Editor’s note: This article discusses sexual harassment. If you or anyone you know has experienced sexual harassment, the Aurora Center’s 24-hour helpline can be reached at (612) 626-9111.

Over 1,500 people have signed a petition asking the University of Minnesota administration to reconsider the decision made in 2017 to keep and sanction a professor who violated the University’s sexual harassment policies.

The University did not fire Gianluigi Veglia, a tenured professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics (BMBB) after multiple students came forward accusing him of sexual misconduct. Two investigations by the University’s Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action office found that Veglia had violated sexual harassment policies in 2017.

Siu Yi Kwang, a chemistry graduate student, created the petition on March 20, which asks professors to “revisit the [Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action] reports and recommendations from 2017 and come up with appropriate actions against Professor Veglia.”

A March 15 article by Chemical & Engineering News prompted the petition. Veglia’s sexual harassment reportedly included making comments about students’ appearances and making sexual advances toward them.

The EOAA recommended that Veglia be fired, but the deans of the College of Science and Engineering and the medical school continued to employ him as faculty, while imposing sanctions on Veglia and banning him from supervising graduate students for three years, according to the article.

Kwang said she hopes the petition will prompt action from the University. She wants to see consequences that are “more proportional” to Veglia’s reported actions in his lab based on the EOAA’s recommendations.

“A lot of the time, it’s very easy to condemn sexual harassment, but what can you actually do when it happens?” Kwang said.

Despite the sanctions placed on Veglia, some chemistry department students and faculty say the University did not take strong enough steps to prevent Veglia’s alleged sexual misconduct because he was not fired.

University alum Katie Youmans, who helped create the petition, said instances like these represent a larger issue in academia: sexual harassment or discrimination that is insufficiently punished might be an explanation for why women may not feel welcome in academic communities, she said.

“They’re protecting him instead of the victims,” Youman said.

Veglia allegedly sexually harassed a student when he served as her principal investigator, a faculty member who guides and funds graduate student research. Students and faculty in the chemistry department said this can lead to a power imbalance between graduate students and their principal investigator.

Beyond advising a student’s research, students often need recommendation letters from their principal investigator after leaving graduate school, meaning students can be hesitant to speak out against inappropriate behavior.

Lee Penn, the director of undergraduate studies in the chemistry department, said there is a great deal of support for the petition among faculty.

“In terms of the faculty members I have directly spoken to, I would say there’s a large body of support for our students and a large body of support for not having professor Veglia teach in our department, and not having him advise graduate students,” they said.

Vice President and Provost Rachel Croson and President Joan Gabel have responded to concerns about Veglia’s alleged behavior and lack of severe consequences in an email to the students, faculty and staff of the chemistry department.

“We are committed to inclusive and meaningful restorative justice, so the University will hire an external consultant to ensure a robust restorative justice process,” the email read. “We are engaged with experts in the field who will be guiding this important work and will provide additional information as this initiative progresses.”

Kwang sent a letter to Croson and Gabel criticizing their response. The administrators responded, acknowledging her message.

“Your communication suggests that the University has the power to relitigate discipline previously imposed to send a message. That is not accurate. While we can reinforce the genuineness of the discipline previously imposed, we cannot wield authority to re-open individual employment determinations, regardless of how much we might wish to,” read the email from Croson and Gabel.

University spokesperson Jake Ricker said that because Veglia accepted his proposed discipline as dictated under the University’s tenure code, “[t]hat is the end of the process under the Tenure Code. There is no basis for reopening or redoing that process.”

While Kwang said that hiring an external consultant is a good first step, she said she hopes to see more action from the University going forward.

“It took me three separate sittings to read the [C&EN article] … I was in shock,” Penn said. “I would say there’s a lot of anger in the department right now. A lot of people are very angry. The situation’s done harm to our department. And, figuring out how we, as a department, move forward and heal from all of this is going to be a long process, but it’s our job to figure that out.”

According to a SAFE-U alert from the University of Minnesota, all Superblock residence halls are now safe to enter, following the evacuation of buildings in the Superblock area this afternoon.

Frontier, Centennial and Pioneer Halls were cleared for student re-entrance at 5:53 p.m. Territorial Hall was cleared roughly 20 minutes later. 

According to the initial report, the University of Minnesota Police Department and Minneapolis Fire Department were investigating the source of the odor. All four halls were evacuated at around 2:29 p.m. The source of the gas scent has not yet been publicly identified.

The alert comes after Folwell Hall was evacuated due to a gas odor around 12:13 p.m. As of 1:32 p.m, Folwell Hall has been cleared and students are now able to return to the building.

This is a breaking news report. More information may be added as it becomes available. 

The University of Minnesota is extending pay reductions and furloughs into June 2021, due to an expected budget shortfall of around $166 million.

The Systemwide Furlough and Pay Reduction Program, which was created during the summer, is expected to save the University over $45 million. The plan will continue to impact pay and hours for employees earning over $60,000 a year, with higher paid employees seeing larger cuts.

