By: Janice Bitters

Jonathan Filzen successfully avoided living in the dorms when he attended the University of Minnesota, but he’s making up for that now.

Filzen is one of 43 recent college graduates from around the country settling into Comstock Hall on the University’s campus this week to train as Teach for America corps members.

Crystal Brakke, executive director for TFA’s Twin Cities region, said demand for TFA teachers in Minnesota is high, but the organization has had a few setbacks recently.

Last month, the Minnesota Board of Teaching denied a group variance waiver for TFA that would have allowed the organization to receive state permission for the members in Comstock to teach in Minnesota classrooms all at once before receiving their full teaching licenses.

Without the waiver, TFA will need to get individual permission for each member to teach in the state. Brakke said this would “put an additional level of work on every individual school” that hires a TFA member.

TFA will submit a revised request to the board for the group waiver later this month, and Brakke said she is confident the amended request will pass.

The Board of Teaching has granted the group waiver to TFA since 2009, when the organization first started operating in Minnesota.

Karen Balmer, executive director for the Minnesota Board of Teaching, said the decision to deny the waiver this year was because of questions board members had, including ones about attrition rates of teachers in the program and their placement in high-need schools.

Approval, she said, “will depend on whether board members will feel that they have had their questions answered and want to move forward.”

Balmer said she expects TFA’s revised request will be supplemented with more data than the original one.

The Board of Teaching isn’t the only group with concerns. Last month, Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed a $1.5 million allocation to TFA in the omnibus Higher Education bill.

Dayton said in a press release that the veto — his only line item veto of the bill — was because “no competitive grant program was established; no other applications were solicited; and no objective review was made by an independent panel of experts.”

The veto will not impact TFA’s current operations in Minnesota, Brakke said. The funds were intended to help the organization increase its members by about 50 teachers.

“That’s the difference, we won’t be able to bring in those 50 teachers, though we will be looking at other funding routes and sources,” she said.

Tom Dooher, president of Education Minnesota, a teachers union and advocacy group, said the additional funding would have been unnecessary because there’s a surplus of teachers in Minnesota.

Dooher is also concerned the five-week training program TFA offers for new members isn’t enough.

“We just want to make sure that anyone who becomes an educator in the state of Minnesota meets the high standards we have set for those who are going to teach,” Dooher said.

But Brakke said TFA’s goals are aligned with Education Minnesota’s, and demand for TFA teachers in the state has grown in recent years.

Minnesota TFA members, she said, are also enrolled in a two-year training program through Hamline University and paired with teaching mentors.

“I think sometimes it’s set up as we have opposing beliefs [as teacher unions], and I don’t think that’s true,” she said. “I think we all want the best thing for our students in Minnesota.”

By: Branden Largent

The University of Minnesota Law School will expand its immigration law programming this fall to meet increased demand for representation.

The Robina Foundation pledged Thursday to give almost $9 million to the law school — one of the largest gifts in the school’s history — to fund its Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice and create a Center for New Americans.

Law School Dean David Wippman said the immigration law center will help immigrant groups who often can’t afford legal assistance and can have difficulty navigating the legal system.

“This will be great for the community,” said Saeed Fahia, executive director of the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota.

Fahia said Somali immigrants often have trouble finding lawyers who do pro bono work. 

The number of foreign-born Twin Cities’ residents increased by about 100,000 people from 2000 to 2010. About 10 percent of the population was foreign-born in 2010, according to Minnesota Compass, a part of the nonprofit organization Wilder Research.

Many immigrants face income and language barriers, said Cathy Haukedahl, executive director of Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid — a pro bono collaborator that will work with the center to provide expertise in civil legal issues to immigrants.

“Minnesota has a lot of immigrants who need help in their own language,” she said.

Partnering with three local law firms and three nonprofit organizations, the law school will work to expand essential legal services for immigrant communities and improve the laws affecting immigrants.

“By working together, all of us will be able to accomplish considerably more than we could working separately,” Wippman said.

