By: Meghan Holden

University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler announced a plan Friday to cut administrative costs by $90 million over six years, despite outside reports saying the institution’s spending is on track with its peers.

According to recent findings by University-hired consulting firms, the institution’s spending is within reasonable levels. But at this week’s Board of Regents meeting, Kaler proposed a plan cutting $15 million a year in administrative costs.

The cuts would begin this fiscal year and continue for five more, he said.

 “I think it’s time to be more ambitious than we ever have been,” Kaler said to the board.

University Chief Financial Officer Richard Pfutzenreuter said he hopes the bulk of the cuts will come from employees retiring or resigning, but said the University isn’t ruling out layoffs.

“There’s no guarantee at this point,” he said.

After a December Wall Street Journal article criticized the University’s administrative spending, Sen. Terri Bonoff, DFL-Minnetonka, and Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, authored a letter requesting reports on how the institution is spending taxpayer dollars.

The $15 million in cuts per year matches a recommendation from the Legislature.

In January, the University hired Huron Consulting Group for $495,000 and Sibson Consulting for $48,000 to analyze administrative spending.

The Sibson review showed the University’s spending is at “healthy” levels but said there are still areas for improvement.

A separate report by Huron said the University is already taking on “major initiatives to promote efficiency and effectiveness and to reduce administrative costs.”

The Huron report also suggested the University could shrink its managers-to-employees ratio and combine services across multiple departments and colleges to lower costs

further.

Kaler’s plan to cut administrative costs will make the University more financially stable and affordable for students, Bonoff said, though the University must continue to regularly report its spending to the Legislature.

“I think [Kaler is] doing the right thing,” she said. “There really are ways to cut.”

Joelle Stangler, student representative to the board, said she agrees with Kaler’s announcement “on the surface” but wants to look further into the specifics of his plan.

“Any move toward making the University more efficient is a move in the right direction,” she said.

By: Hailey Colwell

Thousands of Minneapolis honey bees began dying off late last week due to apparent pesticide poisoning.

The University of Minnesota Bee Lab and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture are conducting tests to verify whether pesticides were the actual cause.

Minneapolis resident Mark Lucas noticed the bees he and his family keeps in their back yard behaving strangely Wednesday night, shaking on the edge of the hive and falling to the ground.

“They just come spilling out of the hive like they’re drunk,” he said.

Lucas’ hive was one of at least three hit in the Kenwood neighborhood, north of Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis.

The MDA took samples from hives Friday to test for pesticide contamination. Pesticide is suspected because of the way the bees died, said Becky Masterman, co-coordinator of the University’s Bee Squad, a division of the Bee Lab that educates and mentors local beekeepers.

Beekeepers suspect that a pesticide was used in the area and bees brought it back to their colonies after pollination.

“This was in no way on our radar,” Masterman said, because the colonies were known to be healthy.

One of the Bee Squad’s colonies was also affected by the incident, said Bee Squad co-coordinator Jody Gerdts.

The Bee Lab is conducting its own tests in hopes of getting results faster than the MDA, which could take up to six months, Gerdts said.

More timely results will allow the squad to spread the word about the incident to local beekeepers, who have been vocal about the incident on social media and worry that it could affect them, she said.

“If it waits six months before we can say anything, then the story’s gone,” she said.

The Beez Kneez, a Minneapolis-based honey bee education organization that delivers honey by bike, lost one colony over the weekend and is worried more colonies could be affected.

A typical Beez Kneez colony consists of 40,000 to 50,000 bees at this time of year, said co-owner Kristy Allen. The Beez Kneez owns 45 hives in the Twin Cities area. Though losing a colony could result in revenue loss, Allen said there’s also an emotional side to the incident.

“It’s livestock, but they’re very important,” she said.

Bees are indicators of environmental health, Gerdts said, and the fact that pesticides could have potentially been used incorrectly is “scary.”

“There [are] things that are out there that are being applied to our landscape that can do more harm than perceived good,” she said.

The bee deaths are part of the bigger issue of keeping pollinators healthy, as they contribute to food production, Masterman said.

The Bee Squad is using social media to raise awareness about pesticide contamination.

Lucas said his family will get new bees if his colony is completely wiped out. When he was a child, Lucas’ grandmother kept bees in Elk River, Minn., and he said he’s been interested in them ever since.

He became a certified beekeeper through the University and started building his colony last May.

His kids were hesitant to go into the backyard with the bees at first, he said, but later became very involved in the process — taking pictures and collecting larvae alongside him.