“We truly did consider the financial impact of these decisions on our employees. These are significant actions that do impact employees personally and in their work. And we took that to heart as we discussed these measures,” said Interim Vice President for Human Resources Ken Horstman at the Dec. 10 Board of Regents meeting.

The Finance and Operations Planning Work Group was tasked in April with generating saving options for the University in response to the pandemic, serving as an advisory group to the University’s administration.

The University implemented several measures to cut costs throughout the pandemic, including a hiring freeze, which is estimated to decrease hiring by roughly 36%, and a Retirement Incentive Offer, which gave employees benefits for retiring by Jan. 15.

“I do want to acknowledge that when we talk about the words and the terminology, that it does equal real people and real lives. So, when we’re thinking of all the salaries that we are saving, it does impact people,” Regent Ilean Her said at the board meeting.

Oliver Williams, a faculty senator and professor of social work at the University, said he is willing to undergo the ongoing pay cut, because it helps the University manage the impacts of the pandemic. Williams also voted to approve Gabel’s temporary pay cut plan at the June University Senate meeting.

“It’s a way to be able to deal with the challenges of the pandemic and how universities are taking a hit as a consequence of it,” Williams said. “That’s our reality right now. My take on it is it’s a way to be able to share the pain and I think that’s the right thing to do.”

Faculty Senator and history professor William Jones said he is glad that the furlough and pay reductions place the financial burden on higher earning University employees. He said he and his partner were not impacted too harshly by the cuts.

“I was glad that [the cuts] were sort of staggered,” he said. “My spouse and I are both University faculty and so it sort of hit our household doubly.”

Emily Becher, who works in the University’s Extension Center for Family Development, said that she and many other professional and administrative staff were not surprised to hear that the plan would continue. She also said she was happy with the way the financial burden was spread across faculty and staff.

“To know that it seems to be equitably implemented feels important and makes it feel better,” Becher said. “I don’t think any of us were surprised, I mean I think all of us assumed that it was going to be, you know, that there was going to be another six months because … no one thinks that we’re doing great financially.”

A research study found that nearly 20% of faculty at the University of Minnesota have reported a high level of burnout following the beginning of the pandemic, according to a study completed by researchers at the Carlson School of Management, the University of Washington, and California Polytechnic.

The researchers collected answers from over 1,000 faculty in a study conducted the week prior to the start of fall semester, with a follow up survey being sent out in November to some of the initial respondents. Some faculty at the University said the increased workload associated with the pandemic has negatively impacted their mental health. Co-author of the study and Carlson professor Colleen Flaherty Manchester recently presented her findings to a group of associate deans in November.

The study found that faculty, overall, spent substantially less time than average researching over the spring and summer semesters, with more time spent on teaching during those periods. Additionally, 14% of faculty reported experiencing a higher level of financial stress than before the pandemic.

The pandemic has also made it difficult for faculty with children who may also be learning remotely, said Carrie Henning-Smith, the co-chair of the Women Faculty Cabinet (WFC), a group of faculty who act as an advisory board to the Provost on women’s issues.

Phil Buhlmann, chair of the Faculty Consultative Committee and chemistry professor in the School of Science and Engineering, said the blending of private life and work has increased the workload for faculty at the University.

“I’ve been on around 1,000 Zoom calls since March and there’s so many where a child shows up,” Buhlmann said. “That double-tasking that people have to do really cuts into the ability to focus. I definitely see Zoom fatigue.”

One group who has disproportionately been impacted by the pandemic has been women, as childcare responsibilities have largely fallen onto women faculty, Henning-Smith said.

Manchester, a member of the Faculty Consultative Committee, also found that women faced higher rates of burnout than their male counterparts.

“We know that there has been a disproportionate impact on women because they tend to do a larger share of the child rearing, but the same is true for caring for older adults or anyone with a disability or a long-term health condition — women tend to do the lion’s share of that work,” Henning-Smith said.

To highlight the difficulties that caregivers have faced during the pandemic, the WFC has created an anonymous page of testimonials from faculty members who are caring for children.

“This semester has not been easy on anyone, faculty spent significant time and energy re-prepping their classes for new modalities, many teaching from their homes, while guiding their children’s education or caring for family members,” said Executive Vice President and Provost Rachel Croson at the Dec. 3 University Senate meeting.

In an interview with the Minnesota Daily in October, President Joan Gabel said the University has tried to get information about mental health resources and programming out to the campus community.

“We’ve been very focused on serving our students. And not only do our faculty and staff have needs, but their health is a big contributor [to] student health, they need to have the capacity to be in service to students in order to do what we think we need to be doing for our students,” Gabel said.

According to the University’s dance program director and FCC member, Carl Flink, the dance program has taken some steps to support faculty mental health, including non-mandatory Zoom meetings where faculty can discuss issues they have been having and help one another.

