Alumni Association Home > Past Issues > 2007 > March-April 2007	Print View

Clearing the Air: University of Minnesota School of Public Health students and U officials in the health sciences met with state legislators at Smoke-Free Minnesota Day at the Capitol on January 30. Amanda Woodfield (right), a student in the public health administration and public policy program, gave study information that supports a statewide smoking ban to Representative Phyllis Kahn (D- Minneapolis). A recent statewide poll conducted by ClearWay Minnesota and the American Cancer Society found that 69 percent of Minnesotans support comprehensive smoke-free legislation. Photograph by Tim Rummelhoff

Target Corporation has made a gift of $5 million to the University for three capital projects: expansion of the Weisman Art Museum, the Carlson School of Management’s new undergraduate facility, and TCF Bank Stadium. The new addition to the Weisman Art Museum will expand exhibit and programming space, including what will be named the Target Studio for Creative Collaboration. Funds for the Carlson School will go toward the construction, now under way, of the Herbert M. Hanson, Jr., Hall, which will make it possible for the school to increase its undergraduate enrollment by 50 percent. Construction of TCF Bank Stadium is scheduled to begin this summer.

One of the world’s highest honors in agriculture has gone to University Regents Professor Ronald Phillips (Ph.D. ’67). Phillips, who teaches in the department of agronomy and plant genetics, is a co-winner with Professor Michel A.J. Georges of the University of Liege, Belgium, of the 2007 Wolf Prize in Agriculture. The honor was given for discoveries in genetics and genomics which lay the foundations for improvements in crop and livestock breeding. It carries a $100,000 award and will be presented in Jerusalem on May 13.

The Board of Regents has approved revisions to the Student Conduct Code that expand the University’s jurisdiction to include off-campus behavior. The code seeks to promote academic integrity, the safety and welfare of the campus community, and the orderly resolution of conflicts. Under the revisions, the code can be applied to off-campus conduct when the alleged conduct adversely affects a substantial University interest and either involves a criminal offense or indicates that the student may present a danger or threat to the health and safety of themselves or others. The revisions also include prohibitions against hazing and rioting. Possible sanctions for violations include restitution, withholding of diploma or degree, and revocation of admission or degree.

The University’s fledgling Institute on the Environment, which is so new that it does not yet have bylaws or a physical space, has been awarded a $300,000 contract to develop a comprehensive conservation and preservation plan for the state of Minnesota. More than 40 faculty members from 12 departments and eight colleges who are affiliated with the institute will embark on drafting a preliminary plan, which is scheduled for completion in June. The final plan is due in June 2008. The interdisciplinary Institute on the Environment was created to bring the University’s wide-ranging environmental experts together to work on global environmental challenges.

Geography professor John Adams and urban studies program director Judith Martin have been tapped to co-direct the new University Metropolitan Consortium, part of the University’s larger urban agenda that includes working with other research universities to study urban issues nationally. The University has long-standing and deep connections to the state’s rural communities but has not made similar inroads into urban and suburban communities, even though the state’s population has become heavily urbanized. The interdisciplinary consortium will seek to coordinate and refocus the University’s numerous centers and departments that work on urban issues.

The University will offer a summer bridge program for student athletes to help them make the transition into the academic and social rigors of campus life. That is one of several recommendations made by the Task Force on Academic Support and Performance for Student-Athletes that the University will implement in order to improve academic outcomes for student athletes. Other actions that will be taken include intensifying efforts to track, engage, and provide opportunities to former student athletes who left without graduating but have accumulated enough credit hours to make graduation within reach; expanding access to traditional majors and developing areas of emphasis that would build on student athletes’ interests, such as sports marketing and sports journalism; and centralizing data collection of student athlete academic information to more effectively monitor student athlete performance. The task force, formed more than a year ago by President Bob Bruininks and Provost Thomas Sullivan, was co-chaired by Professors Mary Jo Kane, director of the department of kinesiology, and Perry Leo, associate department head in the department of aerospace engineering and mechanics.

—Cynthia Scott