“It was a really interesting thing for our family to experience together,” Lucas said.

In the meantime, Lucas said, he’ll be spreading the word about the “unintended consequences” of the choices people make in their yards — such as fertilizer use — and their effect on the neighborhood.

“It’s crazy how much it’s really all tied together,” he said.

By: Hailey Colwell

Thousands of Minneapolis honey bees began dying off late last week due to apparent pesticide poisoning.

The University of Minnesota Bee Lab and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture are conducting tests to verify whether pesticides were the actual cause.

Minneapolis resident Mark Lucas noticed the bees he and his family keeps in their back yard behaving strangely Wednesday night, shaking on the edge of the hive and falling to the ground.

“They just come spilling out of the hive like they’re drunk,” he said.

Lucas’ hive was one of at least three hit in the Kenwood neighborhood, north of Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis.

The MDA took samples from hives Friday to test for pesticide contamination. Pesticide is suspected because of the way the bees died, said Becky Masterman, co-coordinator of the University’s Bee Squad, a division of the Bee Lab that educates and mentors local beekeepers.

Beekeepers suspect that a pesticide was used in the area and bees brought it back to their colonies after pollination.

“This was in no way on our radar,” Masterman said, because the colonies were known to be healthy.

One of the Bee Squad’s colonies was also affected by the incident, said Bee Squad co-coordinator Jody Gerdts.

The Bee Lab is conducting its own tests in hopes of getting results faster than the MDA, which could take up to six months, Gerdts said.

More timely results will allow the squad to spread the word about the incident to local beekeepers, who have been vocal about the incident on social media and worry that it could affect them, she said.

“If it waits six months before we can say anything, then the story’s gone,” she said.

The Beez Kneez, a Minneapolis-based honey bee education organization that delivers honey by bike, lost one colony over the weekend and is worried more colonies could be affected.

A typical Beez Kneez colony consists of 40,000 to 50,000 bees at this time of year, said co-owner Kristy Allen. The Beez Kneez owns 45 hives in the Twin Cities area. Though losing a colony could result in revenue loss, Allen said there’s also an emotional side to the incident.

“It’s livestock, but they’re very important,” she said.

Bees are indicators of environmental health, Gerdts said, and the fact that pesticides could have potentially been used incorrectly is “scary.”

“There [are] things that are out there that are being applied to our landscape that can do more harm than perceived good,” she said.

The bee deaths are part of the bigger issue of keeping pollinators healthy, as they contribute to food production, Masterman said.

The Bee Squad is using social media to raise awareness about pesticide contamination.

Lucas said his family will get new bees if his colony is completely wiped out. When he was a child, Lucas’ grandmother kept bees in Elk River, Minn., and he said he’s been interested in them ever since.

He became a certified beekeeper through the University and started building his colony last May.

His kids were hesitant to go into the backyard with the bees at first, he said, but later became very involved in the process — taking pictures and collecting larvae alongside him.

“It was a really interesting thing for our family to experience together,” Lucas said.

In the meantime, Lucas said, he’ll be spreading the word about the “unintended consequences” of the choices people make in their yards — such as fertilizer use — and their effect on the neighborhood.

“It’s crazy how much it’s really all tied together,” he said.

By: Meghan Holden

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents reviewed the University’s 2014 bonding request at their monthly meeting Friday and will vote on the request next month.

The request totals nearly $300 million — about 80 percent of which would come from the state — to improve areas of campus.

Of the more than $200 million requested from the state, $100 million would go to upkeep and maintenance of University buildings.

Other parts of the request include funding to renovate the Tate Laboratory of Physics, construct a new Microbial Sciences Research Building and modernize existing labs.

“Updating old facilities and investing in research facilities is the best thing the University can be doing,” said student representative to the board Joelle Stangler.

By: Anne Millerbernd

As the cost of higher education continues to increase, online classes have been held up as a less expensive alternative.

But at the University of Minnesota, and elsewhere, these classes can mean additional fees on top of tuition costs — something some students and faculty members are unaware of.

University students taking more than one Online Distance Learning credit are charged an additional fee between $90 and $270, depending on the number of credits taken.

Nick Biondich has taught the ODL version of a University accounting class for nearly 18 years and said he’s never heard of the fee.

Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education Bob McMaster said most instructors aren’t aware of many of the fees students pay, including the ODL fee, because it’s not relevant to them.

