By: Cody Nelson

The Minnesota state Legislature adjourned its 2013 session last week, and with it comes a slew of new legislation that will directly affect the University of Minnesota and its students.

With the end of the session, same-sex marriages will be legal in the state starting Aug. 1, undocumented Minnesota students can pay in-state tuition) pending University approval) and the tax on cigarettes will rise.

This graphic details the various new laws that will affect students as well as some legislation that failed.       

The Legislature increased higher education funding by about $250 million, including an $80 million increase to the University to fund items like the two-year tuition freeze for in-state undergraduates, the DREAM Act — which allows undocumented Minnesota students to pay in-state tuition, pending University approval — and a new research initiative.

University Chief Financial Officer Richard Pfutzenreuter said this higher education budget is the “first realized increase” for the state’s appropriation to the University in six years.

About $25 million in the second half of the University’s biennial budget is dependent on some performance goals. To receive that money, the University must complete at least three of five goals, like decreasing administrative spending by $15 million and improving graduation rates.

$42.6 million

With the funding, the University will freeze tuition for resident undergraduates. This amount will be dispersed over the next two fiscal years.

$100,000

This one-time appropriation covers the information technology costs to implement the DREAM Act — or Prosperity Act — which provides in-state benefits to undocumented students. These funds will go to the Office of Higher Education’s general fund in fiscal year 2014.

$36.65 million

This appropriation will go to a new University research initiative called MnDRIVE.

After a contentious, months-long debate in both legislative chambers, Minnesota became the 12th state to legalize same-sex marriage. The law will take effect Aug. 1.

The historic measure marks a rapid shift in state policy regarding same-sex marriage.

Two years ago, the Republican-led Legislature put last fall’s proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Minnesota on the ballot.

Minnesotans, however, voted the amendment down and put DFLers in control of both the House and Senate for the 2013 legislative session. They were able to push the measure through this session in a vote that stayed mostly along party lines, with a few from each side bucking party beliefs.

OTHER BILLS

Medical Amnesty

Transportation

Internships

The omnibus tax bill offers tax breaks for greater Minnesota businesses that offer internships to college students.

Taxes

Smokers and high-income Minnesotans will pay more taxes when this session’s omnibus tax bill takes effect.

In a move that some hope will decrease smoking in the state, the cigarette tax will go up to $1.60 a pack.

Minimum wage

A bill to raise the state’s minimum wage to $9.50 by 2015 failed. House DFLers pushed the measure until the final days of the session but never got the necessary support.

Clothing sales tax

Drivers Licenses

Medical marijuana

Gun control

Biking

By: Janice Bitters

University of Minnesota administrators are adjusting their six-year capital improvement plan after facing cuts from the Legislature.

Nearly two-thirds of the funding for the plan that comes from the Legislature was rejected last month. The plan, which will be discussed at a June Board of Regents meeting, is awaiting approval from the University regents.

Because of the lack of state funding, much of the work originally planned would need to be deferred, said Monique MacKenzie, departmental director for Capital Planning and Project Management.

But some construction will still move forward.

Under the current plan, MacKenzie said students on the Twin Cities campus would likely notice more classroom sharing and changes to buildings near Pleasant Street next year.

The primary goals of the capital plan include updating laboratory space, consolidating classrooms and buildings and creating more active learning environments.

Tate Laboratory

One of the largest renovations highlighted on the plan is to the Tate Laboratory of Physics, which earth sciences professor Peter Hudleston said will be a welcome change.

Research needs have changed over time, he said, leaving some laboratories outdated and scattered to six different buildings around campus.

“The needs of the department … cannot be met by the labs in Pillsbury Hall, which is part of the reason we have labs in different buildings,” he said.

Hudleston said the department eventually plans to consolidate into just Tate.

Among the departments that will share the rehabilitated Tate Laboratory will be the School of Physics and Astronomy, which physics professor Joe Kapusta said will allow for important collaboration.

“I think it could be very interesting to have this broad spectrum [of departments],” he said. “… We go from the stars all the way to the earth. It’s a nice, broad continuum.”

Kapusta said he’s also looking forward to lab space that’s designed for more modern research.

“The [Tate] labs were designed for experiments in the 1930s or 1950s, and we are now well into the 21st century,” he said. “The environment in the lab is nowhere near what you would see in a modern industry.”

