November 30, 2020

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2020

ZOOM

UMN reports no Zoom security breaches

MNDAILY.COM

COMMUNITY

Montejos persist after deportation of father

One year since The Federal Trade Gregorio Montejo’s arrest, the Montejo Commission investigated Zoom family carries on.

By Katelyn Vue for security issues.

By Nur B. Adam nadam@mndaily.com The University of Minnesota’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) says the FTC’s complaint against Zoom will not necessarily spell problems for University users.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced in early November that it will require Zoom to take a series of security steps to ensure that the company meets the privacy standards it promised its users. The University has policies in place to prevent potential security issues, OIT said.

The University community makes up only a small portion of the 300 million daily participants of Zoom meetings worldwide, using the app for a variety of services from virtual classes to student activities to telehealth services at Boynton Health.

Zoom has been the subject of multiple lawsuits concerning data privacy since it started being widely used in late March as the need for video conferencing suddenly increased in response to the pandemic.

“It’s no surprise that the FTC ultimately dealt with this issue because [Zoom’s security and privacy vulnerabilities] wasn’t a great secret by any means,” said Scott Memmel, a postdoctoral associate at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Memmel has written and lectured about data privacy for the journalism school.

The FTC’s complaint is centered around Zoom’s failure to keep the promises it made to users, or, as mentioned in the complaint, deceptive claims regarding the level of data protection and more.

The University’s information technology-related policies regulate data usage on IT systems, including Zoom.

“The FTC settlement represents vulnerabilities that were brought to Zoom’s attention; however, the vulnerabilities do not necessarily result in security or privacy incidents. Additionally, the vulnerabilities in See ZOOM Page 2

kvue@mndaily.com

Second-year University of Minnesota student Monica Montejo works a full-time job Monday through Friday to support her family. She wakes up at 5 a.m. on Monday, goes to work for eight hours, takes a shower when she gets home, eats and then tries to work on school. After, she goes to bed at 8 p.m. to wake up early, and the cycle repeats.

But some nights, when she looks at her bills for rent, car insurance, phone service and college expenses, the stress distracts her from her school work. One year ago, circumstances were different.

Nov. 20 marked the one-year anniversary of the day that changed everything for the Montejo family.

Gregorio Montejo, Monica Montejo’s dad and the family’s primary breadwinner, was arrested for his second incident of driving under the influence.

He lived in the U.S. undocumented for 30 years and has two daughters and two sons. The family quickly organized the money to post bail for his release, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) held him in custody. Nine months later, he was deported to Mexico after being de-

Above, An old photo of Gregorio Montejo sits on the floor of the family’s apartment in Mankato, Minn. on Sunday, Nov. 22. Below to left, Emma, left, Jesús and Monica Montejo pose for a portrait outside their apartment. Below to right, Josefina Montejo, left, Jesús Montejo and Monica Montejo look at photos and items from their old days (Nur B. Adam / Minnesota Daily)

tained at Sherburne County Jail, without a chance to say goodbye to his family.

After months of battling Gregorio’s case with ICE and working with community organizations and lawyers, the Montejo children’s lives have changed with-

In an interview with the Minnesota Daily, University of Minnesota President Joan Gabel commented on the upcoming six-month anniversary of George Floyd’s death, plans for spring semester and the impact of the presidential election.

Gabel also discussed the increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases on and around campus and the University’s future relationship with Zoom.

How do you think the outcome of the recent presidential election and new administration will im-

See COMMUNITY Page 2

400% rise in UMN COVID-19 cases since Halloween Experts say large social gatherings have been a major contributor.

By Hana Ikramuddin hikramuddin@mndaily.com The University of Minnesota has seen an over 400% increase in positive COVID-19 tests on campus since Halloween.

According to a University public health expert, social gatherings have been responsible for spreading the virus, as opposed to classroom settings. The University has also expanded its testing program in the last few weeks.

The University’s COVID-19 dashboard reported 31 positive

A COVID-19 testing site outside of the University’s Recreational and Wellness Center on Friday, Nov. 20. The U has experienced a 750% increase in COVID-19 cases on campus. (Emily Urfer / Minnesota Daily) COVID-19 cases during the week of Oct. 29. The number jumped to 263 positive cases during the week of Nov. 12. The dashboard’s most

recent update shows that the cases have since decreased to 156 positive tests, and does not account for positive tests among University com-

munity members tested outside of Boynton Health.

