Campus Digest
3/9/2004 | | Proposed Gopher stadium. Illustration by Crawford Architects. |
Stadium Update
The potential for a win-win-win situation has led to a formal proposal to build a football stadium on the northeastern edge of the University of Minnesota's East Bank campus. In presenting a feasibility study for the stadium, University President Bob Bruininks said the proposed stadium would return color and excitement to campus, improve finances for athletics, and possibly even add to the U's academic mission.
"We still have a lot of work to do, and this may turn out to be a bridge too far," Bruininks said at a December 8 news conference. "But I don't want to look back five or 10 years from now [and realize] the University of Minnesota didn't have the guts to try this."
Among the specifics in the feasibility study:
• The proposed location is on what are now parking lots just northeast of the site of old Memorial Stadium.
• The open-air stadium would hold 50,000 people, but be expandable up to 80,000.
• The estimated cost is $222 million: $180 million for construction and $42 million for land, site preparation, and infrastructure costs.
• Regents are committed to raising a "substantial portion" of the money privately but did not rule out asking for public money to help finish the project or to cover costs like site cleanup and road building.
• Student fees, ticket surcharges, and parking revenues are among possible additional funding sources mentioned.
• Under a business plan analysis, the stadium would bring in between $1.8 million and $3.3 million in added revenue to the athletics department in the first year of operation alone.
• Surrounding parking lots would be reconfigured and expanded to replace the lost spaces on the stadium site. Additional game-day parking would be on the St. Paul campus with free shuttles along the U's transitway.
• Construction could begin in mid-2006, with completion as early as August 2008.
Bruininks said the University would not go ahead with the project until all the funding was committed. "We don't start projects and not finish them," he said. To do otherwise would place the University in financial danger, he added. In September, T. Denny Sanford (B.A. '56) had offered $35 million but was not able to come to an agreement with the University on terms of the donation.
Since 1982, the Gophers have played in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis, several blocks west of the West Bank campus. They share that facility with the Minnesota Vikings and Minnesota Twins. A proposal for a joint Vikings-Gophers stadium studied last year found that the campus space was too small for a large professional stadium, while the Gophers do not want to move further from campus.
A stadium would be "a center of campus life," Bruininks said, providing a place for large campus events, recreational sports, and a home for the marching band. "We are one of the only campuses across the country that doesn't have a place like this. I think it's the right thing to do for the University."
U planners have been discussing the feasibility study with campus groups and others, as well as pursuing funding options. No public fund-raising plan has been discussed yet. The next major step in the study's timeline is formation of a project team by this summer.
-Chris Coughlan-Smith
Stadium Statements
"What I've told the University is they can raise most of the money themselves, [but if] they just need a little help to get over the finish line with an on-campus, Gopher-only stadium, I would certainly be willing to consider that. But if the gap is huge, and they can't really pay for most of it through private fund-raising, then I think we've got to reconsider getting them back in a partnership with the Vikings, or it wouldn't make sense with two football stadiums."
—Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (B.A. '83, J.D. '86)
"We expect an on-campus Gopher-only project could attract large sums of private funding that simply wouldn't come to the University but for a stadium project."
—U Chief Financial Officer Richard Pfutzenreuter, arguing that donations for a stadium would not detract from other fund-raising needs.
"A big problem with student morale is that we're paying so much in student tuition and fees. I don't think the happiness of going to a game is going to offset that. . . . I think we all learned with Coffman Union. It went way over budget and we're all paying for that, and we'll continue to pay for that for years."
—Kris Houlton, a first- year graduate student and University Senate representative, on the prospect of student fees going towards stadium construction.
"I think students should be open-minded. The benefits . . . . could far outweigh the negatives. [But] what we need, as students, is a number."
—Minnesota Student Association President Eric Dyer, a stadium advocate, on his only reservations about using student fees to help with construction.
"No one wants to think of the Gophers rattling around in the big Metrodome all by themselves. University officials [told us they] believe they can raise 60 percent of the money by themselves. We'd like to see that happen, and then help them out after they have the money."
—Annette Meeks, member of a state stadium screening committee appointed by Governor Pawlenty to sort through various proposals to build professional stadiums.
"This stadium has to advance the academic mission of the University. We will err on the side of proposals that advance the University's mission the most."
—Regent Peter Bell
"You're not going to find any business that's not going to be in favor of a stadium."
—Todd DuPont, co-owner of the Big 10, a bar and restaurant that has been on Washington Avenue since the 1940s, on the possibility of surrounding businesses contributing money to a stadium drive.
Tracking Sled Dogs On-Line
Two days into a six-month arctic exploration, Aaron Doering (Ph.D. '99), an instructor in the College of Education and Human Development, felt his dogsled breaking through the ice of Great Slave Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories. As the back end of the sled started sinking, Doering leaped forward onto firm ice where the sled dogs were already safe. His fellow team members, including famed musher Will Steger, pulled sleeping bags, food packs, and other gear to safety then helped the dogs pull the sled from the icy water. Thousands of schoolchildren breathed a sigh of relief.
Arctic Transect 2004, a 3,000-mile dogsled-driven classroom through the Canadian territory of Nunavut, above the Northwest Territories, is being followed on-line by students around the world. Six explorer-educators are currently in the midst of crossing Nunavut, a territory three times the size of Texas but with only 28,000 residents. They are stopping at small  | | Aaron Doering bonds with a sled dog while training for Arctic Transect 2004. Photo by Jeff Abuzzahab. |
Inuit villages along the way, taking scientific measurements of possible global warming indicators for groups such as NASA and Environmental Canada, and communicating regularly, via the Internet and instant messaging, with tens of thousands of students on five continents.