MacKenzie said students will see many classes move out of Tate and into the Physics and Nanotechnology Building in 2014 in preparation for the renovation.

Sharing spaces

The University will also begin encouraging different departments to share classrooms and labs. MacKenzie said space sharing will build support systems for departments and save money.

On the St. Paul campus, the colleges of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, Veterinary Medicine and Biological Sciences are planning to share lab space in a new building, making current research labs “obsolete,” according to the capital improvement plan.

“The deans have agreed it’s important to create what we call a thematic building,” MacKenzie said. “[The space] is focused on the practice of a certain field of science that researchers from all those colleges can share.”

Others around campus have expressed interest in sharing classroom space in the future, including the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Child Development, MacKenzie said. In the future, the two departments may replace the buildings they’re currently using with a shared one.

MacKenzie said the consolidations are necessary to accommodate changing department needs and the large student population on campus.

“If we went about building a campus today that would serve 50,000 people, it would not look anything like how [the University] does,” MacKenzie said.

Russian studies senior Meredith Gulsvig said while she likes the renovated buildings on campus, she would miss ones.

“I like how sitting on the mall, looking out, now you can see all the old structures of the buildings,” she said. “I think that is super cool.”

Gulsvig said the changes could also impact the culture of the University in the future.

“Changes make it look fresher, but it’s going to draw different kinds of students no matter what,” she said.

Active learning classrooms

Another major component of the capital improvement plan is to incorporate more active learning classrooms.

Active learning classrooms — like those in the Science Teaching and Student Services building — bring technology into the classroom with computers and TV screens and generally offer shared round tables for students.

Though funding for active classrooms is limited, MacKenzie said the University will continue to look for ways to place more of them on all University campuses. In addition, she said the University plans to ask for state funding for the classrooms in the future.

“It’s clear to the academic side that there are huge gains to be had from reconfiguring spaces to an active learning format,” she said. “We are trying to balance out our multiple funding sources and timelines.” 

By: Branden Largent

Haonan Sun was in a dilemma after graduating from the University of Minnesota in December.

The mechanical engineering student needed to find a job within three months after graduation or attend graduate school. Otherwise, Sun would have to go home to China.

“It was very stressful,” said Sun, who found a job at a medical device testing company. “Even if you haven’t decided what you want to do, you have to jump into the next phase right after you graduate.”

With limited jobs and work visas available, many international students either have to attend graduate school or go back to their home countries.

In 2012, more than 1,500 international students received degrees from the University, a more than 500-student increase from 2008.

Dong-Sung Kim, an economics junior from South Korea, said many of his friends had to go back to his home country after graduation because they couldn’t get jobs.

Kim said he’s working to build his career before graduation through internships and jobs so he has a better chance of getting a job when he finishes school.

“I don’t want to go back right away to Korea,” Kim said.

Newly graduated international students can get jobs under Optional Practical Training, a federal program that allows them to work in the country for an additional year.

Sun and other international students with science, technology, engineering or mathematics degrees can extend their OPT to 29 months.

“It’s very competitive to find a job,” Sun said. “And after that, you need luck to get a work visa.”

After their OPT ends, foreign degree-holders have to apply for H1-B work visas, which allow foreigners to legally work in the country, said Barbara Kappler, director of University’s International Student and Scholar Services.

“When they’re done being students, they can only use a limited number of options,” Kappler said.

The 85,000 available H-1B visas in the country this year ran out within five days, said Mark Schneider, an ISSS associate director for employment-based visas. Almost 39,000 requests  were denied this year.

Schneider said applications for H-1B visas can cost companies $825 each, and many of them don’t know how to handle H-1Bs, which can cost companies more than $2,000 in attorney fees.

“That can be expensive and prohibitive for some employers,” Schneider said.

Because of the complicated and costly process of hiring degree-holding foreigners, Schneider said many companies decide to hire American applicants with the same degree.

A current U.S. Senate immigration bill would increase the number of available H-1B visas to 110,000, said Schneider, who works on H-1B visas for incoming employees. If the bill doesn’t pass, he said he hopes the cap increase could move forward in another piece of legislation.

Schneider was in Washington, D.C., in March to advocate for more H-1B visas and fewer barriers for international students when they enter the working world.

“You get ’em here, you educate them and then they have nowhere to get a job,” Schneider said. “There are lots of barriers.”