“Like every college campus in the nation, we expected to see increased cases following the Halloween weekend. Those cases, combined with the rapid growth of community spread amongst the general public, have combined to create the rise in cases we are experiencing in our campus community,” said Jill DeBoer, director of the Health Emergency Response Office in an emailed statement to the Minnesota Daily.

There are 32 isolation rooms, and 20 quarantine rooms in use as of Nov. 19. Around 11% of the University’s rooms are currently in use, according to the University’s dashboard.

See COVID-19 Page 2

MEDICINE GARDEN

Gabel talks presidential election impact, campus safety and tuition

By Abbey Machtig amachtig@mndaily.com

“Everything feels like it was taken away. It feels like I don’t have that option to be a normal college student because I have to be responsible; I have to be that full-grown adult,” Monica Montejo said. She is 19 years old.

COVID-19

ADMINISTRATION

UMN President Joan Gabel also discussed spring semester plans.

out their father. Monica Montejo is now a full-time student while working full time. Emma Montejo, the youngest, had stayed with relatives during these months but now lives at college out of state. Jesús Montejo, their brother, works two jobs to support his family.

Native American Medicine Garden longtime caretaker resigns The University faced backlash for its treatment of the NAMG caretaker.

By Jasmine Snow jsnow@mndaily.com

University President Joan Gabel poses for a portrait over Zoom. pact the University as a whole, as well as students and campus climate?

A lot of us are talking about that in different forums and the different ways in which higher administrators from across the country come together, you know, your Athletic Conference, APLU [Association of Public and Land-grant Universities], AAU [Association of American Universities], lots of predictions and analysis. President-elect [Joe] Biden has said and hinted at a few things around stimulus funds, which we think would be great, obviously, in order to keep the higher ed financial

model stable. As we know, there will be a new Secretary of Education. And the current Secretary of Education did a lot of things that were different from the administration prior to hers … But one of the main things that is really important for particularly the Twin Cities campus and some of our system campuses as well — but particularly here — is that the federal support for research and the federal investment in science and discovery is critically important to who we are and what we do as the cornerstone of the See GABEL Page 4

Ogi Ruel is pissed.

The 34-year-old Anishinabe Academy teacher is enrolled in the Bay Mills Band of Chippewa. She said during her time as a student at the University of Minnesota, she struggled to find a sense of peace on campus.

That was, until she started going to the Native American Medicine Garden (NAMG), a sacred space near the Bell Museum in St. Paul.

Now, with the resignation of Cânté Sütá Francis Bettelyoun, NAMG’s longtime caretaker, Ruel and many others feel a great loss as the future of the Garden remains uncertain.

“I’m so angry,” she said.

“I don’t really have another place where I can go and pick

medicine anymore. I hate that I can never go back out there and see Barbara [the former caretaker and Bettelyoun’s partner] or Francis again.”

Fully owned by the Oceti Sakowin Indigenous peoples on the land of the Dakota Oyate, the Garden was a place for the sharing of Indigenous, land-based cultural knowledge.

This involved food sovereignty, health disparities of Indigenous peoples, the history of the land and its people and the history of colonization. Bettelyoun’s contract was through the University’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS).

“The Garden is where I made my first sweetgrass braid,” Ruel said. “It’s where I pick the sage I use. I’ve taken my pre-K students out to the Garden to just experience being out with things green and growing. …

The Garden has always just been this safe space for me.”

The Garden’s future was See NAMG Page 2 Volume 121 Issue 6

2 Monday, November 30, 2020

Community page 1 One November evening While driving home from work, Jesús Montejo was the first to find out his dad had been arrested. Less than 10 minutes into the drive, he saw his dad’s 2017 Nissan Altima car pulled over next to a police car.

“I got chills, and my heart just sank,” Jesús Montejo said. “I immediately pulled a U-ey just to make sure it was him, and it was him.”

He parked, got out of the car and waited until a police officer approached him to ask him what was happening. He made phone calls right away, including to his mom and his sister Monica Montejo. Immediately, they thought he was joking, he said.

The next 24 hours were frantic for the family. Monica and Jesús Montejo made phone calls to state troopers, police officers and county officials asking for information to locate and get in contact with their dad. Four days after his arrest, they were able to have a phone call with Gregorio Montejo, said Emma Montejo.