The new center will have three new clinics focusing on education and outreach, detainee rights and federal litigation, in addition to the already existing asylum law clinic, Wippman said.

One of the goals of the new center is to give law students more clinical opportunities and real-life work experience, Wippman said.

“Law students will get wonderful opportunities to work with actual clients while they’re still in law school,” Wippman said.

There are many individuals in detention both nationally and in Minnesota who can’t afford attorneys, said Benjamin Casper, director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota’s Pro Bono Litigation Project — one of the nonprofits collaborating with the center.

On any given night, Casper said there can be up to 300 immigrants held in county jails by the Department of Homeland Security.

“[The center] will give a voice to detained immigrants and their families,” Casper said. “[Detention of non-citizens] causes extraordinary hardships for those families.”

Since immigration law reform is making its way through Congress, Wippman said it seemed like a great time to set up the center.

Casper said it could give the law school an opportunity to affect national immigration policy since new possible legislation could lead to important litigation.

Crystal Williams, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said she noticed the number of immigration law clinics around the country have been increasing to meet this demand.

“No matter how many attorneys there are out there, [immigrant communities] continue to be underserved,” Williams said.

After hiring additional faculty and teaching fellows, Wippman said the clinic will be up and running this fall but won’t reach its full strength for about a year.

Most of the $4.5 million funding for the immigration law center will go toward hiring new faculty and space costs, Wippman said, which should fund the center for its first four years.

After that, Wippman said he hopes to secure additional funding to operate the center permanently.

“It’s going to be an extraordinary opportunity for the law school and the law students,” Casper said. “It’s really going to set the University apart as a law school.”

By: Kia Farhang

Several cars near the University of Minnesota campus were broken into late Friday night and early Saturday morning, according to Minneapolis police.

None of the cars appeared to be locked, police reports said. The group of suspects seemed to be walking around the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood, checking for open vehicles.

Only one of the victims — a University of Minnesota-Duluth student — is affiliated with the University.

Minneapolis’ 2nd Precinct, which includes the University and its surrounding neighborhoods, has seen 210 thefts from motor vehicles this year, according to police data. That’s up from 193 thefts over the same period last year.

Minneapolis police Sgt. Bill Palmer said the best way to avoid theft from your car is to keep your valuables — “a gold mine” for thieves — out of sight.

“The people who do this for a living,” Palmer said, “are going to be looking for cars with something in them.”

Laptop and backpack stolen

A University student had her laptop and backpack stolen from her office Monday, according to a University police report.

Journalism junior Lashawnda Warpinski said she left the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Ally Programs Office in Appleby Hall momentarily and noticed the items were gone when she came back.

A man Warpinski had never seen before had been sitting outside her office before the theft occurred.

“A few of us had come up and asked him what he was up to,” Warpinski said. “He seemed that he was waiting for someone.”

University police Deputy Chief Chuck Miner said the man, who is a suspect, told another worker he was there for a meeting.

Disorderly conduct

A man was cited for disorderly conduct early Sunday morning outside Maxwell’s Cafe and Grill on Fourth Street Southeast, according to a Minneapolis police report.

The man was involved in a large fight inside the restaurant. Palmer said tables and chairs were broken and several people sustained minor injuries.

Most of the people involved left when police broke up the fight, but police arrested the man after he continued yelling and arguing with others in the middle of the street, Palmer said.

Robbery on University Avenue

Three men took a University student’s cellphone early Saturday morning, ripping it out of his hand, according to a police report.

Minneapolis police arrived to find the victim’s friend injured. Palmer said the friend, who is unaffiliated with the University, refused medical treatment and was uncooperative with police.

Palmer added that alcohol was involved in the incident.

“You’re less likely to be victimized if you’re aware of your surroundings,” he said.

By: Elizabeth Ryan

Needles, tissue samples and sometimes even surgery make detecting cancers an invasive and painful process. These procedures can save lives by finding cancers in the early stages but can also be risky, expensive and require hospitalization.

University of Minnesota professor Timothy Church  and the National Lung Screening Trial research team aim to discover whether lung cancer screening procedures are worth the drawbacks for longtime smokers.