Many universities and companies have also been pushing for a higher cap on H-1B visas so employers can have more hiring options and students have more job opportunities, Schneider said.

Sun said he considered himself lucky to find his new job, which he starts in June.

Most of the jobs Sun applied for turned him down when he said he would need sponsorship to get a work visa in the future.

“We need to welcome students, graduates and highly skilled laborers into the United States,” Schneider said, “because that’s the future of the economy and our country.” 

By: Dane Mizutani

Jessica Allister arrived on the University of Minnesota campus three years ago with a vision: turn around the Gophers softball program.

She may have already done it.

The Gophers ended one of their most successful seasons in the last 10 years two weeks ago with a 3-0 loss to Hawaii in the NCAA Seattle Regional.

Minnesota finished the year 36-19, recording its most wins in a season since 2003, the last year it made an NCAA regional.

The Gophers have won more than 30 games in each of Allister’s three seasons.

“She has the heart, and she believes in us,” said senior catcher Kari Dorle. “She knew how good we were as soon as she got here, and she pushed us to get that out of us.”

In 2010, the season before Allister was named head coach, the Gophers finished 16-37 — 2-17 in the Big Ten.

Allister was an All-American catcher at Stanford in the early 2000s and coached at Georgia, Stanford and Oregon before she accepted the head coaching job at Minnesota.

She has experienced success at every stage of her career, but she said she entered her first season with the Gophers blind. Allister was familiar with some of the talent on the roster, but she hadn’t really seen the team in action.

“I’m not going to sit here and say it was easy,” Allister said. “I think people are always resistant to change in some respect, but we had a core group of players on the team that wanted to win.”

Junior Sara Moulton has been part of that core group from the start. She has since morphed into the backbone of the team as a dominant pitcher at the top of the Gophers’ rotation.

“There were a lot of players that wanted to help turn the program around,” Moulton said. “That was added motivation for us — and with Coach Allister, that was her goal, too.”

Moulton said her success as well as the team’s success stems from Allister and her attitude on the diamond.

“She’s the most competitive coach I’ve ever played for in my life,” Moulton said. “She brings a very competitive approach to her coaching style, which definitely rubs off on the rest of us.”

Dorle is one of the few players on the current roster who played under the previous regime of co-head coaches Lisa Bernstein and Julie Standering. Dorle said she noticed significant differences in Allister’s coaching style right away. She, too, said there was an increased sense of competitiveness with Allister at the helm.

“She wants to win, and she will do whatever it takes to win,” Dorle said. “She’s a perfect fit for this program.”

Minnesota was a perfect fit for Allister, too.

She said she looked at the success of women’s programs at the University and at the overall commitment placed on women’s athletics before she made her decision.

“It’s not just a focus on men’s basketball and football with this University,” Allister said. “That is something that was important to me because there was a support system in place to succeed.”

The Gophers have been near the top of the Big Ten in defense in each of the past three seasons, and Moulton has become one of the top pitchers in the nation.

Allister credited assistants Jessica Merchant and Piper Ritter for the team’s improved defense and pitching.

“I couldn’t do it alone,” Allister said. “It’s a 24/7 job with college athletics, and it never stops, so the fact that we are on the same page is important.”

This is only the start for the softball program, said Allister, who wants to focus on the major aspects of building a program in the coming years.

“We have to keep all of our staff together and recruit the right athletes to this program,” Allister said. “It’s a little piece at a time with building a program.”

The Gophers have an inherent disadvantage in college softball because they play in a cold climate. But Moulton said there’s no doubt Allister will lead the team to a College World Series appearance in the future.

Dorle has more lofty goals for the program.

 “I can see this program as the next Arizona, Oklahoma, Alabama or one of those top schools,” she said. “I cannot see [Allister] ever letting up.”

“She will achieve her goal of making our program a top school in the nation.” 

By: Jace Frederick

Local four-star basketball recruit Reid Travis places an added emphasis on relationships when looking at his college options.

“That’s one of the biggest things for me,” said Travis, a junior at DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis. “You want to build a relationship with the staff because that’s who you’re going to be with for four years and that’s who’s going to be guiding you.”

For a new Gophers basketball staff hoping to lure the 2014 recruit, one relationship has proven vital.

Gophers assistant coach Ben Johnson also played high school basketball at DeLaSalle. He led the Islanders to state titles in 1998 and 1999.

His legacy carries weight with Travis.

