an alternative to salt de-icers, Erickson said.
“These are chemicals that we actually put down before snowfall … they weaken that bond between the ice and the pavement,” Erickson said. “So when the snow plows come through, the snow plows are that much more effective.”

Reducing salt use

Taguchi said since there currently is not a cost-effective solution to generic salt, the best alternative is reducing use. There are also many times salt is being placed on snow that is drivable without salt use.

“I think it’s more of a mindset shift than anything,” Taguchi said.

Salt can also be reused, Anderson said.

“Once all the ice is melted, and you just have salt sitting on your sidewalk or your driveway, just sweep it back up, reuse it for the next storm,” Anderson said.

Erickson said he wants people to recognize stopping chloride usage now will not make the environmental impacts disappear immediately. However, if reducing salt starts now, results will come sooner.

“We have to stay persistent with the cause of reducing road salt … so that we don’t continue to increase the problem for future generations,” Erickson said. “It’s taken us decades to get to this point in the problem and it’s probably going to take decades for us to get out of it.

Erickson said anyone who wishes to learn more should look into the Smart Salting Training and certification program and the Salt Symposium.

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled Vinicius Taguchi. His last name is Taguchi. 

The University of Minnesota owns 12 research centers throughout the state, all of which are on historic or contemporary Native lands.

Some of the research centers are now trying to establish relationships and collaborative land management practices with surrounding Native nations.

The Morrill Act made it possible in 1862 for states to establish public colleges funded by the sale of federal land grants. States took more than 10 million acres of Tribal lands, according to the National Archives and Records Administration.

The University received land grants through this act from the federal government, largely by lobbying efforts of Regent Henry Sibley. According to a research project by An Garagiola and Audrianna Goodwin through the Towards Recognition and University-Tribal Healing (TRUTH) Project, Sibley was known for his oppression, extraction and extermination of Native culture. In total, Sibley gained 186,791 acres through the dispossession of Indigenous nations.

The Dakota War began one month after the Morrill Act passed. According to Garagiola and Goodwin’s research, University regents oversaw the starvation, rape, murder and exile of many Dakota, Cheyenne and Ho-Chunk people during the war.

After the war, the University’s Board of Regents was able to use the Morrill Act land grants to obtain and sell Dakota lands to generate revenue. The land grab funded more universities than any other Morrill Act land grab.

According to Land Grab Universities, the University received 94,631 acres of land from the Morrill Act. They paid an inflation-adjusted $77,000 for the land titles and profited $10.6 million. Additionally, all lands provided to the University by federal or state governments become part of the Permanent University Fund, which held a market value of $543 million in 2016.

University spokesperson Jake Ricker said it has been a priority for President Joan Gabel to acknowledge the “painful realities” of the University’s past and work to rebuild and strengthen the relationships between the University and Minnesota’s Indigenous communities.

Although the University did sell a majority of the land to pay for the campuses over time, it has since obtained more land across the state for research purposes.

The Cloquet Forestry Center (CFC), Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories, Hubachek Wilderness Research Center (HWRC) and the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve are currently owned by the University.

Cloquet Forestry Center
Federal and state governments alloted the University more than 2,000 acres of land on the Fond du Lac reservation in 1909. After legislation like the Dawes Act of 1887 and the Nelson Act of 1889 made purchasing lands easier, CFC now owns 3,391 acres.

The Dawes Act broke up reservation land into individual land allotments for Native individuals who renounced Tribal affiliation to become American citizens. The remainder of allotments, more than 90 million acres, were sold to non-Native U.S. citizens, according to the National Park Service.

The Nelson Act relocated Anishinaabe tribes in Minnesota to the White Earth Reservation in the northwest and sold the vacated reservation land to European settlers.

“The way that people were duped out of ownership of their land was a colonizer tactic,” Damon Panek, wildland fire program manager and member of the Mississippi Band of White Earth Ojibwe, said.

Panek said due to how the land was taken, the University has an obligation to work with Tribal nations.

“How do we come to terms with how ownership of land today is a result of a morally wrong thing that happened?” Panek said. “One way is just give it back.”

Vern Northrup, a retired wildland fire operations manager and citizen of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, said the Dawes Act unfairly stole the lands from Native people. CFC occupies land within the Fond du Lac Reservation.

“It was stolen from us, we did not give it up voluntarily,” Northrup said. “This is a great big hole in our heart; it’s a 3,000-acre hole in our reservation.”

Northrup added the Fond du Lac Band is in the process of buying back as much land as possible to make their reservation whole again.

“There is a lot of hunting and gathering we could be doing there that we currently cannot,” Northrup said. “The biggest thing is returning ownership.”

Kyle Gill, forest manager and research coordinator at CFC, said the tribes are within their rights to challenge for their sovereignty even within private, University-owned lands.

Northrup said CFC could still be shared and used as a training service for foresters and wildlife biologists if the land is returned.

“Let’s use it for what it is, an educational ground,” Northrup said. “Not just for the white man, but also for us.”

Panek said not having complete access and management authority to their homelands restricts the opportunities to transmit cultural knowledge.

“If people don’t have, or don’t feel like they have, access to their homeland … you can’t do the things that comprise your identity and culture, it changes who you are,” Panek said.

Gill said whichever way the official land ownership works out, he hopes there is an appreciation for the value of collaboration.

CFC has recently started collaborative fire burning practices with the Fond du Lac Band.

Panek said the fire burning projects at CFC are unique because they show the University recognizes the land belongs to the tribes and it is the land acknowledgment in action.

“We know fire is a cultural keystone, and our hope is that it will create more opportunities for future collaborative efforts like medicine collection,” Gill said. “We want to be seen as an asset to the local community.”

Gill said the treaty rights for hunting, fishing and gathering is the next issue they want to discuss.

“Keeping an open dialogue and creating collaborations that help build trust … are crucial for us as we repair our relationships with Native communities,” Joleen Hadrich, CFANS interim associate dean for research and outreach centers, said in an email to the Minnesota Daily. “We will continue to have open dialogues for future collaborations.”

Hubachek Wilderness Research Center
The HWRC began as the Quetico-Superior Wilderness Research Center of the Wilderness Research Foundation in the 1940s. The Hubacheck family created the Wilderness Research Foundation and in 2014, gifted the land to the University, which became the Hubachek Wilderness Research Center.

Although HWRC was gifted to the University, the lands were still taken from Native nations in Ely, the heart of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA).

Under the 1854 Land Cession Treaty between the Chippewa of Lake Superior and the federal government, Native nations ceded or gave up rights to, most of northeastern Minnesota — including the BWCA. This includes the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

The treaty came after an 1848 discovery of copper within Lake Superior’s north shore. Mining companies began pressuring the federal government to relocate the Native communities to open the area for mining.

In exchange for ceding more than 2 million acres, the nations received minimal yearly payments split among cash, goods, agricultural supplies and school funds.

While the University privately owns HWRC now, the Hubacheck family left certain wishes for the University regarding the land they gifted.

Gill, who is also forest manager and research coordinator for HWRC, said the family desired a more passive management style, which is the approach they are taking.

“We are trying to mimic our land stewardship of the boundary waters,” Gill said.

Gill also said since the lands are in a more private area, there are few communication efforts with the outside community.

“Up there we are not technically open to public communication, but we recognize we need to do more,” Gill said.

Additionally, Gill said due to HWRC being ceded territory, they are not currently active in collaborative land management with Native communities.

“It’s really easy to believe that Indigenous people live in the past … when we talk about Indigenous people we talk about our neighbors,” Gill said.

Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories
Itasca Station is located within the Itasca State Park boundaries and the Mississippi headwaters. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has management authority of the lands and waters surrounding the station, not the University.

One year after the 1854 Land Cession Treaty, Ojibwe bands around the Mississippi headwaters ceded most of their land in north-central Minnesota in the 1855 Treaty of Washington, agreeing to similar terms as the 1854 treaty, according to the Historical Marker Database. This created the Leech Lake and Mille Lacs reservations.

The Minnesota Legislature designated Itasca as Minnesota’s first state park in 1891. The University established a field station at Itasca State Park to train forestry students in 1909.
Itasca Station Director Jonathan Schilling said being within a state park makes it difficult to collaborate with Native nations on land stewardship.

“Since there is no authority for collaboration to occur, our task is instead to focus more on relationship building with the surrounding Native communities,” Schilling said.

Schilling said he wanted to develop more of a relationship with the community since Leech Lake, White Earth and Red Lake reservations are nearby.

One area of engagement has been wild rice camps, which is a community event where wild rice is gathered and prepared, according to Larry Olson, annual rice camp organizer, District 3 Mahnomen county commissioner and citizen of the White Earth Nation.

“Over time, we’ve actually reseeded the lake with [wild] rice. When we first started there wasn’t very much rice out there,” Olson said.

Additionally, Becca Dallinger, program liaison for several collaborations between White Earth and Itasca station and consultant with Mahnomen Artists on Main Street, organizes Native artist residency programs through the Big River Continuum in collaboration with the Weisman Art Museum and an Itasca research project for Native youth.

“It’s a long history of relationship building within the Tribal communities that is so intensely important,” Daillinger said.

Schilling said the University has a responsibility to Native communities and needs to acknowledge the long history between the two.

“We need to work with these communities to strategize what to do next … I think the step one for the University is to acknowledge the history and the communities that are present,” Schilling said. “This is not just history, this is now. These communities are here, and we need to work to strategize the road forward together.”

Moving forward, Schilling said he would like to see more Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) integrated into the University curriculum and more collaborative research with Indigenous communities.

“In terms of research growth, it would be nice to develop plans that have equal contribution from all,” Dallinger said.

Olson said he would like to see a relationship with the University continue in the future.

Olson said he would be content “as long as they keep allowing us to do what we’re doing … reseeding the lake and providing other management skills.”

The DNR did not respond to the Daily’s request for comment

Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve
Cedar Creek is a nearly 5,000-acre experimental ecological reserve operated by the University in cooperation with the Minnesota Academy of Science.

The land that Cedar Creek resides on is a part of the land that was ceded during the 1855 Treaty of Washington, like Itasca station.

Before the treaty, Native people lived in and traveled through the Cedar Creek area for thousands of years. However, the treaty placed the lands in federal control and much of the area was later sold to the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad Company.
In 1942, the Ecosystem Science Reserve was established and the National Park Service designated it a National Natural Landmark in 1975.

Cedar Creek later became one of 11 sites in the U.S. selected by the National Science Foundation for funding of Long Term Ecological Research in 1982.

Caitlin Potter, associate director at Cedar Creek, said the science reserve sits at a historical boundary where an 1825 treaty drew a line on paper separating Dakota lands from Ojibwe lands.

The 1825 treaty, often referred to as the “Prairie du Chien line,” was an agreement between Dakota and Ojibwe leaders to create boundaries to protect themselves from incoming Europeans.

Potter said in the past, there has not been much collaboration between Native tribes and Cedar Creek, but those efforts have recently begun.

“When we define our research agendas for the coming 80 years, we are thinking about who hasn’t been part of the conversations and whose perspectives haven’t been part of the grants we’ve written, or the papers we’ve written, or the projects that we’ve pursued,” Potter said.

Potter said Cedar Creek is currently invested in building relationships with the Tribal nations and has a few collaborations such as educational workshops on topics like water quality, animal tracking and wild rice as well as high school internships.

“Over the course of the summer, the students worked on independent projects that specifically are bringing Native languages and Native perspectives to a new public trail at the reserve,” Potter said.

Fair compensation is one thing Cedar Creek is ensuring they do when they reach out to Native partners and collaborators to not repeat past mistakes, Potter said.

“We’re not asking them to do us a favor and share their knowledge, share their cultural traditions and share their language,” Potter said. “Instead, we ask them what they feel comfortable sharing and how they would like to be compensated.”

Cedar Creek also has a formal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan that opens with the land acknowledgment and ways the statement can be seen in action through projects and collaboration.

“That’s a way that we can hold ourselves accountable as well as build some of these other relationships,” Potter said. “It is important to me that Cedar Creek doesn’t solely dictate where we go, that the decisions that we make about the future are ones that are made in conversation with stakeholders, Native and non-Native.”

The University of Minnesota possesses collections of Native American ancestor remains and associated funerary objects that were supposed to be repatriated to their respective Tribes more than 30 years ago.

The Board of Regents approved the University to begin the repatriation process at the February board meeting. The University began an initial inventory in June and the final inventory is due in December.

The Mimbres-cultural collections the University possesses are from grave sites the anthropology department excavated in New Mexico nearly 100 years ago and are most likely affiliated with Pueblo Tribes, including the Hopi Nation.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990 required the University to inventory and return the collections under federal law, however, the University did not comply with these regulations for 32 years.

Melanie O’Brien, the national NAGPRA program manager, sent a letter to University President Joan Gabel in December 2021 urging for the University’s immediate compliance with NAGPRA.

“The University’s confusion might have been understandable in 1993, when it submitted its summary to the National Park Service,” O’Brien said. “But from December 4, 1995 and thereafter, the University knew or should have known that the funerary objects in question are associated funerary objects, and that they must be included in an inventory.”

History of archaeological suppression
Before NAGPRA, there were no federal protections against archaeological excavation of Native peoples and their belongings. Federal legislation allowed archaeologists and institutions to excavate objects and ancestors belonging to Native nations from 1906 to 1989.

The National Museum of the Native American Indian Act in 1989 required the Smithsonian Institution to return Native cultural items.

“Only [the National Museum of the Native American Indian Act] and NAGPRA acknowledge that those ancestors and cultural materials should be under the control of Native nations,” said Kat Hayes, an anthropology professor specializing in archaeological ethics and repatriation. “The others protect them as national heritage or as cultural resources with scientific value.”

According to National Park Services (NPS), NAGPRA requires all institutions that receive federal funding, such as the University and the Weisman Art Museum, to follow the regulations. NAGPRA requires the repatriation of all Native ancestor remains, funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony.

Non-compliance can result in civil penalties such as fines and removal of federal funding.

“Our Cultural Resource Unit had been urging the University to fix this wrong for many years. Under NAGPRA, they could have been fined and had all federal funding cut off,” Shannon Geshick, executive director of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council (MIAC) and citizen of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, said in an email to the Minnesota Daily.

Although NAGPRA was the first comprehensive federal law to acknowledge Native nations’ rights to human remains and artifacts, there are issues with the lack of definition in the law, Hayes said.

NAGPRA does not apply to private lands or privately funded institutions. It also does not define what tribal consultation is. The institutions that possess Native objects and ancestor remains are left to determine the cultural affiliation of objects and remains under NAGPRA instead of the Native communities they belong to.

“What has happened with NAGPRA is that it seems that no one’s asked lawyers how to do this, instead it’s archaeologists, anthropologists and museum curators who are trying to interpret it from their points of view,” Shannon O’Loughlin, chief executive and attorney for the Association on American Indian Affairs and citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, said.

The University’s era of non-compliance
University faculty and students led by anthropology professor Albert Jenks conducted excavations that included thousands of Mimbres objects and ancestor remains in New Mexico from 1928 to 1931, according to a statement by the Weisman.