A nine-year study on more than 53,400 smokers showed spiral CT scan screening resulted in 20 percent fewer deaths than the traditional chest X-ray screening.

Spiral CT scans take detailed pictures inside the body using a combination of computers and X-rays, while a chest X-ray uses radiation to create pictures of the inside of a person’s chest.

The research team published their latest findings in the New England Journal of Medicine on May 23.

“Obviously, we’d like to reduce it by 100 percent,” Church said. “But one of the questions is, ‘Is a 20 percent reduction worth all of those downsides?’”

These results are in response to the American Cancer Society’s 2010  statement that further analysis was needed before any recommendations could be made.

The study began in 2002  at 33 medical centers in the U.S.

Church was the principal investigator at the Minnesota center, the largest center in the study with more than 10 percent of total participants.

Lou Harvin, American Cancer Society spokesman,  said a statement will be released “in the near future” on whether a national recommendation will be made now that the study has been updated.

Church said as the process for creating a recommendation unfolds, the next step for researchers is to do a cost-effectiveness analysis, weighing the pros and cons of procedures.

“There’s a lot of ways we could spend our money to improve health, and so we need to know, ‘What are we paying for?’” Church said. “We’ll know whether we should be spending it on something like screening for lung cancer or trying to prevent heart disease.”

Bruce Alexander, environmental health sciences  professor, said lung cancer is among the deadliest forms of the disease.

In 2009, more than 158,158 people died from lung cancer in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society. This was nearly four times as many deaths as breast cancer.

The researchers’ analyses will examine the financial and physical costs of screening procedures to help health professionals prioritize health care options for different diseases.

Once researchers understand the cost of increasing a person’s lifespan by one year by screening for cancer, it can be compared to other options.

More than a decade after the study began, Church said he considers the National Lung Screening Trial the first step in a longer process.

“I would hope if all of those things fall in line,” he said, “that we would have a national program of screening for lung cancer among heavy smokers and that ultimately we can save people’s lives.”

By: Cody Nelson

In 2010, Hussein Samatar became the first Somali-American to hold public office in Minnesota.

In 2011, Mohamud Noor fell 300 votes short of becoming the first Somali-born state senator in the nation.

In April, Abdi Warsame received the DFL endorsement for City Council, which could pave the way for him to be the first Somali-American to hold a seat.

These men are examples of Somali-Americans getting increasingly involved in Minnesota civic life.

Last week, the five major DFL candidates for Minneapolis mayor debated at Safari Restaurant and Event Center in south Minneapolis to gauge issues important to the Somali community. With a growing population, Somali voters are an important base for candidates. “[The Somali community] will make a difference because they vote,” said Hussein Samatar, a former mayoral candidate. “Their numbers are thriving, and they can be a difference for [the election].”

Audience members posed questions on issues like the achievement gap, police profiling and the economy at the event, which was the first mayoral debate of its kind hosted by the community.

All five candidates expressed similar messages about wanting more Somali-American involvement in city government.

Somali groups haven’t made any formal endorsements yet, and debate attendees reacted equally to the candidates on Friday. The DFL will vote to endorse a candidate at its convention on June 15.

Education and the achievement gap between white students and students of color in Minneapolis was one of the main issues discussed at Friday’s debate.

Samatar, who had considered running but didn’t due to health concerns, said the achievement gap is “unacceptable” in Minneapolis.

“[Somali students] need more help,” he said. “Minneapolis won’t go to the next level without everybody.”

Many candidates said they would start addressing the issue in early childhood education.

“[Early childhood education centers] save money; they improve the lives of our children,” said candidate and former Hennepin County Commissioner Mark Andrew. “They ought to be expanded.”

Current councilmembers and candidates Gary Schiff and Betsy Hodges both stressed improving pre-natal health care as another way to address the achievement gap.

Candidates also addressed the issue of police profiling.

Councilman and candidate Don Samuels, who came to the U.S. from Jamaica 43 years ago, told the crowd he understands how police can treat immigrants differently.