“I think [Johnson] going to DeLaSalle and kind of being a mentor in that aspect of it … is going to be a strong attribute to them [in recruiting me],” Travis said.

Travis said Johnson and Gophers head coach Richard Pitino contact him two to three times a week. He said it’s clear the Gophers have a strong interest.

“When they see something they like, they go after it,” he said. “Not too much pressure, but you can still tell that they’re very interested.”

If Minnesota lands Travis — the No. 41 recruit in the class of 2014 by Rivals.com — some of the state’s other top talent could follow. Travis is one of Minnesota’s “Big Three” recruits for 2014, along with Apple Valley point guard Tyus Jones (No. 3) and Robbinsdale Cooper guard Rashad Vaughn (No. 6).

Vaughn said he looks at who he’d play with when evaluating colleges.

But Travis didn’t seem concerned with where other recruits commit.

“It doesn’t affect me too much,” he said. “I’m just looking at the school itself and just trying to pick for me. You get caught up in where everyone else is committing and that just causes a whole other set of problems.”

Pitino’s recruiting style varies from other coaches across the nation, said Travis’ Amateur Athletic Union coach, Antwan Harris.

“He’s laid back a little bit more. He’s a little bit more focused,” Harris said. “He’s maybe not as much of a people person as others have done, but he’s a good guy.”

Listed at 6 feet 8 inches, 240 pounds, Travis offers an inside presence Minnesota may lack with the departures of senior forwards Rodney Williams and Trevor Mbakwe. He averaged 20 points and 12 rebounds at last weekend’s Nike Elite Youth Basketball event in Eagan as his AAU team — Howard Pulley — went 5-0.

Travis enjoys a physical style of play — something he would see often in the Big Ten.

“When [the referees] are letting us play and use our physicality … I think that plays into my game,” he said.

Some of Travis’ toughness on the basketball court comes from his experience on the football field. He has several scholarship offers to play football as well, but Travis said the choice of school will come before the choice of sport.

“I think at the end of the day … what you want to get is a good education,” he said, “so that’s what I’m looking for in a school, and a sport comes second.”

Travis said he hopes to narrow his list of colleges to three or four schools in the fall.

“[The Gophers] are pretty high up there — especially being from [Minnesota] and the relationship I’m starting to build with the coaches,” he said. “They’ve got strong interest from me.”

By: Kia Farhang

The University of Minnesota’s Department of Theatre Arts and Dance is forming a task force to deal with diversity issues students have raised.

“We want it to be a student-driven organization,” said department chair Carl Flink.

The department held two listening sessions with students and faculty members last month.

Flink said the task force will continue the dialogue next fall and start considering concrete actions.

“They’re really trying to find what the student body is missing or what could be added to what’s already there,” said theatre arts senior Jared Zeigler, who works for the department as a peer mentor.

Flink said the department wants to discuss a long-standing issue that isn’t unique to theater.

In the College of Liberal Arts, about 70 percent of all undergraduate students identify as white, according to University data.

Community engagement

Theaters have to engage with communities to find their audience’s needs, said Jack Reuler, artistic director at Mixed Blood Theatre.

“One needs to put as much effort into finding the audience as it does into making the plays,” he said. “The experience is not just what do you see on stage, but who’s sitting next to you.”

Theatre arts senior Bijan Riahi said the task force should work on bringing students from outside the major into the discussions.

“The whole point of theater is for somebody else to see it,” he said. “They need to start going to the public, to U of M students, and asking them what they want to see.”

Flink said the department partners with outside organizations like Project SUCCESS, which encourages high school students to participate in theater in order to increase interest in the program.

But “in some ways,” he added, “we haven’t been good about making visible these really strong efforts that we’ve made.”

‘Holding the mirror’

Patrick Sims was a graduate theater student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee when he noticed many people “resisted and resented” mandatory cultural competency training.

“We had individuals who literally came to the training, sat in the front row and read the paper or talked on their cellphones,” he said.

To solve the problem, Sims and a colleague began tweaking complaints filed with the university’s diversity and compliance office and turning them into plays, he said.

“Those plays became stepping stones into conversations,” he said, because people were far more willing to watch a play than sit through a presentation.

Now, as director of the Theatre for Cultural and Social Awareness at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Sims turns uncomfortable issues into drama for students in his classes.