The objects consisted of stone tools, arrowheads, points, animal-bone awls, beads, pendants and painted bowls.

The anthropology department largely kept the objects and remains together until 1989 when the Mimbres ancestors were transferred to MIAC. The funerary objects, other items and historical documentation were transferred to the Weisman Art Museum in 1992, where they remain today.

The University and the Weisman filed a summary of their collections but never completed a full inventory as required by NAGPRA.

“The summary lacks the level of detail that would have allowed MIAC to put the associated objects back together with the ancestors,” Hayes said.

A summary does not count as an inventory, which is required as part of the repatriation process for human remains and associated funerary objects, according to the NPS.

Former Weisman director Lyndel King, who served from 1981-2020, said she believed the museum was compliant with NAGPRA and their non-compliance was “an honest mistake.”

“The University, in essence, was holding those ancestors, and their related funerary objects for ransom by continuing to stall the inventory,” said An Garagiola research assistant for the Towards Recognition and University-Tribal Healing (TRUTH) Project and descendant of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.

Geshick said MIAC was appalled the University violated NAGPRA for more than 30 years.

“To our knowledge, they have not established policies that ensure that this abomination will never happen again,” Geshick said.

Misty Blue, a TRUTH Project coordinator and citizen of the White Earth Nation, said she would like to see a streamlined process put in place for rematriation efforts to happen regularly and on a sizable scale.

“For more than 170 years, the University has expropriated land, grabbed knowledge and taken sacred items from Native communities,” Blue said. “Rematriation efforts are an incredibly important step to begin to repair harm and these items need to be returned home.”

The University begins NAGPRA compliance
After 32 years of non-compliance with NAGPRA regulations, the Board of Regents passed a resolution on Feb. 11 to begin the repatriation of Mimbres-cultural objects.

“I think the Board thought it was a choice when it really is not a choice at all,” Douglas Thompson, assistant professor in the American Indian studies department at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, said.

O’Loughlin said she expects the University’s repatriation process to take a long time because artifacts have been dispersed between universities nationwide. O’Loughlin said loose regulations and financial incentives to keep their collections might further slow the process.

“If you take something that’s not yours, you give it back,” O’Loughlin said. “Instead, they do a lot to create burdens for tribes who are trying to repatriate.”

O’Loughlin said many tribes do not have the capacity or desire to fight with institutions over the collections they possess and would rather repatriation be a healing process.

“They don’t want to fight because this has to do with protecting ancestors’ religious items, and they don’t want to bring controversy to that process,” O’Loughlin said.

O’Loughlin said she thinks the problem with institutions, the science of archeology and anthropology, is that they have the notion that people who are Western civilized individuals are the only ones with the right to tell a story about who Native people are.

“There’s just this institutional racism that has been a part of these academic institutions that we’re fighting against,” O’Loughlin said.

Weisman starts the healing process
Alejandra Peña-Gutiérrez began her role as the Weisman Art Museum’s director in 2021 and began working with the repatriation process shortly after.

“I cannot speak for what happened in the past, I don’t have that perspective … I’m also not very worried about that,” Peña-Gutiérrez said. “I just want to move forward with this.”

Peña-Gutiérrez filed the first inventory in June. After the initial filing, they have six months to complete a final inventory, according to NAGPRA regulations.

Peña-Gutiérrez said she understands Native voices should take the lead and the Weisman is in no position to have any expectations or demands from the tribes.

“This is going to be a very long process that we have to listen to what the desires of the tribes are, and we have to wait and see how they decide for us to move forward,” Peña-Gutiérrez said.

Karen Diver, senior advisor to the president on Native American affairs, said in an email to the Minnesota Daily that the University takes its legal and moral obligations seriously regarding the repatriation of Native American ancestors and items of cultural patrimony.

Peña-Gutiérrez has also been following up with joint inventories from the other intuitions the University dispersed objects to and is now filing inventories with.

Juan Lucero, an independent curator working on Native contemporary art and member of the Weisman’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee as well as a citizen of the Isleta Pueblo Tribe, said it is up to the museum to find the objects they dispersed and retrieve them for return. He added he is grateful the Weisman started that process.

Peña-Gutiérrez said she also acknowledges the mistrust many Native communities, even within Minnesota, have for the University and the Weisman. Her main focus is rebuilding those relationships.

Angelique EagleWoman, professor and director of the Native American Law and Sovereignty Institute at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law and citizen of the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Oyate, said the rebuilding process is much longer and more difficult than some people expect.

“One thing I don’t think is often understood is that when cooperation and collaboration starts, there may not be an immediate surge of gratitude because of the long history of resistance and barriers,” EagleWoman said.

The Weisman started a Truth and Reconciliation project in 2020, which received a $239,912 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) on Nov. 15.

The Native American Advisory Board for this project will aid in consultation and issues of reconciliation with Indigenous communities, Peña-Gutiérrez said.

The Weisman also met with Tribal leaders from the Southwest on Oct. 4-6 to discuss the items the Weisman has and start a conversation about how to move forward, said Peña-Gutiérrez.

“It’s happening now, but it still doesn’t make up for the past thirty years,” EagleWoman said.

Lucero said he thinks what the Weisman is doing is significant for an institution on a national and international level. However, he thinks the excavations should not have happened in the first place.

“It’s always been my goal to bring light to these issues…I am really glad everything is finally able to go home … a lot of that stuff was never meant to be dug up,” Lucero said.

Garagiola said repatriation is more than just mailing items back to people, there are many culturally sensitive and financial obligations to consider.

“There’s oftentimes certain ceremonies that need to take place, ceremonies that sometimes can only happen at certain times of the year, or be done by certain people within a tribal community. We need to ask whose responsibility it is to bear the burden of those costs,” Garagiola said.

As the University completes the final inventory, Hayes said the most important part is to continue conversations with all 20 of the affiliated tribes listed with the objects.

EagleWoman also said Tribal nations existed long before the University and as a land-grant institution it is in the University’s best interest to continue the collaboration.

“I think it’s important for universities to have advisory boards composed of tribal people and tribal government representatives to ensure that they are handling these important cultural issues ethically, responsibly and in a manner that strengthens the relationship,” EagleWoman said.

New NAGPRA amendments to the regulations
New regulations under NAGPRA have been proposed and published, with a comment period through Jan. 17, 2023, O’Loughlin said.

“I invite folks to look for that, it’s a complete overhaul. It’s what we’ve been asking for from the Department of Interior,” O’Loughlin said. 

EagleWoman said one of the changes to NAGPRA is instead of tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations reaching out to institutions to request repatriation, it will be up to the institutions to update their inventory and begin the repatriation process. 

It will also eliminate the idea of culturally unidentifiable human remains and funerary objects and replace it with geographic affiliation, EagleWoman said. 

“This allows the local tribal nations to know that that’s their ancestor, that’s their relative. Where in the past they [institutions] could hide behind the culturally unidentifiable label, and then not have to return anything,” EagleWoman said. 

EagleWoman said her hope is that universities will start respecting the fact that Native people are not specimens of study.

“Native Americans are only asking to be treated as human beings and have their ancestors finally put to rest in culturally appropriate ways,” EagleWoman said. “We have the right to culturally lay our ancestors to rest and put to rest any of their associated items rather than have them on display for foreign people to look at.”

EagleWoman said her hope is that universities will start respecting the fact that Native people are not specimens of study.

“Native Americans are only asking to be treated as human beings and have their ancestors finally put to rest in culturally appropriate ways,” EagleWoman said. “We have the right to culturally lay our ancestors to rest and put to rest any of their associated items rather than have them on display for foreign people to look at.”