“I know what it means,” he said, “to feel intimidated by the police.”

Possible reasons for unequal treatment from police, Samatar said, are cultural and language gaps. He said police should develop better relationships with all communities to make the city safer.

“People can make neighborhoods safe when they feel safe,” he said.

Another main topic at the debate was the economy.

The candidates all said there should be more Somalis involved with city government to ensure their economic needs are met.

Former City Council President and candidate Jackie Cherryhomes said Somali businesses aren’t “getting their fair share” of contracts to open businesses. She said there should be Somali-speaking employees in the city’s business and regulatory divisions so there aren’t cultural barriers to getting a business license.

Schiff pointed out that Minneapolis’ city code is outdated, putting immigrants at a disadvantage.

“A modern city needs a modern code,” he said.

By: Janice Bitters

University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler sat down with the Minnesota Daily on Tuesday to discuss the Legislature’s failed bonding bill, the passage of the higher education bill, alcohol sales at TCF Bank Stadium and gender-neutral University housing.

The University had a victory in the Legislature this year — the Higher Ed Bill, which offered tuition freezes for the University.

It’s a huge opportunity for us to freeze undergraduate resident tuition for two years, which will save a student entering today about $2,500 over the course of [his or] her four-year career, which I’m very excited about. … We also got a big investment in our research enterprise in the MNDrive initiative … so a very good legislative session this year.

Can you talk about how this will impact the University community?

There are lots of pieces to this. There’s the direct appropriation to the University community, which is hugely important for our Minnesota resident undergraduate and reciprocity students, but there was also a significant investment in the … state grant program, and that’s going to enable additional help for our most needy students. I think for a fully Pell-eligible student, it’s going to have $700 of additional state aid they will be able to get.

The DREAM Act was included in the Higher Ed omnibus bill that passed last session. You’ve stated in the past you would advance this initiative at the University. How soon will the University be able to accommodate the bill?

I think we’re open for business now. The law is the law, and although we’ve pretty much completed admissions for the fall, as we look at transfer students or as we look at students who want to join us for the spring semester, we will be open and evaluate those applications. … I see absolutely no reason to deny that opportunity to young people or adults who have come to this country in a complicated way. I was really glad to see the act pass, and I think it’s the right thing to do for Minnesota going forward.

The bonding bill failed in the Minnesota Legislature last session, leaving the University without the funds that were requested for maintenance and improvement projects on campus. How will students feel that on campus?

Minnesota has a history of bonding every other year, so even numbered years is the bonding bill and odd numbered years typically not. … While we didn’t get any money, I wouldn’t characterize that as a loss. I’d say we were pleasantly surprised there was a game at all. … We will go back next year, which is the traditional bonding year, with a very healthy request because we have substantial needs to maintain our infrastructure. We have 29 million square feet across all of our campuses, and I think about 30 percent of it is about 70 years old or older, so there really is a need for investment in that infrastructure, and we’ll be back at it.

One of the biggest goals in the capital improvement budget was more active-learning classrooms. Will the University still pursue those this year despite not receiving bonding money?

I think the need for us to generate more active-learning classrooms is really very acute. … As we begin to take advantage of online activities — MOOCs, other sort of technology enhancements — that sort of active environment will be very important. We will continue to push that, and it needs to be a priority for us.

Subsidized Stafford student loan interest rates are set to change from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent as of July 1 if an agreement isn’t made in Congress to avoid the increase. What will the University do to inform students if this increase happens?

I do know that at a high level we try to educate our students as effectively as we can around issues of financial literacy, and we really have to be able to have people who are taking on this debt … understand the obligations they are incurring and understand what this means to their long-term financial health. One of my favorite programs is [Live Like A Student]. It is very important for people to understand the impact of these loans and to adjust their lifestyle to need as little of that as possible.

One of the proposals as an alternative to raising the rate is to tie them to market rates. Do you support this idea?