“We give them a space to say whatever they want to say,” he said, letting students transition “from what are broad discussions about larger social issues to more personal experiences.”

Sims said diversity in theater is essential, but there’s a vicious cycle that needs to be broken.

“Students of color often don’t participate in those programs because they don’t see themselves reflected,” he said. “We can’t produce those kinds of work because students of color aren’t necessarily present.”

The problem is bigger than the University, said Lucie de Sancy, a freshman in the University’s Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program.

“I really don’t think a theater department can change until theater changes,” she said, “because we are so centered around the white race in theater.”

But initiatives like the diversity task force are a step in the right direction, de Sancy added.

Sims said good theater must reflect society in terms of the stories it tells and the audience it speaks to.

“If we’re doing our job right as theater artists,” he said, “we are holding the mirror up to society.”

By: Hailey Colwell

University of Minnesota alumna Siri Simons used to daydream in class about biking the Mississippi River Trail to gather stories from farmers about the future of farming in the Midwest.

This summer, her daydream will take shape as Fresh Forks, a two-month bicycle tour along the Mississippi River. 

Simons and two other recent college graduates will stop at farms to learn about how the land near the river has changed over time and talk with young people about their role in the future food system — a crucial issue because most U.S. farmers are of older generations, Simons said.

The group will use the ideas generated on the two-month ride to develop a curriculum to teach high school students about growing and distributing food, Simons said.

The ride will start in New Orleans with a community discussion about questions they have for farmers and what they’d like to see out of the project, said Nate Joseph, a recent University of Vermont alumnus who will join the University graduates on the ride.

Joseph, who lives in New Orleans, said though quality food isn’t accessible in his neighborhood, there’s a community effort to eat more sustainably and self-sufficiently.

A big part of the ride will be connecting with youth from areas that don’t have many sustainable agriculture opportunities, he said.

“We really do need to be pushing for more career opportunities and youth involvement,” he said.

To prepare for the ride, Simons said the group has been fundraising for gear and coordinating with farmers and food organizations to work with, all the while trying to fit in training sessions.

Though the late winter has made it difficult to train for the trip, Simons said other riders have told her the first week of the trip will be the real start of training.

During the trek, the Fresh Forks team will stay at small farms and talk to farmers about why they chose their trade, Simons said.

“When we say the word ‘farmer,’ that means so many different things,” said Dayna Burtness, owner of Laughing Loon Farm in Northfield, Minn., which the group will visit in July.

“It can be conventional, it can be organic, it can be bio-dynamic [or] it can be somebody doing backyard gardening, and we all have different impacts on the environment,” she said.

Burtness said she hopes the group will start conversations to help people gain a better understanding of the “good food movement.”

“We need more people on the land growing things that we actually eat; we’re not turning it into fuel or just feeding to cattle,” she said. “I think that understanding will be pretty crucial for everyone to get more in touch with.”

By: Derek Wetmore

University of Minnesota athletics spending has favored men over women in areas that show a lack of dedication to Title IX, the federal law that prohibits gender discrimination in education.

But few eyes are watching to catch issues like those at the University, where men’s sports get almost three times the financial support as women’s. Those who do feel there is a problem are often afraid to speak up.

The school made plans to improve in 2008, when a University subcommittee raised gender equity concerns, but the problems have gone largely unresolved.

Outside oversight has decreased recently because the NCAA put a moratorium on school self-reviews in 2011. That has left the University largely on its own to police athletics department spending.

“No, I don’t think we’re out of compliance,” athletics director Norwood Teague said. “But it’s an ongoing job to stay in — you can easily get out of compliance if you’re not careful.”

The University reported spending significantly more on men’s sports in the past two fiscal years.

And the trend is set to continue this year. In the first half of the current fiscal year, athletics spent $21.89 million on men’s sports but less than $9.96 million on women’s, according to a Minnesota Daily review of spending data.

The review uncovered several indications that the department goes against the spirit of Title IX:

•The department spent 125 percent more on men’s recruiting than on women’s last year.

•It spent 24 percent more on men’s scholarships than on women’s last year.

•Large women’s rosters in track & field and cross country help the University balance participation rates between men and women. But they misrepresent the number of participants by counting them three times — once for the cross country season and twice for the indoor and outdoor track seasons.

•Because some women’s rosters are much larger than needed for competition, many athletes don’t compete at the conference level, which some say waters down the collegiate athletic experience.