Part of the reason for the high rates of burnout has been that faculty did not have a traditional summer break to recharge due to the pandemic, and because teaching classes of different modalities can be more work for faculty, said Flink, who is also the artistic director of the Black Label Movement, said.

“One of the things we’re definitely wrestling with and doing a lot of work on is, is just burnout,” Flink said. “As a manager and a program director I’ve definitely seen the kind of energy and emotional costs of that extra work, people are tired. They’re tired physically, they’re tired mentally.”

Addressing mental health is crucial for the betterment of students and staff, said Colin Campbell, associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology.

“You can’t even call it a crisis,” Campbell said. “We have a mental health reality. A crisis implies that it’s going to go away. This is just a feature on the landscape and there’s very little reason to think it’s going to change dramatically.”

Manchester expects to have a more comprehensive write-up of the faculty study in January.

Three male suspects punched a victim, in what the victim believed to be an attempted robbery at 8 p.m. Sunday, according to a SAFE-U alert. The incident occurred near the intersection of 13th Avenue Southeast and University Avenue Southeast.

The alert said the three male suspects with limited physical descriptions got out of an older model gray car with tinted windows. The victim was able to fight back and escaped the suspects.

Community and campus members are advised to use caution.

This is a breaking news report. More information may be added as it becomes available.

The University of Minnesota Senate Committee on Educational Policy (SCEP) recommended Wednesday that all undergraduate classes on the Twin Cities campus include a pass/fail option that would count toward degree completion, following a recent petition created by a dental student that garnered more than a 1,000 signatures.

Zayna Jan, a second-year dental student, wrote the petition after discussions with other dental students about the need for all students to have the pass/fail grading option as the pandemic continues.

SCEP discussed the petition over two meetings. Executive Vice President and Provost Rachel Croson, who will make the final decision, asked the committee to advise her on her response to the petition.

According to an Oct. 13 email from Vice Provost and Dean Robert McMaster, the deadline for undergraduate students to switch a course to pass/fail grading was extended into late October. The email also advised students to be cautious about credit restrictions when selecting a grading basis and reminded students that pass/fail grades do not count toward major requirements.

Student advocacy

Jan said she started the petition because the University’s dental school requires students to have in-person lab hours. But with limited availability to schedule and reserve lab times, it can be more difficult to meet those requirements.

“It was honestly for a dental school reason, and then I got so many signatures — more than I anticipated,” Jan said. “Reading the testimonials, I realized this has become something a lot bigger than just the School of Dentistry and that programs deserve to have it.”

A group of dental students also helped provide Jan with feedback and spread awareness about the petition. The petition asks for pass/fail grading to be available during the pandemic and that classes taken pass/fail meet major requirements.

Kami Hogan, a second-year dental student, said dental students experience added challenges alternating between online learning and in-person lab on top of the stressors of a pandemic. She also helped Jan with the petition.

“[It’s a] completely different environment and a different way of learning for everybody,” Hogan said. Having the option of pass/fail grading for dental students during COVID-19 would alleviate some stress, she added.

Hogan said she lost her dad a couple of months ago and has been dealing with health issues.

“I’m dealing with a lot while trying to get everything done with school and trying to adapt to this new system,” Hogan said. “This would have been hard anyways, whether COVID was in place or not … but the fact that COVID is adding even more to that is making it more challenging.”

The Minnesota Student Association passed a resolution with a 50-3 vote to have the option to transition into a pass/fail grading basis that would count toward degree completion for all fall 2020 classes.

Matthew Croft, MSA academic affairs director, and MSA President Amy Ma, co-authored the resolution. Croft was present at the SCEP meeting last week along with Jan.

“We deserve the ability to be able to prioritize our health and safety and security over our grades if that’s what we have to do,” Croft said. “I don’t feel that students should be penalized for making that decision to prioritize their own well-being.”

Jan said she probably sent over 800 emails to undergraduate and professional students to spread the word about the petition. Signatures on the petition are mainly from undergraduate students but also medical, law, pharmacy, dental and nursing school students.

Jan is also working with campus disability advocates, including the Critical Disability Studies Collective to get feedback on the petition.

Faculty response

While some faculty expressed support for increased access to pass/fail grading, others are worried about how students with pass/fail classes on their transcript will be viewed by admission teams at potential graduate schools or other higher learning institutions.

“I think as we get further into this semester, we’re getting more worried about students and their … physical and mental health,” McMaster said.

While faculty are sympathetic to the financial and emotional pressures students are facing, the University still must maintain high academic standards, McMaster said.

The petition to sign in support of pass/fail grading is still available, and the number of signatures continues to grow.

“I think a lot of students feel alone in this, and online learning is a sink or swim situation,” Jan said. “Now because I’ve started this, I want to end this the right way for everybody, and I — as much as it would benefit me — I know it would benefit a lot of other people a lot more.”