The University of Minnesota Board of Regents selected four applicants to interview for the interim president position at its special meeting Thursday afternoon. 

Board members narrowed down a pool of 21 anonymous candidates to Jeffrey M. Ettinger, Myron Frans, Mary Holz-Clause and E. Thomas Sullivan after two rounds of voting. 

The Office of the Board of Regents (OBR) launched the interim president application on April 25, following President Joan Gabel’s announcement of her departure earlier last month. An interim president will be chosen after a round of interviews in front of the board next week. 

“I am thrilled with the applicant pool that we received,” board Chair Jaine Mayeron said during the meeting. “I am floored with the number of applicants we’ve received in a short window of time… we have a very robust pool.” 

Candidates were selected using a voting system where board members placed stickers on letter-labeled charts. The regents held two rounds of voting, narrowing their choices in the second round, before settling on the four candidates. 

During the board’s discussion on the applicants, many regents expressed interest in selecting candidates who have experience in higher education and government relations. That included one of the newest members, Regent Robyn Gulley. 

“I definitely found myself leaning towards candidates who have extensive experience in universities and higher education,” Gulley said at the meeting. “It’s such a big cultural shift to come from another sector.”  

Interim President Candidates 

The four selected candidates have a range in backgrounds, including politics, university administration and corporate leadership. 

Ettinger is the chair of the Hormel Foundation Board of Directors and former chief executive officer of Hormel Foods Corporation. He was also an executive fellow at the University’s Carlson School of Management. 

The Hormel Foundation has ties to the University through the Hormel Institute, which is a biomedical research department. It also is a key supporter of the University’s Future of Advanced Agricultural Research in Minnesota (FAARM) project. 

Frans is the University’s current senior vice president of finance and operations. Within this role, he serves as the University’s chief financial officer, operations officer and treasurer. 

Prior to working for the University, Frans was commissioner of Minnesota Management and Budget in 2015 and 2019, and has been a private practice tax attorney for 27 years. 

The current Chancellor of the University of Minnesota-Crookston, Holz-Clause, is another candidate for the interim position. She has held numerous roles in university administration, including serving as the dean of agriculture at Cal Poly Pomona in California and as the vice president for economic development at the University of Connecticut.

Thomas Sullivan is president emeritus and professor of law and political science at the University of Vermont. He also served as the former provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the University from 2004 to 2012.

New Vice President of University Services 

Board members will also vote on whether to approve Minnesota’s current Commissioner of the Department of Administration, Alice Roberts-Davis, as the new vice president of University Services at its meeting next Thursday. 

The University launched a nationwide search for a new vice president of University Services last November. If approved, Roberts-Davis will take over for the current Interim Vice President Matt Kramer, who resigned in February.  

Roberts-Davis previously served as the assistant commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Administration and worked as a regional real estate manager at Target.  

“Alice Roberts-Davis is a highly accomplished and regarded leader with extensive experience in real estate, capital projects, facilities management and complex operation management,” Frans said in a University-wide email on Thursday.

The process to clean up an industrial Superfund site in Southeast Como will begin in late summer after being in the neighborhood for more than 40 years. 

Last March, the decades-old Southeast Hennepin site was recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a Superfund site and was added to the National Priorities List for cleanup. 

A Superfund site is an area that has been polluted by hazardous materials and has been selected by the federal government for cleanup, according to the EPA.  

Alongside the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), the EPA has taken the first steps on notifying local residents about the cleanup process as community concern over exposure to hazardous materials grows. 

History of Como Superfund sites 

The Southeast Hennepin site, which spans between Northeast Broadway and East Hennepin Avenue, has trichloroethylene-polluted groundwater. The site has contained a number of operations, including a gravel pit, outdoor motor manufacturing and metal finishing. 

Although the site is in a predominantly industrial location, it borders a residential area. 

Trichloroethylene (TCE) is commonly used by industrial corporations to degrease large machines. Exposure to the chemical can impact immune and reproductive systems, the liver, kidneys and central nervous system, according to the MPCA. It can also increase the risk of liver cancer. 

Those who live and sleep in basements often receive increased exposure to TCE and its risks because it accumulates below ground-level. 