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated who the parties were in an October meeting. The Weisman met with Tribal leaders from the Southwest on Oct. 4-6. 

The University of Minnesota Law School and Humphrey School of Public Affairs currently does not have programs for Tribal governance or a Tribal law focus, although law school professors across the country have voiced its importance.

The Law School and Humphrey School have classes in Native studies and Tribal law, but neither have additional classes, a Tribal governance program or tenured Native faculty members to teach the classes.

As a land-grant institution, the University resides on Native lands and through the Towards Recognition and University-Tribal Healing (TRUTH) Project and MPact 2025 Strategic Plan, has a responsibility to improve relations with Minnesota’s 11 Tribal Nations.

University administrators said there are ongoing conversations about developing plans to represent Indigenous issues in curriculum and degree offerings. There are some obstacles in implementing some programs though such as a lack of Native faculty and competition with other programs around the state.

A lack of Native students in the Law School and Humphrey

Many professors and students said one of the issues with the University is the lack of Native student enrollment in the Law School and Humphrey School.

Reid Raymond, assistant Hennepin County attorney, a citizen of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota and former Law School student, said he believes not having a high number of Native students is a result of the University not recruiting or supporting Native students beyond financial means.

“We should really be fighting for them [Native students], to keep them in Minnesota,” Raymond said.

Christopher Smith, current law student, president of the Native American Law Student Association at the University and a citizen of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa, said it was surprising to realize there were not many Native students in the law program at the University.

Professors and students have also said Tribal classes and programs are not just for Native students to participate in.

Professor and department head of the American Indian studies department at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and member of the White Earth Anishinaabe Jill Doerfler said she thinks the stereotype that American Indian studies and Tribal governance programs are only for Native students is not true and that non-Native students are welcome to participate.

Tribal governments employ many non-Native employees, so a degree in Tribal governance or American Indian studies is very valuable, Doerfler said.

Matthew Fletcher, a professor of law at the University of Michigan and a citizen of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, said there are 574 recognized tribes and only about 2,500-3,000 Native people who are lawyers, which leaves many tribes in need of non-Native attorneys.

He said the same is true for every other area of Tribal government and Tribal economic activity, being that the vast majority of people who work for and with tribes are not Native.

“It’s necessary for non-Native students to know about Tribal governance,” Fletcher said.

Demonstrating the need for Tribal curriculum

Students and professors have expressed that the lack of Tribal curriculum and options for classes beyond Tribal law is another issue that deserves to be recognized.

Smith said although the University’s Law School offers an Indian law class and an Indian Law clinic, he thinks they could do more regarding curriculum.

“I think we would benefit from more Native faculty and classes,” Smith said. “There could be more classes beyond Indian law.”

Raymond said he thinks the University’s Law School is a very good law school, however, he also believes improvements could be made through additional Tribal classes.

“The Law School and Humphrey would benefit greatly by having classes that address Tribal sovereignty and what’s going on with tribes in Minnesota and across the country,” Raymond said. “It’s mutually beneficial and good education for there to be classes and curriculum about Tribal governments.”

Kevin Washburn, dean of the University of Iowa College of Law and citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, who also served as a Law School professor at the University from 2002 to 2007, said at Iowa State, they teach Indian law once a year, but there is only one federally recognized tribe in the state.

“There are 11 tribes in Minnesota and each deserves to be well-served in the educational system,” Washburn said.

Eric Eberhard is the associate director of the Native American Law Center and professor of practice at the University of Washington School of Law and practiced Indian law for more than 50 years. Eberhard said curriculum goes beyond law classes, and an understanding of Native history is also needed.

“I think Indian law is unique in the sense that you have to understand the historical basis of the law,” Eberhard said. “Indian law is living and it is connected to the history of Native people in the United States.”

Eberhard also said every law school in the country with a substantial Native population should have a rigorous curriculum for Indian law.

“The curriculum should make sure the graduates of the law school know the history of the law and the laws that apply to Native peoples,” Eberhard said.

Nisha Botchwey, dean of the Humphrey School, said in an email to the Minnesota Daily that the Humphrey School currently offers a Tribal-State Relations Workshop at Duluth, which examines the many levels of federal Indian policy and includes a course that focuses on energy systems and Tribal communities.

“We have expanded our collaboration with UMD’s Department of American Indian Studies to make Duluth course offerings and certificate programs accessible to Humphrey School students,” Botchwey said.

The law school curriculum regularly offers an Indian law course and an Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) Clinic, Mark Cohen, communication director for the University’s Law School, said in an email to the Daily. Additionally, the Child Advocacy & Juvenile Justice Clinic has also worked on cases involving Tribal law, he said.

The Law School would welcome the opportunities to further expand offerings in Tribal law and in recent years has been engaged in discussions with Humphrey about collaborating on Tribal law and governance work, Cohen said.

A need for Native faculty

In addition to curriculum, the University also lacks Native faculty positions, specifically those that are tenured.

Fletcher said Native faculty members attract Native students to the program and have the experience needed to teach about Tribal governments.

Fletcher also said it is helpful for Native students to be mentored by someone who comes from a Tribal government background.

“It’s really important to have people who have some experience working within Tribal governments dealing with Tribal governments, and those people tend to be Native people,” Fletcher said.

Both Raymond and Smith said there are not many Native faculty at the University and that tribally-focused classes should be taught by someone tribally affiliated.

Raymond also said tenured faculty positions are necessary in both the Law School and Humphrey School because it shows the University’s commitment to Native education.

“There is no major effort and I do not believe there is a Native tenured faculty member in any of those schools,” Raymond said.

Eberhard said without tenured faculty with experience in Indian law, Tribal voices are absent from positions of policy making at the University.

Eberhard added that he used to be partners with former Vice President and University graduate Walter Mondale and in his opinion, both Hubert Humphrey and Mondale would not be proud of a school carrying their names that does not include Native voices.

“Humphrey would not be happy that a school carrying his name does not have a representation on the faculty and in the policy making councils of the school for Native people,” Eberhard said. “There is no way he [Mondale] would be happy to see a whole segment of Americans excluded from the policy councils anywhere.”

Fletcher said beyond the Law School and Humphrey School, Native people should be represented throughout every discipline on campus.

“It seems like Natives always have to break down the doors to get in,” Raymond said. “We are here, if the University wants to move forward, there are plenty of well educated people willing to assist.”

Obstacles in creating programming

Some law professors and students said they think additional programming in Tribal governance and law would improve the educational experience at the University.

“A specialization in Tribal law would be a great option to have,” Smith said.

Washburn said programs of this type are important in educating and supporting tribes with Indian law issues.
However, some professors said they think adding a Tribal governance program would be difficult for the University.

Washburn said the University has never had a large number of Native students in the Law School due to competition from other local law schools.

“The Native students are split between three different law schools in the same city,” Washburn said. “It’s hard to get a critical mass of Native students for a full program.”

Additionally, Doerfler said Duluth has a Master of Tribal Administration and governance program through an online format that is available to all University campuses. She said she worries if the University starts offering their own program, student enrollment would be stretched between two campuses.

Students on the Twin Cities campus can take classes through Duluth with the multi-institutional registration system.

“It’s unnecessary, because it’s already being offered … students could just take our program,” Doerfler said. “There’s no reason for the University to invest additional resources in the exact same program.”

The University has made progress, but some think more could be done

Fletcher said many institutions received their lands directly from the federal government and the federal government received their lands directly through treaty processes.