I’ve seen interest rates that are very, very high, and those are awful burdens as you take those on and you move into a very inflationary period. These things are cyclical, and so it’s almost certain that they will come up again. So I think that any conversation about an adjustable rate or a market rate needs to be in the context of a cap so you can have a market rate and then capped at some level. … I also think not having these loan rates in touch with the market in some way creates an artificial situation that is probably not sustainable, so I do think that we need Congress to act.

The University recently renegotiated its deal with Aramark to sell alcohol at TCF Bank Stadium. What do you expect in terms of sales next season?

We anticipate next year being much like this year, except, of course, this year we took all of the startup costs against income, which created the illusion that we couldn’t make money selling beer — which was a crazy situation. So we won’t have those expenses next year, and we have a much better contract, so we anticipate turning a modest profit.

What is the status of the University’s master facilities plan for athletics?

I’d say it’s on a final lap to completion. It’s comprehensive, and it’ll be a big plan. I like to have some structure around all of the things that we do. It’s worthwhile for us to get a big view of all that we might do, and then we will enter a process of setting priorities and seeing what’s feasible to do in terms of philanthropy that we might raise to support it.

What are the possibilities for University gender-neutral housing?

I’ve been asked that question a couple of times, both at Morris and here. And I’ve asked our housing people to see what’s feasible there. I don’t see any big barriers. We have a very large housing stock, and across the country, when gender neutral housing is offered as an option, it’s taken by not many people — some, but not hundreds — so it would seem to me very sensible to find a way to accommodate that. 

By: Meghan Holden

For the first time, the city of Minneapolis has created diversity goals for goods and services contracts under $50,000.

The Supplier Diversity Program set goals for the city to have 25 percent of its contracts with minority- and women-owned small business enterprises.

The program’s March report found all City departments spent about 1.5 percent of their total contracts on women-owned businesses and about 2.7 percent on minority male-owned businesses for goods and services under $50,000.

The city first started tracking diversity in its departments’ contracts under $50,000 after last August’s approval of the Supporting Equity in Employment in Minneapolis and the Region resolution.

After the Economic Policy Institute named Minneapolis as having the worst unemployment disparity between white and black citizens in 2010, the city began taking steps to remedy the problem.

“The Twin Cities has a very significant employment gap, especially for African-American and Native Americans,” said City Councilman Cam Gordon, who represents parts of the University of Minnesota’s campus.

Before now, tracking of diversity in the city’s spending for services under $50,000 didn’t happen and wasn’t considered, Gordon said. He said he’s been working on this issue since 2007 and is happy to see goals set.

Michael McHugh, assistant director for the City of Minneapolis’ Contract Compliance Division, said the high goals are attainable because there are a large number of women- and minority-owned businesses available to do smaller projects.

The City’s Small and Underutilized Business Program, which ensures diversity in the City’s spending of more than $50,000, meets their goals by reaching out to small businesses to get them certified to work with the government, McHugh said.

The current low utilization of women- and minority-owned businesses could be due to a department’s familiarity with large companies, McHugh said.

These goals will force departments to make a conscious decision about who they’re hiring, he said.

Chris Olsen, director of marketing and events at WomenVenture — a nonprofit organization that provides financial and educational support for women-owned businesses — said she’s optimistic about the city’s goals, but there could be potential challenges.

Small businesses may have to wait longer for payment from government contracts, as typical contracts could pay within 30 days of service, Olsen said.

Despite the longer wait time, Olsen said the new goals benefit the community.

“It makes it inclusive so everyone has the same opportunities,” she said.

Diversity contracts at the U

The University of Minnesota also recently increased its goals to hire women- and minority-owned businesses, as well business owners with disabilities, from 10 percent to 13 percent.

This is the first time the goals have been increased since they were implemented by the Board of Regents in 1999, said Craig Taylor, director of the University’s Office for Business and Community Economic Development.

“We’ve probably had a 97 percent success rate across our projects where those goals are being applied,” Taylor said.

The availability of these small-business owners helped increase the University’s goals, Taylor said.