“In my role as a faculty [member], I rarely get involved with tuition-related issues,” Biondich said.

Freshman Vanessa Nelson said the fee would discourage her from taking an online course.

“I find [online classes] more challenging than face-to-face,” she said. “I just don’t really think it’s worth the extra money.”

The cost of providing courses

The University offered more than 1,200 online classes in 2012, McMaster said.

Each online class costs the University between $20,000 and $100,000 in startup expenses, he said, and part of the ODL fee goes to recovering those costs.

ODL Assistant Director Joan Saunders said the University also uses part of the fee to keep copyrighted information online instead of having students buy a course packet, as they might for a traditional class.

Other institutions also charge additional fees for online classes, though amounts vary.

At the University of Illinois-Springfield, students pay a $25 fee for each credit hour they take as an online course.

Ohio State University charges a $100 fee per term for students taking distance learning courses. The fee pays for “24-7 distance education support,” according to the school’s website.

But even though online classes and their fees are relatively new, distance learning has always come at a cost.

When ODL courses were first offered at the University, McMaster said, they came with separate fees because students and instructors had to pay to mail course materials back and forth.

As online classes became more common, he said, expenses for providing and maintaining them increased, directing money away from individual courses.

“Historically, these were separate units, and as separate units, they had to earn their own revenue and didn’t have the resources of the whole University behind them,” McMaster said.

By: Kyle Stowe

The Minnesota Student Association outlined its policy platform for this school year at its first forum of the semester

Tuesday evening.

MSA will focus on advocating for University of Minnesota bonding projects, open-source textbooks and changes to the Higher

Education Act during its reauthorization this year.

The undergraduate student government succeeded in lobbying for the new medical amnesty law in the 2013 legislative session, and MSA leaders said they’re confident they can influence policy change again.

Matt Forstie, Minnesota Student Legislative Coalition chairman, said it’s important to show state legislators a student voice when they discuss bonding projects in this spring’s session.

Local governments and state agencies, including the University, request state funding during the legislative session for construction and remodeling projects, generally in

even-numbered years.

“We want to make continuous improvements in facilities that are directly involved with student learning and research,” Forstie said.

A large bonding bill failed last session, leaving about $110 million in University projects unfunded.

The University’s preliminary 2014 bonding request, released July 15, asks for nearly $233 million from the state. The money would go toward construction and renovation projects across all University campuses, including renovations to the Tate Laboratory of Physics, a new Plant and Animal Science Building and updates to other labs.

This preliminary request could change in coming months as University officials and student lobbyists meet with legislators to make their case for bonding projects.

“We visit with state legislators all the time,” Forstie said. “We want to tell them what we think about [bonding projects] as students.”

MSA will also push for open-source textbooks at the University level this year. The state Legislature didn’t pass a previous plan, instead calling for an “open educational resource council” last

session.

Though MSA won’t push the measure at the state level this year, Forstie said continued discussion of free, online textbooks on campus will hopefully encourage faculty to look at the possibility of adopting open-source textbooks.

“If [faculty] select an open book for one of their classes, that could save students a lot of money,” Forstie said.

Some faculty members in the College of Education and Human Development created an open textbook catalog two years ago, Forstie said, and MSA wants to expand it throughout the University.

With the Higher Education Act set to expire after this year, Forstie said MSA members will also push at the federal level for a more transparent College Scorecard, an informational database for United States colleges.

Forstie said MSA wants students and parents to be able to compare cost and other statistics more easily when evaluating schools.

To advocate for these changes, Forstie said MSA leaders will work with government officials locally and in Washington, D.C.

“We want to have an apples-to-apples base to compare universities on,” he said, “so when students and families are making a college decision, they’re picking a cost-effective and high-quality choice.”

By: Meghan Holden

It’s unclear who the University of Minnesota’s top lawyer will be in two years.

William Donohue replaced long-standing General Counsel Mark Rotenberg in the spring, but it’s unclear how long he’ll serve in the position.

After serving as a top litigator at the University for more than 30 years, Donohue was appointed to lead the Office of the General Counsel in May for a two-year fixed term. Rotenberg stepped down after more than two decades as the University’s top lawyer.

Tracy Smith, who was appointed deputy general counsel when Donohue was promoted, said his leadership is what the OGC needs during the changeover.

President Eric Kaler offered Donohue an interim position shortly after Rotenberg’s resignation and soon after appointed him to the University’s general counsel for a

two-year term.