“The lands upon which these universities are located come directly from aboriginal land holdings,” Fletcher said. “There is absolutely a moral and political obligation of universities, who are land-grant universities, to educate Native people and non-Native people about Native people and Tribal governments.”

Tribes are a huge economic contributor ingrained into the fabric of Minnesota and, therefore, they should be seen as an educational priority at the University, Raymond said.

Raymond said he thinks the University is missing a big opportunity in training people to fill positions provided by the Tribes.

“Everyone in Minnesota needs to know about tribes … I think not recognizing that is not wise, it’s not good education,” Raymond said.

Doerfler said Tribal administration and governance is an important area of study that most people are unaware of.

“Our political status is still widely misunderstood in the general population,” Doerfler said. “I think it’s important for everyone to have an understanding that American Indian nations exist today.”

The lack of Tribal programs has led some people to believe the University is falling behind other institutions and establishing programs for Tribal governance would benefit the University.

“Those portions of the University, the Law School, Humphrey and Carlson are probably, on a nationwide basis, lagging behind other higher education institutions,” Raymond said.

Raymond said he recognizes how far the University has come with involving Native education through the American Indian Studies (AMIN) department he established with the help of his father, but he also believes there is more the University can do.

The University remains committed to working respectfully with Minnesota’s Tribal Nations, Karen Diver, senior advisor to the president on Native American affairs, said in an email to the Daily. This includes ongoing conversation about developing and implementing plans to represent Tribes and Indigenous issues in curriculum and degree offerings.

Raymond also said because of the large Native social movements that began in Minnesota, the University should use their status to become a leader in Native programming.

“We should be one of the leaders … the American Indian Movement was formed in Minneapolis,” Raymond said.

Editor’s Note: Native peoples mentioned in this article speak only for themselves and their point of view unless otherwise stated. One perspective cannot be generalized for the entire community in any situation.

Prescribed and cultural fire burning practices returned to the University of Minnesota Cloquet Forestry Center (CFC) in May by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa after decades of prohibition.

CFC became a University-owned 3,400-acre forest and research center in 1909 on the reservation lands of the Fond du Lac Band.

Since the tribes are a sovereign authority, they can burn their reservation lands freely. However, Cloquet is University owned despite being on reservation land, which means collaboration with the University is currently required to burn.

Chapter 196 of the General Laws for 1895 prohibited burning across the state, and fire becoming outlawed in the early 1900s changed the landscape and disregarded cultural connections to fire burning, Vern Northrup, a retired wildland fire operations manager and member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, said.

“Indigenous people in the U.S. and other countries have been using fire for thousands of years to shape their environment … and at one time it was generally accepted that we could burn whatever whenever we wanted to … then all fire became bad,” Northrup said.

The benefits of burning

There are many beneficial reasons for burning practices to help the landscape, Kurt Kipfmueller, associate professor of geography, environment and society who researches fire ecology in the Great Lakes region, said.

“A lot of the species that we have in Minnesota … are what we call fire dependent,” Kipfmueller said. “They need fire to either help them propagate or help them persist on the landscape, so without fire, we’ll see a whole-scale change in species compositions.”

Damon Panek, wildland fire program manager and member of the Mississippi Band of White Earth Ojibwe, said fire will clear out vegetation so there is no competition between species that can adapt to fire. Additionally, Panek said fire burning makes the nutrients in a landscape’s soil absorbable for plants.

Panek also described the “edge-effect” the fire creates in which there is a burned part of the ecosystem and an unburned part that create a variety of ecosystem types called a mosaic. This mosaic leads to diversity in species since some species like fire and others do not.

“Diversity equals resilience,” Panek said.

Fire-maintained woodlands are more resilient to climate change, can withstand drought and are less susceptible to high-intensity fires later on, said Lane Johnson, research forester at CFC. Since the flammable understory of the forest is burned more frequently, it reduces fuel for a larger fire, he said.

“It does matter from a safety perspective … we use prescribed fire to help keep trees spread out to prevent fuel build-ups and larger fires,” Kipfmueller said. “If we don’t do that … it’s probably going to have a detrimental impact on people’s lives, livelihoods and property.”

The cultural aspects of forest burning

There are also many cultural aspects that rely on forest burning, Panek said. For example, when culture is reliant on a species that is fire-dependent like blueberries, he said it is important to have the ability to burn to connect to that aspect of the culture.

“Those are a part of our language, culture and identity,” Panek said. “We are creating a space for our culture to carry on.”

Northrup said he has devoted his life to fire and feels connected to the land through it.

“Anishinaabeg [Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes Region] are part of the land and the land is inside of us, everything we receive we got from the land,” Northrup said. “We took care of it, and it took care of us … and we still strive to do that.”

Panek said the Anishinaabeg have been managing forests with fire for thousands of years.

“We are only continuing a traditional cultural practice that our ancestors established,” Panek said. “The things we are doing are not new at all.”

Panek connected fire burning to everyday routine practices such as mowing the lawn to show the reciprocal relationship present.

“Pretty much everyone knows about having to mow their lawns … if you are harvesting from your space, you are aware of imports and exports of your space. When you connect to a space in that way, you understand it,” Panek said.

A collaboration to burn

University collaboration is currently needed to burn at Cloquet, and the management is willing and able to accommodate burning practices.

Cloquet had a few smaller prescribed fires for ecological benefits in the late 90s to early 2000s but nothing beyond five acres, said Kyle Gill, forest manager and research coordinator at CFC.

“Minnesota currently has strict liability laws when it comes to burning … which is why getting partners to help us burn was so hard,” Gill said.

May marked the first prescribed burning in Cloquet for more than 20 years.

“With the Cloquet Forest within the Fond du Lac reservation, we have this exciting shared geography that historically has been a source of tension,” Johnson said. “But now we are in a space where we see it as an opportunity to be modeling collaborative and cross-cultural approaches to land stewardship.”

Seventy-five acres of land were burned with help from the Fond du Lac Band, Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Nature Conservancy and University researchers.

“Fire is one of those things that we share in common … it’s a tool that can bridge a cultural divide,” Johnson said.

Native communities originally harnessed fire and are probably best set up to be able to bring that back, Kipfmueller said. Cloquet is taking the right approach, and the respectful exchange of information and dialogue is key, he said.

Johnson said we are only beginning to understand the value and importance of the collaborative prescribed fire being done at CFC.

“This whole integration of traditional, cultural, experiential, Indigenous knowledge is seemingly a new thing,” Panek said. “Finally the academics are listening to us and reckoning that we have a valid scientific process as well.”

Panek said for him, this is the land acknowledgment in action that allows Native people back into the space for management.

“Just by letting us collaborate and partner with them to get fire on the ground means that they acknowledge we have rights to those grounds,” Panek said.

It also shows the University acknowledges that Native people did burn for land management in the past, Panek said.

With collaborative management comes the need for a close relationship between CFC and the Fond du Lac Band, as well as inclusion in future management efforts, Johnson said.

Gill said Tribal inclusion in management decisions is important, which is why CFC and the Fond du Lac Band developed a legal agreement, called a memorandum of understanding, for collaborative burning practices and land stewardship.

“In the past few years, we continue to strengthen our personal relationships with folks that represent the [Fond du Lac] Band … it’s all about relationship building and taking time to understand each other’s values,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he hopes what Cloquet is doing locally is seen as a success and more collaboration can occur across other research projects for resource management efforts.

In addition to future collaboration on the management of CFC, integrating new guidelines and frameworks that include the Fond du Lac Band is necessary for future progress, Johnson said.

In the past, the CFC has not notified the Band of management activities because CFC is on private land and there was no requirement to, Gill said. In the future, official consultation is needed and should be required.