A second site in Southeast Como, known as the General Mills/Henkel Corp. Superfund site, located at 2110 E. Hennepin Ave., received EPA recognition in 1984 after creating a half-mile TCE plume underground from its use of the chemical during research.  

Its groundwater was tested and pumped out, but TCE vapor was found years later in 2013 at the Southeast Hennepin site, which received state Superfund recognition in 2016. Now, the state and federal government are working together to assess the risks and conduct a cleanup of the site.

Clean up process 

After holding numerous community listening sessions, the EPA and MPCA will begin the cleanup process in late summer, which will take five to six years to complete, according to Andy Eddy, MPCA project manager for integrated remediation. 

The initial steps will include surveying and filling in data gaps to determine the extent of the vapor plume and map out what clean up will look like, according to Eddy. The investigation is expected to take 12 to 18 months. 

“We don’t believe there are any imminent public health risks going on with either of these sites,” Eddy said. “It will take time for a long term investigation because we want to do it well in a way that serves the community the best that it can.”

Currently, there is only research on close up exposure to TCE in factories or manufacturing plants and little is known about the impacts of TCE ground vapor on health. Southeast Como residents are not exposed to TCE-contaminated water because they are connected to municipal water, according to Eddy.  

Community awareness 

Many community members have learned about the Superfund sites through the listening sessions or from living in the neighborhood for many years. 

Southeast Como Improvement Association (SECIA) environmental committee member Peggy Booth has lived in the neighborhood for more than 40 years. She has known about the Superfund sites since they received state and federal recognition and said she is concerned about their health implications. 

“We shouldn’t have these chemicals underlying where we live and work,” Booth said. “This is something where there needs to be a collective community response that holds the people who caused it responsible for actually cleaning it up.” 

Booth said the MPCA and EPA are trying hard to engage with neighborhood residents, but they have difficulties reaching many because a large majority of residents are renters. 

Students and renters in the area can learn more about the clean up process through SECIA and the EPA. 

Minneapolis Ward 1 City Council Member Elliott Payne said it is important that students are informed about the Superfund site and the cleanup process so they know the potential health risks they are exposed to. 

“These are decades long issues, and if you’re just moving into the neighborhood for a school year, or even as short as a semester, it’s sometimes hard to really know that this is going on,” Payne said. 

Payne noted that the Southeast Como Superfund sites share similarities with the Roof Depot site in the East Phillips neighborhood, which has been a topic of council discussion over the last two years. 

The Roof Depot site is a plot of land in the East Phillips neighborhood that contains high levels of arsenic from manufacturing that has spread to the surrounding community. It was formally cleaned up by the EPA in 2011. 

“It’s important to continue to highlight the legacy of the polluting industry,” Payne said. “Oftentimes, those industrial zones were purposely put in or adjacent to communities that were marginalized.”

On Sept. 20, 2019, crowds of University of Minnesota students, faculty, alumni and community members gathered on the Northrop Mall to celebrate the inauguration of the University’s first female president: Joan Gabel.

A sea of maroon and gold, the University’s marching band and all five of the University campus’ mascots welcomed Gabel in anticipation for a fresh chapter in the institution’s history.

“I see this emerging story as a chapter in a book and our University’s story advances,” Gabel said in her inaugural address. “I’m filled with optimism when I think of leading the University of Minnesota into this important next chapter, now let’s get started.”

Nearly four years later, Gabel is currently in her last months at the University as she prepares to serve as the new chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh starting in July. She announced her resignation April 3, which sent University administration into a hurried effort to quickly elect an interim president after a year of shifting administrative roles.

Gabel cited her connection to Pennsylvania, including her attendance at Haverford College and her son’s enrollment at the University of Pittsburgh, as one of the reasons she accepted the new position. Her departure from the University is bittersweet for some and long-awaited for others as her legacy is marked with both accomplishments and controversies.

Although her time at the University is coming to an end, Gabel said she is honored to have navigated the last few years of both difficulties and celebrations.

“Serving as President of the University of Minnesota has been the greatest honor of my career,” Gabel said in an email to the Minnesota Daily. “I will never be fully able to express my sincere appreciation for the best colleagues and friends one could hope to know; the overall path we’ve traveled; and this community’s spirit of generosity.”

