By: Meara Cummings

Slacklines in Van Cleve Park, increased lighting in campus neighborhoods and a youth program in Cedar-Riverside are a few of the projects that received funding from the 2014 Good Neighbor Fund.

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By: Vanessa Nyarko

Turntables and other DJ equipment fill Alex Amann’s home studio, where records and concert posters hang on the wall. Among all the music memorabilia, his University of Minnesota Bachelor of Science diploma sticks out.

Amann’s Como neighborhood bedroom exemplifies his two lives — one as a first-year food science master’s student, the other as DJ CFANS, spinning electronic and hip-hop music at venues around the Twin Cities.

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By: Ethan Nelson

Concrete slabs lay broken and weeds pop through the cracks of the West Bank’s Cedar Avenue. But $1.75 million worth of changes are coming to the street this summer.

The project will revamp the pedestrian environment along a stretch of the street, with improvements such as better lighting and increased sidewalk accessibility.

“The original idea was to improve just the pedestrian area,” said Chris Engelmann, project engineer for the city of Minneapolis, “[but] we wanted to do more than just fixing cracks and splinters in the sidewalks on Cedar.”

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By: Jace Frederick

The last time the Gophers met Augsburg, their offense struggled a bit.

Minnesota’s bats mustered just three hits as the Gophers squeaked out a 1-0 win over the Auggies on April 2.

It was a different story Tuesday night.

The Gophers pounded home 10 runs on the strength of 14 hits from nine different players as they breezed by Augsburg 10-0 at Siebert Field.

Center fielder Dan Motl said the outburst showed just how far Minnesota’s offense has come in the last month.

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By: Nate Gotlieb

A pair of University student-athletes will attend a highly selective NCAA forum next month in Indianapolis.

Jennifer Larrick, who will be a redshirt junior on the soccer team, and Katherine Windsor, a senior on the rowing team, will represent the University at the NCAA’s Career in Sports Forum.

Larrick and Windsor were among 200 student-athletes selected from a pool of more than 1,100 applicants. This is the first time Gophers athletes have been selected to the forum, according to the University.

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By: Nicholas Studenski

University of Minnesota police confiscate everything from drugs to musical instruments, and they store it all in the property room of the Transportation and Safety Building.

Most items fall into the categories of audio and video recordings, drugs and drug paraphernalia, said University police Deputy Chief Chuck Miner.

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By: Kia Farhang

On the morning of April 1, a Minnesota House of Representatives committee recommended less than a third of the funding University of Minnesota officials had asked for to maintain aging buildings.

But Jason Rohloff, who heads the school’s Office of Government and Community Relations, didn’t look worried.

“This is the beginning of a conversation,” he said.

The University spends about $1.3 million annually on lobbying state legislators, who dole out hundreds of millions of dollars in higher education funding.

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By: Samuel Gordon

Storm clouds hovered above Siebert Field during Saturday night’s baseball game between Minnesota and Penn State.

With their team up 12-0 and rain on the way, Gophers fans wandered toward the exits.

Jeannie Campion didn’t move.

A few minutes later, torrents of rain fell from the sky, drenching Campion and the smattering of fans that stayed in the stands.

She remained in her bleacher seat near the first-base dugout for about 15 minutes before the rain was too much for even her to bear, and she instead opted to watch from afar.

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By: Blair Emerson

In its final forum of the school year, the Minnesota Student Association unanimously passed its summer budget.

It also discussed progress on its survey of University of Minnesota student renters and elected new leadership for next year.

Incoming MSA President Joelle Stanger said the forum hasn’t voted on the summer budget in past years, but she wanted to change that.

“Really, this is putting agency into forum’s hands to dictate where the funds over the summer go,” she said.

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By: Betsy Helfand

Ben Meyer rocked back into his windup Saturday afternoon at Siebert Field and fired a fastball into the strike zone.

Swing. Miss.

Meyer pitched eight innings, didn’t allow a run and struck out a career-high eight batters in one of the best outings of his collegiate career.

Meyer’s comfort on the mound was evident, as it should have been. He was born to do this.

He’s not the first to play college baseball and won’t be the last. His father and grandfather were collegiate pitchers, and soon his younger brother will be, too.

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