“The University has a responsibility to the tribes,” Johnson said. “I can see there being value in ways to formalize the Nation to University relationships and make them more durable.”

Johnson also said the University needs to not just notify, but also engage and exchange information around every issue.

“This isn’t just about burning, it’s about the human-cultural relationship to this space, and we deserve to be informed,” Panek said.

Land Recognition statement created by environmental storyteller, Clare Boerigter, for her article: “Ojibwe firefighters restore fire to the Cloquet Forestry Center.”

The Cloquet Forestry Center (CFC) is located on the reserved lands of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa on the unceded territory of the Great Lakes Anishinaabeg. The CFC was established in 1909 after the St. Louis River Mercantile Company donated roughly 2,000 acres of land to the University, alongside the purchase by the University of an additional 500 acres. Additional purchases and donations contribute to the present 3,400 acres of the CFC, land stewarded by the University on the Fond du Lac Reservation. This unceded land was identified as being the sovereign and commonly held lands of the Fond du Lac Band in the 1854 Treaty of LaPointe before the enactment of the Nelson Act of 1889. This act, along with the Dawes Act of 1887, legalized land abuses against Indigenous peoples in Minnesota and the U.S., resulting in the eventual loss of 100 million acres of reservation land across America. Learn more about the Fond du Lac Band and their history.

The University of Minnesota received a grant in2021 to construct a telescope that can quickly find astronomical events. This fall, the team began creating the telescopes for deployment in Magdalena Ridge Observatory in New Mexico and the Skinakas Observatory in Greece to pinpoint cataclysmic events such as supernovae.

Patrick Kelly, a University of Minnesota researcher and associate professor in the College of Science and Engineering, received a $1 million grant in September 2021 from the National Science Foundation to construct a telescope that can pinpoint supernovae and other astronomical events within two-seconds of detection for the three-year Total-Coverage Ultra-Fast Response to Binary-Mergers Observatory (TURBO) project.

Daniel Warshofsky, a doctoral student working on the TURBO telescope, explained that both of the sites, Greece and New Mexico, will have eight mounts with two telescopes on each mount — so there will be 16 total telescopes at each site.

The two locations were chosen so that the night sky could be in view at all hours of the day, Kelly said.

The project includes a team of doctoral and undergraduate students who have been building and deploying prototypes to test the accuracy and efficiency of the TURBO telescope model. The prototype telescope is currently housed on the St. Paul campus near the agricultural fields.

Kelly said the set-up for the prototype is an enclosure made of fiberglass that opens like a clam shell. The mount, two telescopes, a motor for movement and a camera are housed inside.

The motor allows the telescopes to look at different parts of the sky at the same time, Warshofsky said.

“We can have all the telescopes point to different locations, so we can get a huge field of view. That’s really important for finding what we’re looking for,” Warshofsky said. “If we want to look at more detail, we can actually point all the telescopes at the same point on the sky.”

The team has several undergraduate students working on the project to code for telescope movement, work on camera imaging and begin data analysis.
Matthew Tran, a fourth-year student in computer science, works on coding the telescope to perform certain actions such as looking at a specific part of the sky or making autonomous observations and analyzing collected data.

“I think it’s fun to work in a team with people of different backgrounds like computer science, engineering, physics. They’re learning from each other,” Kelly said.

Many of the students are graduating soon, so the project is looking for more undergraduate assistants to join the team, Kelly said.

Paul Crowell, head of the school of physics and astronomy, said in an email to the Minnesota Daily that TURBO has been a great project that provides unique scientific results.

“I am particularly excited by the fact that so many U of M students have participated in its design and construction,” Crowell said.

Two of the project’s major goals are to increase the speed of detecting an object in the sky and increase how precisely that object can be found, Warshofsky said.

The general area of an object can be known, but it is difficult to know the precise location. This is where TURBO is useful – to pinpoint the exact location, Warshofsky said.

The team is looking for transient events, which include cataclysmic events such as supernovas, kilonovas or black holes merging, and then they capture the photos after finding them, Tran said.

“The novelty here is that we’re going to be capturing the optical counterpart, and we’re going to be doing it sooner than anyone else has,” Tran said.

The big thing the team wants to do with TURBO is detect kilonovas, which are the afterglow of stellar remnants spiraling until collision, Warshofsky said.

“A very exciting discovery occurred in 2017, where we found light emitted by the merger of two neutron stars … that’s now known as a kilonova,” Kelly said. “This may be where a lot of heavy elements like gold originate, but we don’t know for sure, so I want to find more of these.”

Warshofsky said the problem with finding these transients is that no one knows where they are going to be, “they’ll just pop up randomly.”

Transients can be found using detectable gravitational waves, which are produced by cataclysmic events, Tran said.

The waves are also picked up by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). However, LIGO is not able to tell where exactly the transients are positioned in the sky, Warshofsky said.

“It’ll take a long time to try and find where they are, and by the time you find them, you may have missed it,” Warshofsky said. “One of the big science goals of TURBO is to be able to quickly figure out where the transient is, take our own data on it and then tell everybody else to point all of their telescopes at it.”

Tran compared it to finding an object in a football field to further explain the full process. Someone can say there is an object in a football field, which is what LIGO does, but what TURBO does is look through the field to pinpoint exactly where the object is.

Tran also said TURBO is not the most powerful telescope, but instead focuses on finding events like transients quickly and efficiently.

“The significance of that [TURBO’s efficiency] is that a lot of interesting phenomena happen very early on after these events occur, and they become lost because too much time is spent looking for them,” Tran said.

With TURBO, the amount of time spent looking for events will decrease and, hopefully, so will the amount of events missed, Warshofsky said.

Zoran Ninkov, a program director with the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Astronomical Sciences Division said, “TURBO’s unique ability to rapidly train optical telescopes on the location of those gravitational waves in space as they are detected is of great importance in understanding not just the source of the waves but also the underlying physics involved.”

The TURBO project has funding until August 2024 and will continue to make progress toward the eventual goal of deploying telescopes in New Mexico and Greece.

“If all things go well, TURBO will be built and fully operational in the next year or two,” Warshofsky said.

The Bell Museum premiered a new exhibit, “Narwhal: Revealing an Arctic Legend,” in October in addition to celebrating its 150-year anniversary.

The Bell Museum was founded by the Minnesota Legislature and put in trust to the University of Minnesota in 1872 as the Minnesota State Natural History Museum and has been housed in its current location on Larpenteur Avenue near the St. Paul Campus since 2018.

The newly debuted narwhal exhibit is a traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution and will be hosted at the Bell Museum until Jan. 8, 2023, said Kelsey Griffin, gallery programs coordinator at the museum. The Bell Museum chose to display this exhibit as winter begins to illustrate the impacts of climate change and the importance of Indigenous knowledge in science.

The exhibit features a life sized model of an 18-foot narwhal and also contains a nearly 9-foot cast of a real narwhal tusk that people can stand next to. There are also plenty of interactive displays on the walls, Griffin said.

“This exhibit is all about narwhals, their changing ecosystem and how that changing system is really important to helping us understand the global changing climate,” said Nehwoen Luogon-Bojkov, communication associate at the Bell Museum.

According to the Bell Museum’s website, first-hand accounts with Inuit community members can reveal how experience and traditional knowledge can aid in the overall understanding of narwhals and global climate change.

“Inuit communities and the Smithsonian researchers have worked together to pair that Indigenous knowledge and other scientific research to provide us with more information about Narwhals,” Luogon-Bojkov said.

The exhibit is open to the public for regular general admission. University students get admission to all Bell Museum exhibits for free.