Gabel’s early days

In December 2018, the University Board of Regents unanimously approved Gabel’s selection for the presidential position after a lengthy search process. With leadership experience under her belt, including her time serving as the executive vice president and provost at the University of South Carolina, the board was confident with its choice, according to former regent and head of the presidential search committee Abdul Omari.

“As I reflect back, we were extremely fortunate to have found a match,” Omari said.

Gabel started with a base salary of $640,000, which was a 2.4% increase from the University’s previous president, Eric Kaler’s, salary.

In her first year as president, Gabel adopted the University’s systemwide strategic plan, MPact 2025, from Kaler’s administration, which had been in development since 2016. The University’s Board of Regents approved the plan in the summer of 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic came months after Gabel’s inauguration, bringing a wave of unprecedented University administrative decisions, including the transition to virtual learning and mask and vaccine mandates.

Gabel’s mark on the University

During her University presidency, Gabel cited advancements in research, improved University rankings and the crown jewel of her administration, MPact 2025, as some of her biggest accomplishments.

MPact 2025 is a systemwide strategic plan that establishes a framework for the University to hit goals focused on student success, community and belonging, sustainability, innovation and fiscal stewardship.

Under MPact 2025, the University achieved more than $1 billion in research expenditures, record-setting graduation rates and placed 23rd among the nation’s top public schools, according to Gabel.

The University also made advancements with the establishments of the Future of Advanced Agriculture Research in Minnesota (FAARM) program and NXT GEN AG, which aim to increase agricultural research and prepare students to work in rural areas.

“If you look at all the rankings and research, if you look at the things that really matter, it will go down as a great presidency,” Omari said. “She did it all during the global pandemic and George Floyd’s murder.”

Backlash on salary and potential conflicts of interest

Alongside her accomplishments, Gabel’s presidency has been laced with controversy over the past two years, including concern over administrative salary increases and conflicts of interest.

In December 2021, the board approved a new employment contract and salary raise for Gabel that surpassed $1 million with benefits, more than any University president had ever made. University faculty and staff criticized this decision because they believed it was unfair to increase Gabel’s pay while their wages were not enough to keep up with the cost of living.

The contract also allotted the board’s chair sole power over the president’s annual goals and metrics and ultimate financial bonuses following the president’s annual performance review.

Less than a year later in July 2022, Gabel and the board received criticism for the board’s decision to appoint former regent David McMillan the University of Minnesota-Duluth’s interim chancellor.

McMillan resigned from the board after Gabel announced Duluth’s chancellor search failed and they would be hiring a two-year interim chancellor.

Many University community members, including Regent Darrin Rosha, former Minnesota governor Arne Carlson and University law professor Richard Painter, criticized this appointment because it seemed like a potential conflict of interest. McMillan was the board’s chair when Gabel was hired and was one of the regents who approved her salary increase in 2021.

Omari said while all University presidents receive criticism, he believed the amount Gabel received was heightened because she was the University’s first woman president.

“She dealt with the gender dynamics of being treated differently than other male predecessors,” Omari said.

During Gabel’s presidency, Rosha frequently disagreed with her administration’s proposals but has been able to produce constructive outcomes, according to Rosha.

“It has been cordial, lively and speaking for myself, it has been characterized by opinion differences on philosophies about accessibility and affordability, in particular for Minnesota students at a land-grant university,” Rosha said.

Regents James Farnsworth, Doug Huebsch, Ruth Johnson, Tadd Johnson, Ken Powell and Bo Thao-Urabe declined the Daily’s requests for comment prior to publication.

Regents Mary Davenport, Mike Kenyanya, Janie Mayeron, Steve Sviggum and Kodi Verhalen did not respond to the Daily’s interview requests prior to publication.

Rosha was one of three regents who voted against approving her conflict of interest management plan in December 2022 during her appointment process to the Securinan Financial Board of Directors.

The University contracts with Securian to oversee life insurance policies for University employees and has an annual contract renewal that the president is involved in. Gabel’s position on its board would have paid $130,000, which she later said she declined.