•The department spent about two-thirds more on men’s recruitment travel than it did women’s from July to December 2012.

To some in the college athletics community, these gaps suggest the University is not committed to gender equity.

Title IX compliance was an issue at Virginia Commonwealth University, where Teague was athletics director before he came to Minnesota.

Teague’s background, coupled with the athletics department’s current struggles with gender equity, has some donors cautious about maintaining their support.

“Let’s not beat around the bush; let’s not come up with fancy reasons — this is gender discrimination,” said Nancy Hogshead-Makar, a law professor in Florida and the senior director of advocacy for the Women’s Sports Foundation.

Pushing the boundaries

Despite eight sections and nearly 2,000 words, Title IX has plenty of gray area.

“There is no rule or number of disparities that when reached constitutes a violation,” according to a 1990 Office for Civil Rights Title IX investigation guide.

“If a pattern of discrimination is evident, if it appears that athletics of one sex are accorded ‘second class’ status, then a violation is likely.”

The OCR considers 13 areas within an athletics department to determine its compliance.

Since 2010, the University’s spending patterns and reported budgets in at least three of those areas — scholarships, equipment and recruiting — have favored men’s sports.

The University’s Office of the General Counsel declined to comment for this story.

The University spends about the same percentage of its budget on men’s scholarships and recruiting as its Big Ten peers, according to Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act reports.

In OCR’s analysis, it considers each of the 13 areas and assesses whether gender imbalances have a “disparate impact on one sex.”

Scholarship spending and participation rates are the only two of the 13 areas that are quantitative, former University women’s athletics director Chris Voelz said. The OCR checks whether student-athlete proportion matches the school’s undergraduate population in gender representation. The University’s athletics department does.

The OCR also checks whether scholarship allocation is “substantially equal” to the male-female ratio of athletes.

The University spent 24 percent more on men’s scholarships than on women’s last year, a difference of more than $800,000.

Beth Goetz, the new senior women’s administrator for the University’s athletics department, said the department provides the maximum number of scholarships allowed by the NCAA to both men and women given its current sport distribution.

The NCAA sets a cap for each sport on the number of full scholarships or, in other cases, a maximum on total scholarship dollars to be divided among student-athletes on a team.

But those limits sometimes set schools up to fall short in their OCR scholarship evaluation.

“Unfortunately, the NCAA equivalency limits set you up to often times, obviously, be out of compliance,” Goetz said. “So everybody struggles with that piece a little bit.”

A school could, however, reorganize its department to offer more sports or a different blend of sports to allow for more scholarships to women.

“[The University] cannot use either an ‘I cannot afford it’ excuse or an ‘NCAA rule prevents me from complying’ [excuse],” said Donna Lopiano, a women’s sports advocate and former women’s athletics director at the University of Texas.

Athletics departments are not required to spend equally on male and female student-athletes across the board, Lopiano said. Many of the 13 areas the OCR considers in its investigations are qualitative.

Some experts say certain types of spending discrepancies are fair. Replacing top-of-the-line football equipment each year will cost much more than doing the same for volleyball, but the OCR checks that volleyball players get the same caliber of high-quality equipment.

Even so, the magnitude of some spending differences has some questioning the athletics department’s commitment to gender equity.

•   In six of eight comparable programs, the men’s team spent significantly more than its women’s counterpart on recruitment travel from July to December 2012.

•   Men’s teams accounted for about two-thirds of the department’s equipment and recruiting spending last year.

•   Men’s basketball spent 46 percent more on recruiting than women’s basketball and more than twice as much on equipment.

•   Men’s hockey spent more than twice as much on recruiting as the women’s hockey team and almost twice as much on equipment.

Goetz said in an email that disparities can be explained in part because of market differences. She said men’s hockey sticks, for example, break at “a significantly higher rate than women’s,” resulting in increased costs. Furthermore, top-of-the-line men’s basketball uniforms from Nike cost about twice as much as those for women, she said.

NCAA rules allow for 210 recruiting days for football, 130 days for men’s basketball and 100 days for women’s basketball. So by supporting coaches as much as possible, the University will likely incur greater expenditures on the men’s side, Goetz said.

While NCAA regulations and costs can affect some budget components, “it’s a red flag when it’s that far apart,” said Hogshead-Makar, of the Women’s Sports Foundation.