In the coming months and for the current Native American Heritage Month of November, the Bell Museum has more events to offer and learn from.

On Nov. 30, there is a free film screening of “Inhabitants: Indigenous Perspectives on Restoring Our World” at the museum in addition to a discussion after the screening.

“The film focuses on five Native American communities and their journeys to restoring their traditional land management practices in the face of a changing climate,” Luogon-Bojkov said.

On Dec. 14, there is also a virtual discussion about the importance of different animals and language to the Dakota and Lakota communities, Luogon-Bojkov said.

“We are on Native American soil, and that’s not just Minnesota, it’s not just the Bell Museum, that’s the whole country,” Luogon-Bojkov said. “I think it’s just been really important to continue to make that an important part of learning about nature and the natural world around us.”

The narwhal exhibit is a traveling exhibition from their affiliation with the Smithsonian Museum, said Luogon-Bojkov, the Bell Museum also has a long-standing partnership with the University of Minnesota and the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS).

Both graduate and undergraduate CFANS students, in addition to faculty, use the Bell Museum’s collections for research and the Bell Museum regularly employs University students, Luogon-Bojkov said.

Joleen Hadrich, interim associate dean of CFANS research and outreach centers, said in an email to the Minnesota Daily that the Bell Museum has created a place for visitors to engage with groundbreaking research through collections, rotating exhibits and hands-on experiences.

“As they celebrate their 150th anniversary this year, we’re proud to recognize their ongoing contributions to CFANS, the University, and our state,” Hadrich said. “With a legacy of bringing discoveries to life through science, CFANS is fortunate to have a long-standing partnership with the Bell Museum, whose role as Minnesota’s state natural history museum remains as relevant today as ever.”

Now that the Bell Museum has made its 150 year milestone, it is focusing on the next 150 years, Sushma Reddy, associate professor and curator of birds at the Bell Museum, said.

Reddy said one of the reasons she came to work for the University was because of the Bell Museum’s strong reputation.

Reddy said the educational opportunities the Bell Museum provides is a valuable resource for biodiversity conservation and public understanding.

“I’m a real big believer in the wonder that natural history museums can bring to people of all sorts,” Reddy said. “It’s what inspired me to go down my career path.”

Research produced by the Wardill Lab at the University of Minnesota has scientifically advancing results on how cephalopods hunt and use vision, which has broader impacts for ocean health and marine animal adaptations to climate change.

Trevor Wardill created the lab when he came to the University to further his research interests with cephalopods, which include squids, cuttlefish and octopus, to further our understanding of marine animal adaptations over time. The lab facilitates research and educational opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate level students.

The lab’s focus is to look at “how animals see the world and then use that information to coordinate behavior … which includes prey capture,” said Wardill, assistant professor in ecology, evolution and behavior.

In one ongoing research study, they are looking at cephalopod vision in a new way: with cuttlefish wearing 3D glasses.

“I am interested in vision and color, but as it turns out, cephalopods don’t have color vision at all, although they produce iridescence in their skin with amazing coloration,” Wardill said. “To me it’s kind of this weird enigma of how do they not see color and yet put all these cool displays on?”

Wardill said the study was inspired by an older paper that suggested cuttlefish did not detect distance based on the vision in both eyes in addition to not having depth perception.

“For me, as a vision scientist, that didn’t make a lot of sense,” Wardill said, “I was pretty certain they have perception in that somehow.”

There was another study that put colored glasses on mantis species to create a 3D cinema, and Wardill thought they should try that on a cuttlefish.

“A cuttlefish wearing shades and swimming around a tank is pretty cool,” Wardill said.

Although this study was previously done on insects, it had never been done in the water, let alone on a marine organism.

“Almost immediately, people were like ‘you’re mad like there’s no way this is gonna work,’” Wardill said. “It was a little far-fetched, but with a bit of ingenuity and persistence, we figured out that we could attach small glasses to the head of cuttlefish using super glue.”

Wardill said they then trained the cuttlefish to attack a monitor on the side of the tank so they could test whether cuttlefish perception uses differences in the left and right eye to calculate depth.

The research of the Wardill Lab has brought many graduate students in to participate in the cephalopod research, while also adding in their own ideas.

James Peyla, a doctoral student in the Wardill Lab, plans to study how cephalopods, specifically cuttlefish, develop their ability to capture many types of prey through examination of social and instinctual methods of learning.

“My question is, how do they arrive at that ability [to capture prey]? Is it instinct? Do they just come out of the egg knowing how to take down all the prey? Do they learn it through trial and error, or even through watching each other?” Peyla said.

Cuttlefish are more solitary animals, but they definitely watch each other when they are feeding, Peyla said.

Another doctoral student in the Wardill Lab, Rachael Kaspar, studies bobtail squid camouflage and prey capture.

“What’s really special about them is that they have a light organ that is able to help camouflage them at night when they’re swimming in the water column,” Kaspar said. “I am interested in how they use their light organ and also how they are able to remember and learn to catch prey,” Kasper said.

These natural mechanisms and behaviors are altered based on environmental factors and therefore, bobtail squid can be used as an indicator for how well marine ecosystems adapt to stressors such as climate change or plastic pollution, Kaspar said.

Wardill Lab’s advanced research has led to five separate features in the New York Times, including the most recent in September.

On Sept. 20, the New York Times featured the lab for completed research on the hunting mechanism of octopuses.

“We wanted to look at arm control in octopuses and see whether there were any rules they use to deploy their arms in capturing prey,” Wardill said. “The big highlight was that they use vision for prey capture.”

They also discovered octopuses adapt their method of hunting for the type of prey they are after, said Natalie Bennett, a doctoral student in the Wardill Lab studying biomedical informatics and computational biology (BICB), who also worked on the paper.

Additionally, Bennett said the octopuses had a preference for which limbs they liked to hunt with, choosing one of the eight and right or left.

“You’d think that they’d use their first arm because it’s the one on the front … we found that they usually use the second arm,” Bennett said. “It’s super cool to see yourself in the New York Times for something…nerdy.”

Kaspar said the ability to connect with others about science through the media is a huge way to communicate cool ideas and help the public learn.

“Whenever we get that kind of attention, it makes us feel great too,” Kasper said.

The Wardill Lab has brought important scientific recognition to the University and the department of ecology, evolution and behavior.

“The Wardill research team is pushing boundaries in behavioral science, showing the way on how to understand the diversity of life,” Micheal Travisano, ecology, evolution and behavior department head, said in an email to the Minnesota Daily. “Their research demonstrates the amazing adaptations of cephalopods, giving us a better perspective of our own abilities.”

As graduate students can begin their research again after the pandemic, the Wardill lab will start to learn more about cephalopods’ predation and vision to watch out for in future studies.

As International Day of Climate Action approaches on Monday, the University of Minnesota is showcasing its commitment to climate action through several organizations such as the Institute on the Environment (IonE), the University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership (MCAP) and the UMN Twin Cities Sustainability Committee.

Seventy-six percent of Minnesotans are worried about climate change and 64% of Minnesotans think we should prepare for climate change, according to a recent study by the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS) in partnership with MCAP.

IonE is an extension of the University and focuses on solving larger environmental issues through education, research and policy.

“We really try to be a hub for collective climate action, innovation and impact,” Kate Nyquist, manager of communications and content at IonE, said. “Our mission is really impact driven so that what happens within IonE makes some change out in the world.”

IonE does conduct research, but they also take the next step to understand how decision-makers will access and use this information through local solutions and building community partners, Nyquist said.

One project that IonE is working with is the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association, local communities and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to better understand flooding threats and climate change adaptations.