After outcry from state legislators, the public and University community members, Gabel resigned from the position.

Gabel’s relationship with Securian was one of many things former regent Michael Hsu spoke out against during her presidency. Hsu recently applied for the interim president position.

“In the beginning, there was a lot of excitement, but over time, it waned and I’m not sure why,” Hsu said. “She is using the U as a stepping stone and moving on to greener pastures.”

With the approaching change in leadership, Gabel said the University’s legacy will continue after her departure.

“While departing this incredible community of scholars, leaders and discoverers is bittersweet, it is because of what we have accomplished that I am confident that the U’s good work and upward trajectory will continue in ways to serve the state in even more impactful ways,” Gabel said.

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents elected two regents to serve as co-vice chairs and discussed President Joan Gabel’s transition out of leadership at its special meeting Monday afternoon. 

Over the last month, University administration has seen significant changes, including Gabel’s departure from the University and former board Chair Regent Ken Powell’s resignation from his leadership position on the board.  

New board Chair Janie Mayeron assumed Powell’s position after his resignation, leaving the vice chair role vacant. 

Regents Mike Kenyanya and Doug Huebsch were elected by the board to serve as co-chairs until June 30. They were nominated by Regent Kodi Verhalen, who brought a motion to suspend the board’s bylaws to allow for the temporary creation of co-vice chair positions. The motion passed 9-3. 

Verhalen said she made the motion so that board leadership would have additional support during the University presidential transition period. 

“It will give, not only you Madam Chair, the opportunity to have colleagues in leadership, but also this board the opportunity to have full leadership at this time when we have an outgoing president and an incoming interim,” Verhalen said.  

At the special meeting, the regents initially planned to elect one member to fill the vice chair role by voting to suspend a section of the board’s bylaws. The bylaws state members need a 10-day notice of a chair’s resignation before they can elect a new vice chair. In a 7-5 vote, the motion failed. 

Before the board took a vote on the co-vice chair positions, Huebsch accepted his nomination. 

“I’ll work hard, I promise that,” Huebsch said. “I love the University of Minnesota, I’ll do whatever I can to help it along.” 

Kenyanya also accepted his nomination. 

“It’s not just in the absence of the chair, it’s supporting while the chair is there and that’s kind of what we’ve seen in this dialogue is that that’s what is needed more than ever,” Kenyanya said. 

The board will elect a permanent vice chair after June 30. 

Presidential transition plans, Gabel’s possible bonus 

The board discussed the rest of Gabel’s time at the University and how she will carry out the duties of her role in her last months as president. 

The board has not officially decided on Gabel’s last day at the University. In a special meeting Thursday, board members said her final day could be before June 9. However, during Monday’s meeting, the board discussed the interim president officially taking over on July 1. 

If Gabel stays at the University through June, she could be up for an extra $260,000, according to her contract. She would be eligible for up to $100,000 as a performance bonus and $160,000 in supplemental retirement funds. 

Regent Darrin Rosha called a motion during Monday’s meeting for the board to hire an external attorney to review the specifics of her contract as they finalize the presidential transition process. The board voted 9-3 to indefinitely postpone this motion after several board members said they felt they did not have enough information to make this decision at this time. 

The board still expects Gabel to complete a majority of her final tasks in May. 

Gabel will present a tuition pricing model to the board, along with University Provost Rachel Croson  during the board’s May meeting as well as her recommended candidate for the University of Minnesota-Morris chancellor position to the board. The board is scheduled to meet May 11 and 12. 

She will also attend the annual American Indian Advisory Board meeting on May 4 and present the President’s Recommended FY24 Operating Budget to the board’s Finance & Operations Committee during its June meeting. The board is scheduled to meet June 8 and 9. 

Governor Walz at Eastcliff 

University Senior Vice President for Finance and Operations Myron Frans presented a proposal to allow Gov. Tim Walz to stay at the University’s presidential residence, Eastcliff, for a year starting July 1 while the governor’s mansion in St. Paul undergoes renovations.  

The board unanimously approved this real estate transaction.

“We have an opportunity to put this publicly owned asset to use during a time of transition,” Frans said during his presentation to the board. “This will be the first time that we will have a governor and first lady in residence at Eastcliff.” 