The department manipulates participation numbers by double- or triple-counting multi-sport athletes — notably track & field runners who compete in the indoor and outdoor seasons and run cross country. The University double- or triple-counts many more women than men because women’s track & field and cross country rosters are much larger. As a result, the athletics department appears in NCAA reports to have a higher percentage of women than it does.

Some former athletics directors from the University and other schools said the large roster sizes of women’s track & field and cross country water down the athletic experience because of high athlete-to-coach ratios and less access to competition.

“I’m not sure they get the quality of experience that they wish,” former University women’s athletics director Voelz said.

The University reported 524 female and 469 male student-athletes in fiscal year 2012, according to the most recent Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act forms. But when multi-sport athletes are counted only once, there are 398 women and 414 men.

Some former athletics directors, like Lopiano, say three separate seasons and three NCAA championship meets allow more scholarship money for female athletes.

Others say that because the three sports are so closely related and the rosters are so similar, counting one athlete as three is misleading. Nearly every cross country runner is reported as three participants, because the athletes also compete in both indoor and outdoor track.

“That to me is an outrage,” former University women’s athletics director Merrily Baker said when shown roster sizes at the University. “It appears they’re playing a numbers game there. They’re not running a sports program that’s equitable.”

Part of the concern with large rosters is having athletes who never compete at the conference level. Hogshead-Makar said she’s wary of schools having “varsity and JV” rosters. In some cases at the University, a team’s top athletes will compete with Division I competition while less-talented athletes compete with local Division II or Division III schools.

“What this practice does is it keeps the school from having to add new teams for which there would be real competition and real availability,” Hogshead-Makar said.

Donors wary

Skirting the spirit of the law may be financially beneficial, as it allows the University to spend more on the only three sports that make it money: football, men’s basketball and men’s hockey. Success in those sports raises the profile of the athletics department, which can lead to more booster contributions.

But the athletics department also receives money from a strong contingent of donors who are fervent women’s athletics boosters. With millions of dollars in contributions, they’ve helped fund new facilities for women’s teams on campus. That crowd is wary of Teague as it attempts to gauge his priorities for the department.

Some are in wait-and-see mode, and several have even stopped giving money because of concerns that gender equity has become less of a priority, said multiple donors that stay in touch with the group.

“It’s a stewardship issue with money,” said Deborah Olson, who donated $900,000 to build the University’s soccer stadium in the late 1990s. “There are a lot of people who are absolutely not giving until they get a sense that things will be OK and that the athletic department will do right by all the student-athletes.”

Olson and others said they will continue to give but will evaluate the department again at the end of Teague’s first full year.

Goetz said it’s too soon to examine the current staff because budgets through this year were former athletics director Joel Maturi’s responsibility.

Many donors said they went through the same anxieties when Maturi took over in 2002 and oversaw the merging of the formerly separate men’s and women’s departments.

“When the University forced that [merger] in the not-too-distant past, promises were made that gender equity would not be an issue under the merged department,” Baker said. “It would be all taken care of, and guess what, it’s not.”

Olson pointed to Teague’s history at VCU as a factor in her assessment of his first-year performance. There, women’s underrepresentation in the athletics department prompted it to bring in an outside Title IX consultant.

Teague frequently deferred to Goetz or spoke vaguely of his program goals when asked specific questions about the department’s spending and gender equity concerns raised in this story. In several cases, he and Goetz acknowledged they plan to look closer at the department’s compliance.

“I think things are being done a lot differently [from Maturi’s era],” Olson said. “Whether it ends up being a significant shift in commitment away from women’s student-athletes I think is something that needs to be looked at.”

Olson said she’s willing to wait until the end of Teague’s first year to see his spending pattern.

No teeth

Problems like disproportionate spending can persist because schools have little oversight.

The NCAA has no jurisdiction in Title IX compliance because it’s a federal law, Baker said, but it does have its own gender equity rules.

If the OCR finds a school to be out of compliance, the school can be stripped of its federal funding. But that’s never happened.

Lopiano said in her experience, the OCR will more likely strike a deal with the school and give it a plan to help put it back in compliance.

The NCAA used to require its Division I members to review their own athletics programs, including their Title IX compliance, every 10 years. But in 2011, the organization put a moratorium on self-reviews in an attempt to cut costs and reduce the burden of the lengthy process. Goetz said the NCAA will phase in a new approach that requires filing every year but with a less comprehensive report.