By: Hailey Colwell

In the midst of a job reclassification haul meant to better define job duties and pay ranges, some employees in the University of Minnesota’s Office of Information Technology are questioning whether their new job descriptions and salaries are appropriate.

The Information Technology Job Family Project is using University and industry employment trends to redesign the job classification and salary structure for every OIT employee. Having more distinct job positions is meant to help the University make sure salaries are consistent and appropriate for corresponding job titles.

The changes will take effect in mid-June.

About 500 OIT employees will be reclassified to Professional & Administrative from Civil Service, which employees say typically has higher job security and flexibility with more vacation time. While most employees’ salaries will stay the same, almost 60 will receive less than the minimum salary for their new job group, and about 50 will be paid more than their new group’s maximum, according to the Office of Human Resources. In time, OHR will align these salaries with the minimum or maximum of their new job group. 

When completed, the study will reclassify about 1,100 employees, said OHR Director Lori Lamb.

Initiated in 2009, the IT Job Family Project is the fourth of 18 studies in OHR’s Job Classification System Redesign, a product of University President Eric Kaler’s emphasis on “operational excellence,” which will look at all Civil Service and P&A jobs at the University.  The remaining 14 studies will be conducted by a third-party consultant and should be completed in the next two years, according to OHR.

OIT employees were asked to fill out a form acknowledging their job reclassification.

The deadline was extended to Tuesday due to a large number of people trying to meet with benefits counselors to discuss how their benefits would change with the reclassification, Lamb said.

“It was important to us that they got full information,” she said.

By setting minimums and maximums to every position’s pay range, the reclassification will help OHR become more specific about what salary applies for each type of work, Lamb said. It will also help supervisors understand how to give pay increases as employees move up the career ladder.

This is one of OHR’s larger job studies, Lamb said, and “there’s a lot of work to be done.”

“Our focus has been on trying to get employees the information they need to understand this and to make the decisions they need to make,” she said.

IT professional Peter Gutierrez said regardless of duties, almost everyone working for OIT is currently called an IT professional.

Gutierrez said his job reclassification remained in the Civil Service group under the new job title End User Support 1. Though his salary wouldn’t be affected under these arrangements, he said both he and his manager don’t think this was an appropriate classification for his position and that he should at least be classified as a 2.

“I found it a little insulting considering that I’ve worked for the University for about 19 years, and I’ve done all kinds of different duties that are a lot higher than that User Support 1 classification,” he said.

Gutierrez said other employees with the same duties as him who received the same reclassification are “not too happy about it.”

“I think they under-classified me in my opinion,” he said, “and I have a reason to believe that there’s  a lot of folks that feel the same way.”

Gutierrez said he plans to meet with his manager to discuss the best strategy, which could include filling out an appeal form or looking into ways he could work toward a level 2 classification. As he goes through the process, he said he doesn’t want to make too big of deal of the situation by completely refusing his reclassification.

“I’m kind of just taking this with a grain of salt,” he said. “I don’t want to jeopardize my employment at the University.”

Matthew Kauffmann, an IT professional who’s worked for the University for 18 years, said he was reclassified as a level 3  System Database Design Administrator, but his current  salary is above that — meaning he’d have a lower salary when the changes go into effect.

He said he will appeal the reclassification.

Kauffmann said he and his co-workers are “a little confused” about why the University decided to reclassify the positions and pay ranges.

“We get that they’ve got to fix something,” he said, “but we’re trying to figure out how and why they came to this conclusion.”

By: Hailey Colwell

Danita Brown is busy.

She’s planning a June wedding, moving to a new state and prepping to be the University of Minnesota’s new vice provost for student affairs and dean of students.

After a five-month search, she’ll step into the position July 31, taking over for Jerry Rinehart, who began his retirement in April after seven years in the position and 35 at the University.

Brown’s experience in student affairs and her references made her a “persuasive” choice for the position, said Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Karen Hanson.

“She was uniformly described as somebody who was a charismatic and caring student affairs leader who had great relationships with the students [and] with her staff,” she said.