“I think it’s a smart thing for him to have done,” Donohue said. “He was worried about stability on the senior staff, and I have been here forever. I am the rock of stability.”

If Donohue, 65, chooses not to retire when his contract expires in June 2015, there’s a possibility he could continue in the position pending Kaler’s approval, said University Chief of Staff Amy Phenix.

Phenix said Donohue’s experience as deputy general counsel for the past 23 years and his commitment to the University would provide stability for the OGC during its transition in leadership.

“We’ve had significant leadership turnover on Kaler’s senior leadership team, and [Donohue] is somebody who comes with deep, deep institutional knowledge,”

Phenix said.

Two-thirds of the senior leaders at the University have held their position for less than three years, according to an email Kaler sent to University faculty and staff in May.

It’s not uncommon for the University administrators to hold fixed terms, Phenix said.

For example, Aaron Friedman began a three-year fixed term as the University’s Medical School Dean and Academic Health Center Vice President in 2011. His term will end in January.

A search committee for Donohue’s position hasn’t been appointed, Phenix said. The search will likely take three to six months, and there are no set dates for when it will begin,

she said.

Donohue said a fixed term is in the best interest of all parties.

“We developed what I think is a real high-quality law office. We think we’re in the top of general counsel offices in higher education,” he said.

By: Luis Ruuska

Journalist James Surowiecki  epitomized the textbook industry’s business in the New Yorker years ago as a fight against used book sales via new, expensive editions of books released every few years. For Surowiecki, these obsolete texts are planned to manipulate the industry to profit from students.

The cost of textbooks has skyrocketed a whopping 812 percent since 1978. In comparison, the Consumer Price Index has only risen 250 percent since 1978. Additionally, it is estimated that students pay anywhere from $800 to $1,000 annually for textbooks at four-year public universities.

With no end in sight for the high cost of textbooks, students are increasingly turning to more unscrupulous methods to acquire their course materials.

While students are continuing to pirate their favorite TV shows, movies and albums, the odd PDF of their Monday class’s textbook may not look so out of place in their BitTorrent client these days.

In 2010, around 20 percent of students surveyed by the Book Industry Study Group reported illegally downloading course content. Today that number has risen to 34 percent. Over the same period of time, the amount of students who admitted to photocopying or scanning textbooks rose from 21 percent to 31 percent.

It is clear that more than a third of students see pirating textbooks as a viable option for making the grade, but are they in the wrong?

Legally, yes. It’s irrefutable that downloading copyrighted textbooks for free is illegal. How could it not be?

But to simply state this obvious fact and declare that this issue is a black-and-white one where the lazy and self-centered college students are in the wrong and the hardworking, law-abiding textbook publishing industry is in the right is to miss the point entirely.

While pirating textbooks may be illegal, students have every ethical right to do it provided that they accept there may be legal consequences for their actions. Why? Because, as the old saying goes, it takes two to tango and the textbook publishing industry has kept prices exorbitantly high for more than three decades.

Too long have the requests and complaints of students to the textbook publishing industry fallen upon deaf ears. At some point we as students need to draw a line in the sand and decide whether to refuse to support an industry whose profits rise as our modest finances diminish. If the textbook publishing industry does not want to compromise, then it shouldn’t be surprised to see its profits begin to dwindle year-by-year.

For some students, drawing that line will mean only renting or buying used books. For others, this will mean pirating to make the grade.

The exponential rise in piracy over the last decade is the reason many industries have released streaming services like Hulu and Spotify in a gesture of compromise to their customers. The book industry has also recognized the value in digital content, and retailers like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble have eagerly adopted their respective e-book devices, e-books and e-book loaning services and inadvertently opened the door to piracy even further.

Only a tiny fraction of “pirates” face consequences each year. Students are going to be surprised to discover that pirating their textbooks is as easy and as relatively safe as pirating their favorite albums. But they will also need to decide for themselves if the ends justify the means. In this case, the ends might mean hundreds of dollars saved each semester and a little less debt after

graduation.

By: Nathaniel Rabuzzi

Minneapolis will test a ranked-choice voting system this election year – a balloting method used by less than 20 cities nationwide.

Proponents of ranked-choice voting say it will lead to more candidates being considered, but others say the system still has flaws.

Minneapolis leaders held a mock election Friday to educate voters, test the new machines and make sure city workers understand the new system, said City Clerk Casey Carl.

“It’s a dress rehearsal for us as well,” he said.

