Talented, passionate, curious Equity, excellence shine in Berry

By Jane Turpin Moore

Pinning a label on Timothy Berry is an impossible task, unless multitudinous descriptors suffice. Musician? From toddlerhood. Award-winning composer? You bet. Educator? Teaching is at his professional core. Dancer? Uh-huh. Collegiate football standout? Yes, a Maverick running back, back in the day. Equity advocate? You’d better believe it. University administrator? Got it. Dramatist? Family man? Foodie?

Yes, yes and yes.

When asking Berry to choose only a few words to describe himself, expect a long pause — followed by an insightful response.

“A multifaceted, curious educator,” said Berry, the interim associate vice president for Faculty Affairs and Equity Initiatives at Minnesota State University since

July 2021.

“An innate curiosity has led me to try some things — and, lo and behold, I found I could do more of it. Curiosity has led to a lot of opportunities.”

This native Minnesotan was the 10th of 11 siblings raised in north Minneapolis by a musician mother and minister father, and Berry’s commitment to both his state and family couldn’t be greater.

“I love Minnesota — I was born here. It would take a lot to get me to leave the state,” Berry said.

“And family is everything to me. The concept of family, of having a strong nuclear family, has been a saving grace, as well as grafting into really close relationships with other people who are really important to me.”

People such as Bukata Hayes, a longtime friend and professional colleague of Berry’s who is now vice president and chief equity officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota. Hayes affirms Berry this way:

“Brother Berry, a moniker reinforcing my love for, admiration of and connection to Dr. Berry, is an old soul steeped in the Black church and continuing a long line of activists and community builders from the North side of Minneapolis.”

Minnesota and family remain two of Berry’s guiding principles, even as he continues to exercise his varied talents and expand his everwidening sphere of influence.

Origins: support and struggle

In the early 1970s when Berry was about 7, he witnessed a person violently throw a rock through a window of the Minneapolis school bus he was riding. The memory is ever-present for him and sometimes surprises those who assume racist, prejudicial acts didn’t occur in this northern, more “liberal,” state.

“I tell that story because people need to understand these things happened here,” said Berry, mentioning it occurred when integrated busing was being enforced.

“People think the media has a liberal bias, but in that time, such incidents were not highlighted to the general public.”

Despite such discriminatory challenges, the ebullient Berry seized opportunities during his childhood, including piano lessons with his mother, church music (“I grew up singing in the church, and my first memories are of making some kind of music,” Berry said) and athletics.

A 1986 graduate of Minneapolis North High School, Berry was able to indulge both his artistic and athletic sides, since the arts program at his alma mater was modeled after the New York high school immortalized in the movie “Fame.”

“Minneapolis has a tradition of growing great musicians, some who went on to super stardom,” said Berry, noting that Prince was an older brother’s classmate. And a neighbor, William “Hollywood” Doughty, was a drummer in

Prince’s first band, Grand Central.

But it was football that initially beckoned to Berry, a running back throughout high school and college.

He started his collegiate years at Moorhead State University; after a successful first semester there, he knew it wasn’t the place for him.

“Once the football season was over, it hit me like a heavy boulder that it wasn’t a place I could tap into culturally,” Berry said.

He thought the historically black Tennessee State University in Nashville might be a better fit, but as a first-generation college student with little guidance in navigating the financial aid process, that possibility fell through.

After taking off a couple of semesters, his high school friend and teammate Ramon Wilder suggested, “You should go to Mankato,” where Wilder himself had found a niche.

“So I did,” Berry said.

He reached out to Maverick coaching legend and MSU Hall of Fame inductee Dan Runkle, transferred to then-Mankato State University and began the second phase of his college football experience before suffering a career-ending knee injury in the 1990 season.

A continual embrace of his considerable artistic talents and cultural identity led him to people of great influence in his life.

“Two individuals really integral to me staying and finishing at MSU were Florence Cobb, the first Black female professor in MSU’s history, and Dr. Michael Fagin, who introduced me to the concept of Pan-Africanism (the idea that people of African descent have common interests and should be unified),” Berry said.

Cobb, namesake of the recently dedicated Florence Cobb Dance Studio, engaged Berry during his first year in Mankato.

“She spoke to my life in ways I still hold in high regard,” he said.

“I was an athlete but was also in dance classes — that was not unusual for me, because my mother reared us so that there was no problem with my being a football player who took ballet — and Florence hired me as a student worker to play piano and percussion for her classes.”

Fagin, now a professor emeritus, worked with the Black Student Union.

“He brought in the top scholars in that field, and I had the chance to personally interact with Amiri Baraka (an influential Black poet, thinker and university professor) for two days because I volunteered to drive him around when he was visiting,” Berry said.

“Dr. Fagin, to a large degree, started me off in pursuing a path outside the Western canon in literature and art.”

Berry also appreciated people like Runkle and Allen Wortman. Wortman conducted Berry in the Ellis Street Singers, among other campus vocal ensembles.

“Dr. Wortman really was a white ally before that became a thing,” Berry said. “He was inclusive in ways that I felt and that others could learn from; there were always individuals like him who acknowledged there were challenges, and they were open and understanding.”

Stepping forward to make a difference

Armed with a bachelor’s degree in music education, Berry embarked on a 20-year career as a K-12 music teacher. During that period, he taught at various schools in the Twin Cities area and observed the lamentably low status afforded arts education.

While Berry once thought he’d aim for a doctorate in choral music after finishing his master’s in music education with an emphasis in multicultural music at the University of Minnesota, he shifted his focus to educational leadership when he realized that would allow him more chances to make a difference. Ultimately, he completed an Ed.D. in educational leadership at MSU.

“Educational leadership is a means of addressing societal problems, and I wanted to have a bigger impact — especially on Black boys because I saw how they are treated, and statistics bear that out,” Berry said.

“They score lower in academic achievements, they are way overrepresented in suspensions, emotional-behavior disorders, all of those things.

“And educational leadership provided me with a broader platform to bring in creative elements to education — if you’re in a meeting with me, you will hear some artistic ways of thinking.”

Berry is quick to say his life has been one “long, circuitous route,” and that has led him to share his talents with not only the MSU community that earlier fostered his own growth but also with the broader state arts scene.

Before returning to MSU in July 2021 to take the reins in faculty affairs and equity initiatives, he spent 18 months as dean for the School of Urban Education at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul. In all, he has spent 10 years to date on the MSU faculty and/or administration; his wife of 30 years, Julie Kerr-Berry, is chair of the MSU Department of Theatre and Dance. The couple has two 20-something children and enjoy deep thinking, long walks and good food.

One colleague who attests to Berry’s success is Robbie Burnett, director of Innovation and Collaboration with Minnesota State’s Division of Academic Affairs.

“What impresses me about Dr. Berry is his creative, authentic, courageous and loving leadership,” Burnett said. “He continues to remind us of our ‘why’ in this work of education and brings a pedagogy to his leadership that is unmatched because of his lived experiences.”

And Berry is well-placed to have an impact, she asserts.

“Currently, I believe there are four Black men on the president’s extended cabinet, including Dr. Berry, and that is a historical first,” Burnett said. “Representation matters, and they are exemplars for all students, faculty and staff to see and experience Black male leadership.”

Berry is striving to overturn all the “isms” — racism, sexism, antiSemitism, etc. — that hold back too many people.

“My goal is to not have (negative) patterns predictable by race in outcomes,” Berry said. “That’s equity to me.”

The only “ism” Berry champions? Optimism.

“I’m not going to stop trying, I’m not going to lose hope, because this is bigger than us and me,” he said. “Hopefully, the next generation can take things and make them even better than they’ve been for me.” MM