The rental period will be about 15 months, ending in September 2024, but there is room for the lease to be extended a few months. It will cost $4,400 a month and the state will be responsible for direct costs involving utilities, snow removal and lawn care. Rent will be significantly less than the home on Sunfish Lake, which was $330,000, that Walz initially planned to stay in. 

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents met in a special meeting Thursday to discuss the search process for a University interim president following President Joan Gabel’s resignation on April 3. 

The board agreed on various factors, including the structure of the process and candidate requirements, but remains undecided on the interim president’s salary. Some members said during the meeting they are aiming to make their selection as early as the beginning of May. 

Typically, presidential search processes at the University can take place over the course of months. With the recent announcement of Gabel’s departure, the upcoming regent elections and the board’s annual budget meeting approaching, the regents are working at an accelerated pace to temporarily fill the interim presidential position as soon as possible. 

According to board Chair Janie Mayeron, Gabel’s last day working at the University will possibly be June 9 before she takes vacation time off. 

Board members, including Regent Mike Kenyanya, expressed desire to speed up the search process to ensure overlap between Gabel and the new interim president before Gabel’s last day at the University.  

The board will hold its next special meeting on Monday at 3 p.m. to further discuss the process and elect a new vice chair of the board, following former chair Ken Powell’s resignation from the chair position on Monday. Members of the public are encouraged to submit feedback regarding the process through the board’s online comment form. 

Candidate selection process 

The board elects University presidents when vacancies open and has discretion over the selection process. In its meeting Thursday, members unanimously decided to select the interim president themselves, rather than assemble a separate search committee due to time constraints. 

Regent Kodi Verhalen cited the savings of both money and time as her reasoning for wanting the board to conduct the search process themselves. 

“It seems incredibly duplicative and a bit overblow to do a full presidential search process,” Verhalen said at the meeting. “We’re hearing criticisms [that] there’s too much administrative expense, well that adds a bunch of administrative expense.”

The board also decided to consider both internal and external candidates for the interim role to generate a broad candidate pool. 

Required qualities in an interim president 

The board discussed various characteristics they aim to require of candidates, agreeing the future interim president should not desire to become the next permanent president after the interim timeframe. 

Board members stated having an interim president who is interested in a permanent role will hinder their ability to focus on the job. 

“That interim needs to be focused on this period and being a candidate is distracting and influences decision making that an interim may make,” Regent Mary Davenport said. “That interim needs to be 150% focused on the tasks in front of them.” 

Interim president salary

The regents went into overtime at the meeting to discuss the potential salary of the interim president, meeting for about five hours, but did not arrive at a consensus. 

Regent Darrin Rosha expressed concern over increasing the salary above the base pay of $609,000 and advocated to lower it to $500,000 or less in a failed motion. Rosha discussed reigning in presidential compensation to salaries resembling those of public service roles. 

“It is a paradigm shift that serving as the president of the University has its own reward, in addition to compensation that the vast majority of people in the state would consider a tremendous level of compensation,” Rosha said. 

Other regents, including Mayeron, said aligning the interim president salary with the typical market compensation for university presidents is the best course to take. 

“I recognize the market for presidents is a very high number and it is a really hard pill to swallow, and they really do not like it within the public and the Legislature,” Mayeron said. “At the end of the day, it needs to be driven by the market and it needs to be paying for the value of the responsibilities that we are placing on this person’s shoulders.” 

University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts (CLA) Dean John Coleman announced his resignation from his position Wednesday morning after working at the University for nearly a decade. 

Coleman will leave the University to serve as the vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign starting July 19. 

“It has been my privilege and honor to serve as dean of this wonderful college at this exceptional University,” Coleman said in an email to CLA undergraduate and graduate students. “I can assure you that the interim dean and the next dean will continue to focus on issues of concern to you to make your experience in the college positive, rewarding, and filled with growth. 

Coleman’s resignation is the most recent in a string of administrative departures from the University. 

Earlier this month, President Joan Gabel announced she is leaving the institution to serve as the chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh. Board of Regents Chair Ken Powell resigned from his leadership position on the board on Monday. In February, former vice president for University Relations Matt Kramer announced his resignation. 