The vice provost for student affairs and dean of students oversees a “huge portfolio” of activity at the University, Hanson said, including the Department of Recreational Sports, Boynton Health Service and Student Unions and Activities. More broadly, the dean of students is responsible for ensuring student success outside of the University’s academic mission, which is still crucial for academic growth.

“This is a very big and complex place,” Hanson said. “I think she is someone who is not afraid of that challenge.”

A tradition of leadership

Brown grew up in Kent, Ohio, where she said her family were the first African-Americans to settle and had always been very involved in the community. Her grandfather was a city councilman and a member of the school board. Both of her parents were involved in their church and the community.

She recalls stepping into her first leadership role when she was elected safety patrol captain in elementary school.

“I tell people, ‘I’ve been protecting and serving students ever since I was in the fifth grade,’” Brown said.

She knew she wanted to be part of a sorority as early as eighth grade because of the impact the women of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. had on her community. She joined the sisterhood as soon as she enrolled at Kent State University, where she started out as a secondary education mathematics major.

When she began a teaching practicum during her sophomore year at Kent State, Brown said she worked with students more outside of the classroom as she helped them cope with academic or family problems. This prompted her to switch her major to sociology with a minor in psychology.

She attended Loyola University Chicago for a master’s degree in counseling, but she said she found her true calling while completing a graduate apprenticeship in student leadership and education.

“That was my first entry into the world of student affairs and higher education,” she said, “and I fell in love with it.”

After more than a year of working as a counselor in Chicago’s South Side neighborhood, she realized how much she missed higher education and got a job at Ohio University. A year later, she began her Ph.D. work in the university’s higher education program.

Her goal was to obtain her Ph.D. before turning 32. She finished the program in three years while working a full-time job at the university and graduated in 2007 ― four months before her deadline.

She’ll turn 38 in August, right as students begin to move back to the University. Brown said she plans to spend that time welcoming new students and families to campus.

“I’m used to celebrating my birthday at work. My birthday celebration consists of orientation,” she said. “I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.”

Although she said she was content at Purdue University, where she’s served as the dean of students since 2011, she applied for the University’s vice provost position to put her “hat in the ring” and assess herself on the skills she’d gained during her time in administration.

“I knew my goal ultimately was to be a chief student affairs officer,” she said. “It didn’t have to happen today, but it did, which I’m grateful for.”

‘Transition together’

Before officially taking over the position July 31, Brown has a multitude of items on her to-do list — including moving to Minnesota, finding a place to live and getting married.

Brown said her fiancé has always been supportive and understanding of her career, even as they maintained a long-distance relationship.

“I figured, we’re going to have all this transition,” she said. “Let’s transition together.”

Brown indulges herself in her work and will keep the University and its students “at heart,” said her fiancé, John Allen, who works for the Social Security Administration and will re-locate to Minnesota with Brown after their June wedding.

“She’s very unselfish,” Allen said. “She’s always thinking of how we can make the student experience better.”

‘Know the students’

The biggest part of every visit she makes to the University before finally moving here in July is getting to know the people, Brown said.

Though this includes meeting with key University stakeholders like administrators, she’ll also try to meet as many students as possible, both formally and informally.

“I’m here to be an advocate for students and be the voice for students,” she said, “so I need to get to know the students.”

During her first year here, she’ll focus on observing the University’s programs, services and culture to see what works well and what could be readdressed in the future.

“It’s not about coming in and changing anything [right away], because I just don’t know,” she said.

But one area she will address is fraternity and sorority life at the University, she said, namely by looking at why such a high percentage of the student population chooses not to be part of those organizations and working to increase those numbers.

As an active sorority member who wrote her dissertation on the leadership behaviors of members of the greek system, Brown said she believes in the underlying service, scholarship and leadership principles of fraternity and sorority life. But she stressed that students don’t have to be in a leadership position to be leaders, greek or not.

“You can be a leader in your family; you can be a leader in the classroom, on the job,” she said. “We all have different leadership styles depending on different situations.”