The family experienced something similar with Gregorio’s oldest son, Junior Montejo, who was deported to Mexico by ICE in 2017; the process of getting access to resources and visiting him was easier, Monica Montejo said.

During the pandemic, it was more difficult for the family to endure the ICE court proceedings, communicate

Zoom page 1

Zoom’s environment may not impact the University’s implementation and configuration,” OIT wrote in a statement emailed to the Minnesota Daily.

The University responded to security issues last spring by instructing the University community on securing Zoom meetings and temporarily requiring passcodes for meetings on the platform.

“Credit to the IT department: They’ve done things to try and improve the security and the privacy of our Zoom meetings and Zoom information. And they have a whole website about how to make your meetings secure,” Memmel said.

Some experts have questioned the effectiveness of the complaint as its accountability measures are not strong enough for the level and type of claims, according to Michael Zimmer, a

COVID-19 page 1 Students and faculty have received codes for mail-in saliva testing across all five system campuses. The University also had two days where community members could get tested in the Field House during the week of Nov. 16.

The University tested around 4,000 students and faculty during the testing event, DeBoer said in an interview with the Daily.

“Testing is one part of the picture — there’s also the distancing and masking, those are the most important prevention behaviors,” DeBoer said.

Some students have expressed concerns about the elevated numbers of cases this month, as others continue to go to bars and parties.

Third-year mathematics and economics student Joey DiSpirito has noticed regular parties throughout the semester near Dinkytown, where he lives with multiple roommates.

“A ton of people around us are basically partying every weekend,” DiSpirito said. “Everybody’s acting as if nothing’s going on.”

DiSpirito said he has been avoiding large gatherings to limit the spread of the virus, and plans on getting tested

with lawyers and visit Gregorio Montejo, according to Monica Montejo.

Gregorio Montejo said that for the first two weeks in Sherburne County Jail, he felt extremely sick, because he was not given his medication for high blood pressure. The conditions in the jail were terrible, especially when the pandemic hit, he said.

Many detainees feared the spread of COVID-19 since they were still being gathered in large groups, Gregorio Montejo said, adding that he never met with doctors to address his health issues, only nurses.

In the eighth episode of a podcast series called “American Refugee,” Gregorio Montejo speaks of his experience in Sherburne County jail, the largest Minnesota county jail housing ICE detainees. He described being held in solitary confinement for weeks and the fight from his lawyers, volunteers and family for his release.

The Minnesota Interfaith Coalition on Immigration (ICOM) helped the Montejo family by writing letters to politicians and community leaders pleading for them to call and stop ICE from deporting Gregorio Montejo.

“Our volunteers in the [Accompanying Immigrants in Detention] program do as much as we possibly can to support the family, financially, spiritually,” said Daniel Romero, a minister at Lyndale United Church of Christ and ICOM consultant.

Days before Gregorio Montejo’s deportation,

computer science associate professor at Marquette University.

“It was still disappointing to see the FTC almost letting them get away with that,” Zimmer said. “It was an important claim [by Zoom] that was not true. And this wasn’t just, you know, misleading advertising on a cereal commercial or something else; this was video communication used by millions.”

Although the settlement involves some suggestions for Zoom to improve its data privacy, it does not include monetary fines like similar FTC complaints included for other major technology platforms like Facebook.

“It’s great that [the FTC is] kind of pushing Zoom to make these changes.

But at some point, it is just [Zoom’s] words,” Memmel said. “The FTC only scraped the surface of its authority with this settlement.” before going home to visit his family for Thanksgiving.

Other students also say they are frustrated at the lack of social distancing and the rising cases on campus.

Rogan Isbell, a first-year student in the College of Liberal Arts, regularly went to the University’s Recreation and Wellness Center to find a sense of structure during the pandemic. He said he was frustrated when the gym closed due to new coronavirus restrictions issued by Gov. Tim Walz.

“But now the gym is closed, I can’t do that anymore and now I’m sad,” Isbell said. “If it helps reduce cases then like I’m alright if it closes, but like, I just want to get back to normal.”

Testing is one part of the picture — there’s also the distancing and masking, those are the most important prevention behaviors.”

JILL DEBOER director of the Health Emergency Response Office

volunteers were able to urge Sen. Tina Smith, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Ilhan Omar to call ICE while Gregorio was in Sherburne County Jail to try and stop his deportation. Volunteers had been working adamantly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to get Gregorio Montejo released from Sherburne County Jail because his health issues put him at greater risk of contracting the virus, said Stephanie Tice, a University graduate student and ICOM volunteer coordinator.