University Executive Vice President and Provost Rachel Croson will appoint an interim dean soon and the University will subsequently initiate a search for a new dean, according to Coleman’s email. 

Coleman’s position at Illinois is still pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

As a long-awaited spring arrives in the Twin Cities, many people have been enjoying the weather on the University of Minnesota campus’s sprawling lawns and tree-covered areas.

The campus has an abundance of well-used urban green space. Students and faculty in the University’s forestry department have been working for more than five years to increase access to this biodiversity through the Campus Arboretum Project.

The arboretum project, which treats the entire Twin Cities campus as an arboretum, will be officially presented to the University on May 1.

“We recognize that, as opposed to a typical definition of an arboretum, which is a collection of trees, shrubs and plants, that this was going to have a much broader perspective,” University forestry professor Gary Johnson said.

As a separate program from the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, this new project will highlight the biodiversity of the Twin Cities campuses through the creation of electronic maps and learning materials. In addition to the West Bank’s shoe tree and elm trees on the Northrop Mall, the arboretum will encompass other green spaces that are not as widely known.

There are currently resources that lay out significant campus trees, but the new project will offer a more extensive scope of biodiverse areas on campus that include designated plant communities, areas that hold certain significance and areas that are sacred or special to individuals. Community members will have access to forms where they can participate in the establishment of these spaces and submit nominations.

“The initial map of the arboretum is fairly sparse, and for good reason,” Johnson said. “We didn’t want to design something and say ‘this is it.’ We wanted something that would be dynamic.”

Community collaboration in arboretum creation

Since 2019, Johnson has been organizing the project through conversations with University Landcare and surrounding neighborhood communities, in addition to integrating his work into an upper level forestry course.

Students in Johnson’s class, “Urban Forest Management: Managing Green Spaces for People,” have been tasked with developing ways to engage with the community on mapping out the arboretum and hosting townhalls.

Theo Keenan, a student in the class, is in the town hall organization group, where they helped host a community event in March. Keenan said they believe it has been a good opportunity for the University to connect with the surrounding neighborhoods.

“There’s a responsibility of the University as a land grant institution to be open to the community,” Keenan said. “The University of Minnesota has the resources to really double down and engage, and that’s something that people who work within urban forestry are very much willing to do.”

University Landcare has supported the campus arboretum through sharing data about campus tree inventories, according to Assistant Director of Landcare Tom Ritzer. Currently, there are roughly 11,000 trees on the Twin Cities campuses that Landcare actively manages.

“Getting information out about trees and highlighting them is a great idea,” Ritzer said.

Arboretum’s mental health impacts

During the planning process, Johnson said he has worked closely with faculty across departments, including plant pathology, entomology, horticulture and ecology, as well as the School of Nursing.

Erica Timko Olson, a clinical assistant professor in the School of Nursing, studies the impact urban greenspaces have on mental health and has consulted Johnson on the arboretum.

Access to biodiverse spaces has various benefits for physical and mental health. In areas with increased tree coverage, there are decreased rates of type 2 diabetes, asthma and blood pressure, according to Timko Olson.

Incorporating nature into college campuses is particularly important considering the impacts it has on student mental health, Timko Olson said. Exposure to green space in urban areas decreases depression, anxiety and ADHD, in addition to increasing one’s mood

“The mental health decline that we have seen in the last 15 years long before COVID happened has been significant,” Timko Olson said. “The mental health system can’t keep up with the needs … we need to think about alternate deliveries of care that can be meaningful, beneficial, cost effective and really meet people where they are in their communities.”

Johnson said he hopes the establishment of the Campus Arboretum will help the University earn the status of a Tree Campus Higher Education, a recognition program run by the Arbor Day Foundation to help universities grow their green spaces.

Minnesota has the fewest campuses that hold this title out of all states in the Midwest.

Johnson said he hopes the Campus Arboretum will make the University’s biodiversity more accessible to the community and the public.

“It’s a project to celebrate what we have at the Twin Cities campus by developing a very dynamic and engaging place to learn, teach, relax and celebrate,” Johnson said.