Zenephia Evans, director of multicultural science programs at Purdue, said she connected with Brown not only over being African-American professionals at the university but because they were in the same sorority.

When she began working with Brown, Evans said she immediately saw her passion for interacting with students. When it came to their sorority, she said Brown worked to get its student members to the next level of professional development.

“Interacting with her, you really see that love of the students,” Evans said. “That passion is there. A lot of people in upper administration don’t have that.”

Brown demonstrated Evans’ sentiments as she described one of the moments in her career she’s most proud of — seeing students coming across the stage at commencement.

“You know what some of them had to endure. You know their struggle … but then they graduate,” she said. “I don’t have kids, but I feel like they’re my children.”

Evans said she and her colleagues are sad to see Brown go but excited for the students she’ll go on to advocate for.

“You have those people that shine in what they do, and you’re definitely getting a bright star when you get [Dr. Brown] serving in that capacity at Minnesota.”

By: Cody Nelson

The renovation and reconstruction of several University of Minnesota buildings will have to wait another year after funding was cut late in the legislative session.

A bonding bill that included almost $110 million for the University failed days before legislators adjourned, leaving projects across campus unfunded and some at the school disappointed.

Though legislators don’t often pass larger bonding bills, which fund public works projects, in odd-numbered years, some indicated they would take advantage of the year’s low-interest rates and fund more projects, said University Chief Financial Officer Richard Pfutzenreuter.

But the original bill failed to get the votes needed to pass, and buildings like the Bell Museum of Natural History and Tate Laboratory of Physics will remain the same a year longer.

The bill also allocated $35 million for upkeep and renovation of University buildings.

A smaller bonding bill was later passed but funded mostly renovations to the state Capitol.

Staff at the Bell Museum had hopes for almost $50 million in state funding to help open a new museum with a 120-seat planetarium on the University’s St. Paul campus.

“I’m not just disappointed for the Bell Museum; I’m disappointed for the University,” said museum director Susan Weller.

The museum’s current building is about 70 years old and has some structural problems, including occasional flooding in the basement, which can put exhibits at risk.

It’s also too small to host school groups larger than about 150 students, Weller said, which is the museum’s biggest drawback.

“It limits how well we can serve the schools and the local community,” she said.

The current building has other space limitations, Weller said, including a 20-seat theater, where tickets are often gone quickly and some are denied admission to events.

This year’s attempt for a new museum isn’t the first — officials have pushed for a new facility since 1995, and the University included the museum in its capital request for the first time in 2008.

With help from Rep. Alice Hausman, DFL-St. Paul, the new museum was closer to a reality this year.

“This time we got very close, so it’s probably that much more disappointing,” Weller said.

The bonding bill needed 81 votes, but fell only five votes short.

At the Tate Lab, officials hoped for $6 million to begin planning renovations for the 86-year-old building.

“Even though we’ve done things over the years to try to keep it up-to-date, it’s not in any sense a modern building,” said Ron Poling, head of the School of Physics and Astronomy.

The “old-fashioned” building, where about 4,000 students take introductory physics and astronomy each year, has issues with space in its lecture halls and accessibility, Poling said.

The $6 million requested from the state would be to fund two-thirds of the planning costs of the $85 million total renovation project.

Legislators and Gov. Mark Dayton see the Tate Lab project as “part of a valuable package,” Poling said, adding that the Tate Lab project is in a “very strong position” to get funding in a future session.

“[The Tate Lab] is where we do our physics educating and it’s extremely important for us to be able to get those facilities updated,” Poling said, “because there are a lot of students who are very dependent on our doing that job well.”

A $35 million funding request for renovation and upkeep, known as Higher Education Asset Preservation and Replacement (HEAPR), was also left unfunded.

These funds are for “emergency, critical, hold-the-place-together kind of projects,” Pfutzenreuter said. “To not get any of those dollars at all, we’re very disappointed.”

The Legislature passed a smaller bonding bill, but it mostly provided funding for state Capitol repairs and offered no funding for University projects.

Pfutzenreuter said this year’s “unmet needs” will be added to next session’s bonding request.