While celebrating Emma Montejo’s high school graduation, the family found out that ICE would deport Gregorio Montejo.

“Unfortunately, in the end, it didn’t really work in our favor. But I guess that’s the hardest part about everything,” Jesús Montejo said.

On July 29, ICE deported Gregorio Montejo to Mexico and gave his family short notice, Monica Montejo said.

Due to COVID-19, the family could only visit the ICE detention center on certain days. Though the Montejo family was allowed to prepare and give Gregorio Montejo a bag with his belongings, the family could not deliver the bag in time.

Gregorio Montejo arrived at the U.S. and Mexico border at night and stayed in an ICE detention center until the next day. He said he brought nothing with him to Mexico but was able to get on a plane to meet Junior Montejo in Cancún, Mexico, and stayed with him for a month.

He moved in with his sister

Gabel page 1

mission. The new administration is saying that they will invest in that partnership. So, for many of our faculty, staff and students where that is their work, their life’s work, their calling, that is very good news. One more thing I expect is that there’s likely to be an impact on our international relationships too.

Is the administration thinking at all about possibly introducing a mandatory COVID-19 testing element at some point in the future, depending on how the pandemic progresses?

It could be that testing becomes inexpensive enough and accurate enough that it is a useful enough tool. … If the testing can be performed sufficiently and accurately enough, then we may want to introduce it. But it’s very possible that by the time the testing reaches that level, so will the vaccine reach its distribution. It would be a very nice problem to have, to be choosing between the two.

We would feel very much like we were on the other side when we get to that point.

Nov. 25 marks the six-month anniversary of the killing of George Floyd by officers of the Minneapolis Police Department. What progress have we made as a University and community to better respond to this event and other systemic violence?

We have been working around equity and inclusion broadly and then specifically on campus safety, which we consider a component of

NAMG page 1 jeopardized for months during negotiations with the University.

Earlier this year, the University came under fire from hundreds of students, alumni and community members for its treatment of the NAMG and Bettelyoun. Criticisms included chronic underfunding and underresourcing of the Garden, a lack of respect and sovereignty paid to the space and its caretakers, as well as the nonrenewal of Bettelyoun’s 2020-21 contract.

Eventually, following pushback, University

and started searching for a new job.

“I try to take care of myself and look forward, and maybe later everything will be okay. But right now, I’m very worried,” said Gregorio Montejo. “I think every day about my daughters and my wife, what they’re doing today and eating today. Hopefully the law will change in the U.S. and I have the opportunity to come back.”

team went to the Board of Immigration Appeals, the highest administrative agency in immigration law, to retry the case. Temich said the team argued that Gregorio Montejo was a volunteer in the community and the breadwinner of his family. His boss spoke highly of him, and he advocated for his good moral character.

The legal team also argued that he suffered family trauma that contributed to his DUIs. Gregorio Montejo had begun drinking to cope with a series of traumatic events, including the deportation of his son Junior Montejo.

Though the Board of Immigration Appeals seemed to recognize the hardship of the case by not dismissing it outright, Temich said, “In my opinion, they just kind of locked him up, threw away the key and deported him.”

Adapting to a new reality Monica Montejo said being in a position to support her family in the past year has been difficult for her and her brother. Being a full-time student while working full time takes a toll on her mental health, she added.

“It feels like you’re the one that has to be strong for everybody else, or else it feels like everything is just going to crumble,” Monica Montejo said.

Emma Montejo is a firstyear student at the University of Tampa in Florida studying international business management and prelaw. She attends mostly online classes and pays the additional expense of housing. Next fall,

she plans to transfer to the University of Minnesota.

“Not only would I be gaining much more opportunities, but I will also not have to worry so much about the cost of where I’m going to school,” Emma Montejo said.

As the oldest sibling living at home, Jesús Montejo has been taking care of his family since his brother was deported.

“I’m not really a father figure, and I’m not my dad, but I try to be that shoulder they can lean on at home, and I guess that’s the hardest part because I don’t really know how to do that as well as my dad did,” Jesús Montejo said.

This month, the family received news from Gregorio Montejo that he found a job at a winery that he is excited about. Gregorio Montejo said it was difficult to find a job because of his age, 59 years old, and places are more likely to hire young people.