The University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents Chair Ken Powell announced Monday afternoon he resigned from his position as the board’s chair.

Powell will continue to serve as a regent through the end of his term, which ends this spring, according to a systemwide email from the now board Chair Janie Mayeron.

“He [Powell] has communicated to the full board that his decision will allow us to establish a leadership team that will guide us throughout the transitions before us and beyond,” Mayeron, who was serving as the board’s vice chair, said in the email. 

This leadership change comes two weeks after University President Joan Gabel announced her departure from the institution to serve as the chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh. 

Mayeron announced a special board meeting slated for Thursday at 9 a.m., where the regents will elect a new vice chair and act on next steps for electing an interim president to fill Gabel’s position.

This is also the third out-of-the-ordinary board change in the past year. 

In June, former regent David McMillan resigned from the board before assuming the University of Minnesota-Duluth (UMD) interim chancellor role. Then in October, former vice chair and Regent Steve Sviggum resigned from his position as vice chair following comments he made about the University of Minnesota-Morris’ student population diversity. 

Powell was elected to the board in 2017 and became the chair in 2019 after a unanimous vote by the rest of the board. He is about a month away from finishing his six-year term. 

Prior to serving on the board, Powell held various corporate leadership positions, including serving as the CEO of General Mills for nearly a decade. He currently sits on the boards of Medtronic and the Carlson Companies.  

Concerns on campus and at the Capitol 

Powell faced barriers during his bid for reelection to his at-large seat, which is currently up for election. The Regent Candidate Advisory Council (RCAC), the state Legislature’s group of members responsible for screening board candidates, excluded Powell from their recommendations to the regent nomination joint committee in January. 

Several lawmakers shared their concerns over his reelection during the RCAC’s candidate interviews, citing the board’s year of continued controversies and the public’s growing distrust of University leadership. 

Since Powell assumed his leadership position, the board has faced backlash over multiple decisions involving administrative ethics. These include McMillian’s UMD appointment and the approval of President Joan Gabel’s position on Securian Financial’s Board of Directors.  

Powell also received criticism over his handling of Sviggum’s comments at an October board meeting, where Sviggum criticized the diversity of the student body at the University of Minnesota-Morris. 

The future of board leadership 

Former board vice chair, Mayeron, will assume the chair’s role for the rest of the term.

In December, the regents elected Mayeron as the board’s vice chair in a 9-3 vote, following Sviggum’s resignation from the position. 

When a chair vacancy occurs, the board’s vice chair steps into the role and serves out the rest of the term, according to the board’s bylaws.  

This is a breaking news story and will be updated. 

University of Minnesota researchers are advancing the manufacturing process for semiconductor chips after releasing research in late February enabling technology companies to make more efficient electronic devices.

Through partnering with U.S. government institutions and technology corporations, researchers in the University’s College of Science and Engineering (CSE) developed a process for creating spintronic devices. This research will be used in the production of chips, which are found in electronic devices, including smartphones, computers and medical equipment.

Spintronic devices differ from the transistor-based chips that are currently used in electronics based on their ability to use the spin of electrons, as opposed to their electric charge, to hold data and information in chips.

Jian-Ping Wang, a CSE professor and senior author of the research paper, has spent more than a decade working on this project.

“Materials research, it’s very hard,” Wang said. “Unlike a lot of other research, it needed many, many years of the accumulation of knowledge to build up the lab, the process and patenting.”

The research, which the University officially announced on March 20, consisted of using an 8-inch wafer-capable multi-chamber ultrahigh vacuum sputtering system to grow iron palladium on silicon wafers. According to the research paper, this process “makes the vision of scalable spintronics more practical.”

Going into the process, researchers wanted to build on past technological innovations, including the invention of the smartphone, and make the manufacturing process more efficient. One goal was to find ways to reduce the energy consumption of electronics, and Wang said it “comes down to the device level.”

Over the last 10 years, technology companies have been searching for ways to make semiconductor chips smaller and more efficient. The project’s researchers figured out how to use iron palladium in the manufacturing process to decrease chip size and increase data storage.

