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Lawrence Jacobs has never run for political office, but in the months leading up to last fall’s elections, he seemed to get as much press coverage as any candidate. The director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and a self-confessed political junkie, Jacobs was ubiquitous in the media, sizing up the mood of the electorate based on the center’s research and polling data.

“I’m always surprised when [media] people call—and call me regularly—because there are lots of smart people out there,” admits Jacobs. “I value it and it’s a sign to me that people are getting something from the relationship.” What Jacobs hopes they’re getting is clear, unbiased research and information packaged in a way that is easily understandable. That concept has been at the heart of the center since it was founded in 2005 to connect academic political science with real-world politics.

While the academic aspect of his work plainly thrills Jacobs, he wants to be able to translate his work in a way that matters to people like those back in his hometown. He grew up in the pastoral Croton-on-Hudson, a small town south of Poughkeepsie, New York, the son of a stenographer and a registered nurse. Jacobs recalls a community where the children of doctors and lawyers mingled easily with the children of factory and railroad workers. “There were real differences in the two politically and religiously, but there was always a premium on being able to talk with different folks,” he recalls.

It was a skill honed at the family dinner table as well. During the Vietnam War and throughout the 1970s, he debated issues with his father. Even when they disagreed, his father never told him what to think, Jacobs says. “The thing he valued—still values—is honesty and integrity and why you believe something. It was always the why question, and I think what keeps me really engaged is thinking of that.”

An undergraduate English and history major, Jacobs was surprised to find out that his passion for politics could lead to a career. These days, that includes finding new and sometimes unorthodox ways to bring more people into the political discussion. In November 2005, the center sponsored a talk by artist Stephen Mumford, who had been embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq, that attracted an audience filled with faces new to the Humphrey Institute. Last fall, Jacobs engaged Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tracy Kidder in a special public dialogue on issues related to creating a good society.

When it comes to traditional politics, the center’s work has focused primarily on Minnesota and the Midwest, but that will be changing. Jacobs sees the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul as an opportunity to take the next leap. “We’re planning what I think will be an extraordinary set of programs with top political people in the country,” Jacobs says.

—J. Trout Lowen

Latino Network Launched

When Louis Mendoza arrived at the University of Minnesota as head of the Chicano Studies Department, he found two pressing problems. First, Minnesota’s institutions of higher education had very few Latinos. Second, those few worked in isolation from one another, making it difficult to identify common problems or create common solutions. What was needed, Mendoza believed, was to organize.

“Advocacy for change was taking place only sporadically against overwhelming odds,” Mendoza says. While organizing was not necessarily a novel idea—some Latinos in higher education in Minnesota had organized the Minnesota Hispanic Education Partnership in the late 1980s—Mendoza’s previous experience with the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education provided a new vision for an organization that would include faculty, staff, and students.

Thus was born the idea for the Minnesota Network of Latinos in Higher Education, which held its initial meeting at the Humphrey Institute in December. Eighty Latino faculty, staff, and students in higher education from the University and colleges and universities around the state attended. A $171,000 grant from the Otto Bremer Foundation aided the Chicano Studies Department in organizing the network.

Its mission is to advocate for Latino success and advancement in higher education. Key issues include access in the face of rising tuition; increased recruitment and retention of Latino students, faculty, and staff; and creating campus climates that are inclusive of Latino educational needs. A related endeavor, the Minnesotano Media Empowerment Project, held its first meeting on campus the day after the network was launched. The goal of that project, also organized by Chicano Studies, is to train Latinos to use the media to tell their own stories and to provide journalists with in-depth information about issues that affect the Latino community.

Mendoza believes that the new network can provide much-needed leadership on integrating Latinos into higher education. “The scarcity of U.S. Latinos in the higher education system in Minnesota is readily apparent,” he says. “This must change as the demographics of the state change.”

For more information, go to www.chicano.umn.edu/network.

—Cynthia Scott

Web Hit: The U Is Open for Business

The University of Minnesota has expanded its outreach to the business community with the launch of the Academic and Corporate Relations Center, billed as the “front door” to the U for businesses worldwide. The Web site (www.business.umn.edu) is a comprehensive guide to the center’s services, which include a “concierge service” that is staffed Monday through Friday and is designed to rapidly connect users to the information and resources they need. Center staff assist companies of all sizes, as well as trade associations and nonprofits. The service will help employers access U students and graduates and will offer a variety of workshops and events pertaining to current research at the University. The center emerged out of discussions with businesses, which reported they wanted easy access to continuing education, faculty expertise, and graduates.

Overheard on Campus

“When pants don’t fit, women take it personally.”

—Ellen McKinney, University doctoral student in the College of Design, who says designers don’t consider body shape when creating clothes patterns. She is studying how 3-D digital measurements of women’s bodies can be applied to 2-D patterns to create jeans for specific body shapes.

Make Way for the East Gateway District

The largest expansion of campus since the addition of the West Bank in the 1960s is envisioned for a 75-acre area surrounding the new Gopher football stadium. An initial sketch of the planned East Gateway District was presented to a Board of Regents committee in December. The District will include the new TCF Bank Stadium, which will be situated on 10 acres adjacent to Mariucci and Williams arenas, as well as new medical biosciences facilities near the McGuire Translational Research Lab. It will also have connections to the proposed Central Corridor of the Twin Cities light rail transit line (projected to open in 2013), added campus parking, and connections to adjacent neighborhoods. Pending approval of funding by the state legislature, construction of the district is projected for completion in 2015.

Tumbling Down

The $4.6 million demolition of several Con-Agra grain elevators near the site of the new on-campus football stadium began in December. The elevators’ removal enables the widening and rerouting of streets that will run next to TCF Bank Stadium and near what is envisioned as the new medical biosciences corridor. Demolition is slated for completion in March of this year and kickoff in the new stadium is planned for fall 2009.