The mock election will be rolled out in five different locations over the next week, to allow Minneapolis residents to practice ranked-choice voting. This will be the second election with instant runoff voting, but the first with new polling equipment.

Minneapolis’ system allows voters to rank up to three candidates, all of whom are listed on the ballot under columns, for first, second and third choice.

If there isn’t a majority on the first vote count, the least popular candidate is eliminated and ballots listing the eliminated candidate as their top choice become votes for candidates listed in those ballots’

second spots.

Votes are recounted and the process repeats until a candidate reaches a majority.

The old voting system allowed only two candidates with the most votes to move forward in the election, said Ward 2

Councilman Cam Gordon, and implementing rank-choice voting eliminates the mayoral primary.

Gordon said voters are more likely to choose an underdog as their first choice in the ranked-choice system because if that candidate loses, their vote still hasn’t been lost.

The Minnesota Public Interest Research Group at the University of Minnesota also supports the system.“It is a really great opportunity to reflect the opinions of the voter,” said MPIRG co-chair Kate Dobson.

But Anna Breen, president of the University’s Democracy Matters student group, said ranking three candidates on the ballot means voters need to know triple the amount of information to make an informed decision.

Breen said for ranked-choice voting to be successful in Minneapolis, there needs to be a push for voter education and preparation.

This year’s mayoral race includes 35 candidates, making the process more complex than when it was first implemented four years ago.

“Ranked-choice is an idealistic and positive development, but the system has to work properly,” said mayoral front-runner and former Hennepin County Commissioner Mark Andrew.

Captain Jack Sparrow, a political activist and candidate in this year’s mayoral race, is focusing his campaign on ranked-choice voting reform.

Sparrow said he’s running on a “rank all choices” platform to raise awareness about the ranked-choice system’s shortcomings. 

Mayoral candidate Bob “Again” Carney, Jr. also supports a system where voters rank every candidate and is critical of ranked choice.

“With three rankings, you can waste your vote three times,” he said.

Gordon said the ranked-choice system encourages candidates to avoid “attacking” each other because they want to appeal to voters who might also support their opponents.

“[They] know that they might not win with first choices and they’re going to need some second or third choices to win,” Gordon said.

Every candidate has to win over all the voters rather than just those who agree with his or her platforms, mayoral candidate Cam Winton said, so the process could create more civility among competitors this year.

“People are still figuring out how it works,” Winton said.

Mayoral candidate Dan Cohen said Minneapolis could serve as an example of ranked-choice voting on a large scale, and depending on the election’s success, other cities might

follow suit.

“This way you’re going to hear from people of widely diverse backgrounds and viewpoints, and I think that’s a benefit to the public,” mayoral candidate Dan Cohen said.

By: Julia Marshall

University of Minnesota students and faculty members are partnering with North St. Paul for a variety of sustainability projects this year.

Hundreds of graduate and professional students are expected to work with the city on environmentally-friendly development as part of the Resilient Communities Project, a program that offers students a chance to apply their learning to real-world situations.

Seven cities submitted proposals to the University, but faculty members chose North St. Paul because of its interest in sustainability.

Students and faculty from 20 different departments will work on 21 various projects with the city, including street redesign, economic development, crime prevention and waste management.

Mary Hammes, a second-year graduate student in the natural resources science and management program, will be working on environmental education for the city as part of her graduate thesis.

“It’s a dual purpose,” she said. “It’ll serve my thesis, and then I’ll help on the report to give to North St. Paul.”

Some North St. Paul residents said they hope the partnership will increase economic development in the area.

Paul Anderson, chairman of North St. Paul’s Design and Historical Review Commission, said the city’s downtown needs improvement. The city’s expansion has slowed over the past few decades, he said, and he hopes to compete with increased development in neighboring towns.

North St. Paul has about 11,500 residents, and Anderson said working with the University will alleviate city employees’ workload.

“It really will make a difference because it’s hard for our small staff … to do as much as needs to be done to make progress,” he said.

David Nelson, a 38-year resident of North St. Paul, said he’s excited for the students to begin work but hopes the development doesn’t detract from the city’s character.

“The main thing is to keep the small-town flavor,” he said. “We don’t want to expand and make it like a big shopping mall.”

Ange Wang, a College of Design professor working on the project, said program leaders will communicate with the community to address concerns like Nelson’s.

 “Anytime you engage community members in a project, it has much more sustainable results than if you don’t engage them,” Wang said. “People need to feel a part of something.”