Kids in places like Japan, Australia, Denmark, and Russia—as well as Nunavut—are talking to each other and to the expedition members on-line. They share information on experiments they've done in their classrooms in connection with their study of the Arctic, discuss Inuit culture, and post photos of their own dogs. Doering, along with others, developed free curriculum to go along with the interactive expedition.
The expedition began at the end of December in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, and will end in June after traversing barren tundra, sea ice, coastal mountains, and massive ice caps and visiting at least nine Inuit villages.
- Peggy Rader
Overheard on Campus
"This is not even a wink and a nod. It's just publicly acknowledged, talked about, and, apparently, accepted."
—U of M political science professor Lawrence Jacobs on the phenomenon of lobbyists who write proposed laws for friendly legislators to introduce.
"This is the perfect storm. The only question now is: Will this set of circumstances be sufficient to push the microbial genetics over the edge and create a new strain of influenza virus that rivals past pandemic strains?"
—Michael Osterholm, director of the U's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, on Asian bird flu.
"[T]he switch in sizes will not inhibit readers' ability to fold the paper and covertly do the crossword in class."
—From a note by Minnesota Daily editor Shane Hoefer announcing that the student newspaper would switch formats from tabloid to broadsheet (like most daily newspapers) on February 16.
"Very likely, but no proof."
—Former U of M professor Ancel Keys, 100, when asked whether the Mediterranean diet he popularized in the 1960s had anything to do with his longevity. Keys also invented the World War II K-rations and conducted pioneering starvation experiments in a lab under Memorial Stadium.
"He had a job to do and he did it efficiently and with compassion and gave us all a kind of level of commitment that we needed, because it wasn't an easy experience. We were all starving."
—Max Kampelman (M.A. '46, Ph.D. '51) on being a subject for starvation experiments run by former U professor Ancel Keys.
Cheer Champs
If competitive cheerleading catches on as a varsity sport, the University of Minnesota will have a new NCAA contender on its hands. The U's dance team won its second consecutive national title in January at the Universal Cheerleading Association and Universal Dance Association Cheer and Dance National Championships in Orlando, Florida. Minnesota topped 21 semifinalists, including Big Ten teams Michigan, Wisconsin, and Penn State, to win the Division 1A title.
Three other teams from the U's spirit squad competed in the final rounds. Goldy Gopher took sixth place in the mascot division, a U team finished fifth in the partner stunt division, and the Gopher cheerleaders ended up in 12th place. A handful of schools, most recently the University of Maryland this fall, have made competitive cheerleading a varsity sport, complete with scholarships.
Discoveries:  | | Minnesota's national champs. Photo courtesy of University Athletics |
U Research findings
Milk and Sun
If you ache all over, a little milk and sunshine might be all you need. A University of Minnesota study found that 93 percent of subjects with muscle or bone pain that did not have a clear origin were also vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D is most readily available through exposure to sunlight, although it is also found in a few fortified foods, primarily milk. A link between unexplained pain and vitamin D was suspected because of the clear increase in those symptoms during winter months. A separate study found that 37 percent of physician visits are for symptoms that have no known cause, most frequently back, head, and leg pain. Minnesota researchers tested 150 subjects with unexplained pain; all of those under 30 and over 60 were vitamin D deficient, as were all the African American, East African, American Indian, and Hispanic subjects. Southeast Asian patients were deficient 88 percent and whites 82 percent of the time. Vitamin D is vital for calcium absorption and the control of numerous cell functions; deficiency is linked to osteoporosis, diabetes, hypertension, and numerous cancers. The study was published in December issue of Mayo Clinical Proceedings.
Get Fit, Stay Fit
Developing good fitness habits in early adulthood pays big benefits later in life, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota and elsewhere. A study tested fitness in 4,487 men and women who were between 18 and 30 in 1985, then followed up with them until 2001. Those in the bottom 20 percent on initial fitness tests were three to six times more likely to develop high blood pressure, Type-II diabetes, and a condition related to excess abdominal fat called metabolic syndrome. The correlation was also directly related to weight. Improved fitness lowered the risks, although researchers could not be sure whether fitness or weight reduction was of primary importance in that finding. Nearly 13 million Americans have heart disease and nearly 17 million have diabetes. Heart disease and stroke are the first and third leading causes of death in Americans. The study was published in the December 15 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Smoky Hazard
Nonsmokers who visit smoke-filled public places have more than double the level of a tobacco-specific carcinogen in their systems after a four-hour visit, according to a University of Minnesota study. Researchers tested 18 individuals before and after a visit to a casino. Participants reported spending an average of 4.25 hours in the building, mostly in smoking areas. Post-visit urine tests found an average 112 percent increase in a metabolized form of the carcinogen NNK, which has no known source other than exposure to tobacco products. This is the first study to measure carcinogens in nonsmokers after tobacco smoke exposure in a public place. A previous U study found significantly higher levels of NNK in women living with smokers. Lead researcher Kristin Anderson, an associate professor in the School of Public Health, urged further studies to examine long-term health effects of smoke exposure on both employees and patrons of public places where smoking is allowed. The study appeared in the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention on December 22.
- Chris Coughlan-Smith
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