Heather Mueller '97 with students at Otter Lake Elementary in White Bear Lake. Left, on the Minnesota State Mankato campus.
M
innesota’s top education official might not have ended up in the state at all if she hadn’t been the sort of person to dig in and do her homework when it came time to choose
a college.
Heather Mueller ’97, who was appointed Education Commissioner by Gov. Tim Walz earlier this year, holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Minnesota State Mankato, where she also earned her specialist and K-12 administrative license. And she has a doctorate in educational leadership from St. Mary’s University. The journey to her leadership role today might be traced back to the mid-1990s, when she was living in her hometown of Yuma, Arizona, where she had completed a two-year degree at a community college, and looking for a place to continue her studies. Intent on becoming an educator, Mueller began researching teachers colleges, and in the pages of a guidebook found at the library, she discovered the school then known as Mankato State University. Soon she was heading north. Having landed at the Twin Cities airport with Birkenstocks on her feet and without a winter jacket, she felt “stunned” by the reality of winter weather, but she endured, moving into McElroy Hall and beginning classes in January 1995. At the University, she felt at home in the College of Education, where the student-centered philosophy aligned with her own ideas and values.
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TODAY
FALL 2021
TODAY.MNSU.EDU
Willing to Try By Nick Healy ’93, ’05
Below: Mueller, front, and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan at a school in White Bear Lake.