Another project IonE has, in partnership with Stanford University, is the Natural Capital Project, in which developers, municipalities, consultants and advocacy groups connect to understand the value of natural services through creating models, Nyquist said.

Additionally, IonE works with German partners on an international renewable energy partnership called Climate Smart Municipalities and has a program for food system supply chain sustainability, also known as FoodS³.

“We know that collective and collaborative action is going to create more creative and sustainable solutions, so we work hard to create the conditions that help bring people and their ideas together,” Nyquist said.

Aside from IonE, the University also created MCAP to understand climate change impacts and predict future outcomes across the Midwest.

“To help Minnesotans better understand future climate risks, we are working on a project supported by the State Legislature of Minnesota to generate future climate projections for the next 50-100 years,” MCAP Associate Director Nate Meyer said.

Another project is working to monitor and assess the success of priority actions outlined in the Resilient Communities section of the new Minnesota Climate Action Plan, Meyer said.

Additionally, MCAP is working with tribal communities to co-develop an updated adaptation plan for the 1854 Treaty Authority and the Bois Forte, Grand Portage and Fond du Lac reservations, Meyer said.

“International Climate Action Planning Day is very much aligned with our partnership’s vision that communities and landscapes are prepared for and thrive in a changing climate,” Meyer said. “Adapting to our changing climate requires an all-of-society approach where everyone is engaged in paying attention, planning for and taking action.”

The University also developed the UMN Twin Cities Sustainability Committee to focus on changes needed for MPact 2025, a systemwide plan to advance the University’s mission and innovation.

“In the MPact 2025 strategic plan, the University aims to build a fully sustainable future and taking action on climate change is at the heart of this,” Shane Stennes, chief sustainability officer at all University of Minnesota campuses, said. “We’ve made progress, cutting campus carbon pollution by half, but the work is not done.”

The University announced plans to divest from fossil fuels in October 2021 after years of pressure from student groups.

The committee is holding an All Campus Sustainability Kick-off on Saturday to showcase sustainability on University campuses and build connections for the upcoming planning stages.

According to the sustainability committee website, the committee plans to finalize their Climate Action Plan for MPact 2025 by summer 2023.

As for individual action, there are many ways students can get involved with the International Day of Climate Action, such as educating themselves on sustainable practices, understanding how their major can impact climate change and providing input for MPact 2025.

“I encourage students to learn about how their academic interests and major disciplines can help to address climate change,” Meyer said.

Artie Hillman, a student graphic design assistant at the IonE, said they are currently working to post an education series pertaining to climate action every Monday.

IonE is dedicated to providing opportunities for students, faculty and community partners to become sustainability leaders through cohorts, projects and curriculum, Nyquist said. IonE also employs many students in the sustainability field, she said.

“Youth voices, on campus and beyond, are critical to achieving the transformational change needed,” Stennes said.

Students interested in participating and learning more are also invited to attend the Twin Cities Climate Action Workshop on Nov. 15 from 4-5:30 p.m. in Moos Tower, Stennes said.

Some students at the University of Minnesota who are dually enrolled in the University Honors Program (UHP) and the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS) said they have been finding it difficult to graduate with distinction due to minimal honors courses within the curriculum and generally feeling unsupported by the program.

There are currently 130 total undergraduate students in CFANS and most departments within the college have around 10 honors students, aside from the animal science, environmental sciences and policy and management programs, Associate professor and Honors Faculty Representative for animal science Milena Saqui-Salces said.

CFANS 3091V is the only offered honors course within the regular curriculum, as of now, Saqui-Salces said. There is also no current honors advisor assigned solely to the college, which results in students saying they feel a lack of support from both UHP and CFANS.

Some students in the honors program and CFANS said when they were a freshman, the honors program was advertised as a supportive community and that it would be a part of their identity as a student.

However, after starting the honors program, CFANS students discovered a disconnect between their college and the honors program.

“[The honors program] drew me to come to the University,” Grace Atchison, a fourth-year student in food science and nutrition (FSCN) who dropped out of the honors program, said.

Atchinson said after her freshman year, she realized there wasn’t a large honors program presence within CFANS, and her friends outside of CFANS within honors programs had more opportunities for experiences and courses.

Other students have said trying to figure out how to fulfill the honors program requirements on time has become a stressor, and it feels as if it is designed to make you drop.

And some students did drop out of the honors program to graduate on time.

“Not having the option to take honors classes made it hard to stay within the program,” Atchison said. “I was looking at my APAS and honors and there was no way I could complete it all, there is no course overlap with FSCN.”

The honors program at the University requires a Nexus One experience in the first year, three honors courses, five additional honors experiences and a senior honors thesis. Of the three honors courses, one must be either a Grand Challenge Curriculum (GCC) course or an honors seminar. The additional five honors experiences can be honors classes, internships, study abroad experiences or research.

“Certainly, we welcome conversations from CFANS faculty interested in teaching honors seminars, developing honors courses, participating in the NEXUS program and providing research and service-learning opportunities for students,” Matt Bribitzer-Stull, director of UHP, said in an email to the Minnesota Daily.

Meeting other CFANS honors students in an introductory course, like a Nexus One experience, would be very helpful, Atchison said.

Arion Hutchinson is a second-year honors student studying environmental sciences, policy and management. Hutchinson said she would like to see more honors courses both within his major or just loosely tied to CFANS.

“I think this would be beneficial…to meet other honors students with similar interests,” Hutchinson said.

However, students find difficulty taking GCC classes due to their unusual scheduling.

“It’s a little tricky because you can’t really plan these [GCC courses] into your schedule in advance because they aren’t regular courses,” Hutchinson said.

Additionally, the lack of classes outside of GCC makes it difficult for CFANS students in the honors program to complete degree requirements.

Some students in the honors program and CFANS said a lack of honors seminars in CFANS combined with the requirement to take them causes an equity and accessibility issue. They must rely on honors experiences to complete the program, the majority of which are unpaid volunteer positions.

Another challenge with retaining honors students is the lack of core curriculum. Other colleges within the University have core classes they can make honors, but CFANS does not, CFANS Dean Brian Buhr said.

An issue highlighted by both students and faculty was the need for a stronger sense of community within the UHP and CFANS. Some honors students in CFANS said they do not have a good relationship with previous honors advisors in CFANS or UHP staff.

“One reason I was really eager to be a part of the honors program was the claim that it would give us the opportunity to get a “small college feel” at a school with all of the opportunities of a large university,” Hutchinson said. “I don’t know that I would characterize my experience that way.”

Going forward, students and faculty said they would like to see CFANS and UHP make changes to accommodate the challenges students face in both programs. Some honors students in CFANS said they desire an honors advisor trained specifically for CFANS students and more training for faculty representatives.

Another idea some CFANS students brought up is increasing the amount of honors course add-ons that can be done, from a singular one per academic year to multiple.

“We would like to offer more, particularly seminars, but the challenge we run into is faculty availability,” Buhr said, but currently there are no incentives for faculty to teach honors classes and they must do so with their own free time.

Professor Jim Perry, who is a previous CFANS honors faculty representative, said he proposed to have honors sections added to larger classes within CFANS to increase opportunities for honors students, however, the idea was never implemented.

“I’ve been long advocating for a [CFANS] college-wide thesis course; discussions continue on that topic,” Bribitzer-Stull said. “I’d also like to see a lot more faculty involvement in UHP across the University.”

Hearing and implementing ideas is something we need to evaluate and work on moving forward, Buhr said.

Even with the desire for change, students and faculty view the honors program in general as a necessity to University life.

“I think the honors program is a significant benefit to students through enhanced class experiences and distinction at graduation for future employment,” Perry said.