The subcommittee in charge of the University’s 2008 review has raised some gender equity concerns with Teague. These include travel spending and participation rates, said Kim Hewitt, the University’s Title IX officer. But the school hasn’t faced any penalties.

The subcommittee has also requested that the athletics department add a step in its budgeting process to formally consider gender equity, Hewitt said.

Goetz said it’s good that Hewitt is not involved in budgeting because she can be more objective as an outsider.

But Baker criticized not including people in positions like Hewitt’s in the athletics department.

“I don’t get that at all,” Baker said. “That’s another layer of bureaucracy. I think a Title IX specialist has to be in the athletics department, working with them day after day after day after day with a focused look at compliance issues and not just complaints.”

Culture of fear

Some national experts say gender discrimination persists in part because of intimidation within athletics departments.

“Nobody’s willing to say what’s true,” Hogshead-Makar said. “People feel that if they speak out on behalf of a very popular federal law,” they could lose their job.

Sources with knowledge of the University’s athletics department describe a culture of fear in which people watch their words carefully.

“I think everyone’s walking around on eggshells. They’re afraid,” said Chris Howell, an administrative assistant who’s been with the University’s athletics department for 25 years. “Is that a good work environment? Is it a healthy work environment? Well, it’s not one that people would choose to be in.”

Both former women’s athletics director Baker and Hogshead-Makar said the culture of fear pervades athletics departments across the country.

Baker said the department has an ethical standard to uphold that trumps the importance of even the federal law.

“Title IX is a legal mandate; gender equity is a moral imperative,” Baker said. “Minnesota is not in line with the last part of that.”

By: Jake Breedlove — University student

After reading John Callen’s May 7 letter to the editor, “Smoking on campus isn’t the only secondhand health problem,” arguing against a smoking ban on campus, I felt compelled to write a response to Callen’s argument.

To begin, Callen’s letter is firmly rooted in a gross logical fallacy that undermines Callen’s entire argument. Comparing two loosely related things is to commit a logical flaw. In comparing obesity and smoking as both detrimental to one’s health, one could reasonably follow that thought train into infinity, ending up with a call for a giant umbrella over campus because of harmful ultraviolet radiation, and clearly, that’s more than a little unreasonable. During a traffic stop, is telling a police officer that someone else was also speeding a legitimate excuse?

Please allow me to explain why the two are so markedly different.

Firstly, while I wholeheartedly agree that unhealthy eating habits are detrimental to one’s health, I posit that it is not as unhealthy as smoking.

Smoking deposits tar and other gunk into the lungs while inflicting some degree of cell damage on a wide variety of different tissues, from the tongue to the alveoli, some of which is permanent and irreversible. The effects of eating unhealthy foods, however, lack the same permanence and are almost always reversible with improved diet and exercise.

Second, likening the forced exposure of the smell of fast food to secondhand smoke is equally ridiculous. The negative health effects of secondhand smoke exposure are well-documented and irrefutable, whereas the negative effects of so-called “secondhand smell” are nonexistent. Although it may make you hungry for the food product(s) one smells, the negative effects of secondhand smell stop there. With a small helping of self-control, I think you’ll manage just fine.

In summary, although Callen’s argument falsely claims a mutual dependency between the negative health effects of obesity and smoking, the bottom line is such: Secondhand smoke is harmful to other people, period. Absent a food allergy, public consumption of fast food does nothing similar.

By: Michael Hardy — mathematics and statistics, St. Cloud State University

In Ronald Dixon’s May 7 column, “STEM employment myth,” he tells us that science, technology, engineering and mathematics majors don’t necessarily pay and that there are 50 percent more engineers than there are jobs for them.

STEM is an acronym invented recently by politicians. The reason for this whole problem is that politicians have so much influence on education. Politicians decide what our educational priorities should be, and people follow them, often because they are coerced (as in compulsory attendance in school) and often because they are credulous. If you’re not offended by this use of the word “our,” your moral compass needs calibration.

The practice of trying to coerce everyone to become educated is the evil that causes all of the educational system’s widespread problems, including, but far from limited to, deficiencies in the incidence of literacy.

Two of its corollaries are that everyone should learn the same things at the same ages and that we (ostensibly the nation, but in effect, demagogic power-lusting politicians of nearly every political party) should decide what our educational priorities will be rather than each person deciding.