The University’s research received support from technology companies including Intel, the University of Minnesota Technology Commercialization and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

“We developed and tested an exhaustive series of processing alternatives that finally enabled us to realize a working prototype that was featured in our joint publication with the University of Minnesota,” Daniel Gopman, a staff scientist at NIST, said in an email to the Minnesota Daily.

The NIST currently supports a national initiative to increase semiconductor manufacturing and partners with both academic institutions and government agencies, including the Defense Applied Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Wang noted the release of the research aligns “well” with the goals of President Joe Biden’s 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. The legislation aims to strengthen the country’s technology manufacturing and supply chains as well as support more American semiconductor research.

“In Minnesota, we are leading on spintronics and finally, we really can help the industry,” Wang said. “It’s a breakthrough for spintronics and electronics now and it is possible for the industry to use it, not only University.”

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents approved amendments to the University’s 2024-25 supplemental budget request during their meeting held on the Morris campus Friday.

The board also greenlit purchases of land in southern Minnesota for the University’s Future of Advanced Agricultural Research in Minnesota (FAARM) program and heard from student representatives and their recommendations for how University administration can better support students.

Regents approve amended supplemental budget request

The board voted 11-1 to approve the University’s proposed additions for the 2024-25 supplemental budget request. The University initially requested $205 million.

University Senior Vice President for Finance and Operations Myron Frans and University Budget Director Julie Tonneson presented amendments to the board, which were brought to the Minnesota Legislature last week.

The amendments include an additional $97.5 million for the creation of the American Indian Scholars Program, funding to supplement the enrollment-driven tuition shortfall and aid to freeze undergraduate tuition.

The American Indian Scholars Program would provide full tuition and fee scholarships for American Indian students at any University campus. Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan recommended the $9 million program to the Office of Higher Education’s budget and the University.

According to an anticipated decline in University systemwide enrollment rates in 2024 and 2025, the estimated shortfall will cost $48 million. Without state aid, the University could see between a 6.5% and a 7.5% increase in tuition rates at the Twin Cities campus and a nearly 3% increase at the other system campuses, according to Tonneson.

“Never in my 30 years here have we run into a situation like this where almost all units are falling short,” Tonneson said.

University President Joan Gabel cited COVID-19 for the decline in University enrollment rates.

“That particular tuition shortfall is COVID related,” Gabel said. “COVID has created an unusual impact on retention; it’s a one time issue.”

The University is also requesting $40.5 million to freeze tuition across all five campuses for Minnesota resident undergraduate students in both 2024 and 2025.

UMN to purchase land for FAARM program

The regents unanimously voted to approve the University’s purchase of roughly 748 acres distributed among five plots of land in Mower County for the FAARM program.

The estimated cost for the land purchases is more than $10 million.

The program will ultimately require a total of about 1,600 acres of land. The board previously approved the purchase of 80 acres.

As a part of the University’s College of Food Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, the FAARM program will use the land to develop an agricultural and food systems research complex located in southern Minnesota.

“FAARM is very important to the state,” Regent Doug Huebsch said. “It’s going to be vital to the future in terms of doing things right on farms and taking us to the next level.”

Student representative make recommendations focused on DEI efforts

Student representatives to the board, Riley Tuft and Sarah Davis presented student recommendations to the board. These recommendations focused on five areas of improvement, including mental health, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, affordability, academic success and sustainability.

These recommendations were based on an analysis of student representative recommendations from 2015-2022.

Tuft and Davis encouraged the board to conduct a formal review of mental health at the University and become more involved in mental health initiatives.

During their recommendations for DEI efforts, Tuft and Davis highlighted that over the past seven years, the University has only implemented 11 out of the 32 recommendations past student representatives have made in this area. They said there are known efforts to implement five additional recommendations, leaving 16 with “no clear efforts.”

For this year, Tuft and Davis presented five additional DEI recommendations, including a mandated Gopher Equity Project training module for staff, faculty, administrators and students, increasing student accommodations resources and increasing efforts to retain faculty and staff of color. They also recommended increasing community involvement in University issues and creating an American Indian center on the Morris campus.

“Given the fact that only half of the recommendations in this area have been addressed, there is more work that the Board of Regents and University can do to create a safe and inclusive learning environment for underrepresented members of the University community,” Davis said.