“I think every night and I think in every way what I need to get back with my family. I tried finding a job, but hopefully starting January next year, I can continue working,” Gregorio Montejo said.

The family’s biggest concern now is paying the bills and managing finances. The family has a GoFundMe fundraiser open to raise money for school fees, legal fees, rent and groceries.

“It’s really hard to slow down and process everything,” Monica Montejo said.

“We haven’t been able to slow down, and that’s what sucks the most.”

an inclusive and welcoming campus climate. … We have brought in an outside expert, Dr. Cedric Alexander, to help us specifically with the safety component. He’s finished with his interviews, he did hundreds of interviews with faculty, staff, students, community partners, board members, alumni, etc. and is done with that phase and is now in the report writing recommendation phase and will incorporate his recommendations into a safety plan. …

It’s a very interesting challenge, because this might be the most bimodal issue that I’ve navigated as an administrator or in my own personal life where, we have absolutely legitimate voices around where police make them feel unsafe and absolutely legitimate voices around people who don’t feel safe unless there is additional police protection. That’s a hard thing to compromise between. We are trying to create a way in which we deal with things like emergency response and crime reduction and how we deal with feeling safe and knowing that your unique life experience and point of view is not only respected but desired, wanted and included.

Dr. Alexander is helping us with this as is and are all of our representative community voices, both on campus and amongst our neighbors so to speak. So, it’s all coming together, and it will result in a plan that will start to roll probably early 2021.

Should students, particularly those in University housing, anticipate a similar Maroon and Gold Sunrise plan for the spring semester that

involves back home time restrictions and possibly a delay to in-person instruction?

I think we will have a Maroon and Gold Sunrise Plan 2.0, but I think one of the things that we will be able to do better, is we probably won’t be as caught by surprise, like we were at the beginning of the fall semester, by virtue of what happened on other campuses that opened before we did. … So we don’t expect delays, we may do stairsteps into more open activities.

A lot of that will depend on what happens between now and the beginning of next calendar year around testing, mitigating treatments, and maybe even some opportunity for vaccination for vulnerable populations and also the numbers in the community around us.

do with the state around the state support to the institution. All of that comes together through the spring and ultimately results in a request to the board over the summer; the board sets tuition. But the administration’s recommendation to the board is usually pretty well known by about a month beforehand. So late spring, early summer, you’ll start to hear what the administration is recommending.

When can students expect to learn more about tuition rates for the next academic year? As tuition was held flat in almost all academic programs this year, should students anticipate a larger increase in tuition costs to account for the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic?

Before the pandemic, we had an internal unwritten goal of staying below the inflationary index that we follow — that is still our goal. If there is any increase, it would still be very low. So it’s not like we’re rebounding, we don’t expect like a reverb from the fact that we kept things flat.

But the formal recommendation on tuition is part of a very large total budgetary process that we go through that includes all of our work that we

Zoom, the video conferencing platform that is widely used by the University, has recently come under fire from the Federal Trade Commission for allegedly lying to its users about security measures and the levels of encryption within the platform. The University’s contract with Zoom extends until 2024, but is there any plan to move away from the platform as a result of these privacy issues?

Not yet. We’ve been working very closely with our own IT department on security and we feel like we have appropriate levels of security managed internally. But if the circumstances change, where if we didn’t feel like the platform was safe and offered the appropriate protections, then we would reconsider.

But, right now we’re still okay.

[To change platforms] would depend on what additional concerns came up and when they came up. It’s a very large contract, so a change to it would probably require a public discussion in front of the board. So, it wouldn’t catch anybody by surprise, it would go through the whole shared governance process.

administration attempted to renew Bettelyoun’s contract — which he never accepted because he felt nothing had improved regarding the treatment of the Garden or his position as caretaker.

The issue remained unresolved, and on Nov. 9, Bettelyoun resigned from his position as caretaker with a letter addressed to his community and all who have supported him. He said there has still been no change from the University, and wrote that administration has held “steadfast in practicing white supremacy.”

“After thoughtful consideration and many talks

with my elders and community, I came to the conclusion that my life and journey need to get out of this dire situation,” Bettelyoun wrote in the letter.

“Protect [the Garden] as best as you all can, I did my best and know I fell short in keeping her how she should be; free.”

In an email to the Minnesota Daily, CFANS Dean Brian Buhr said the Garden’s future will be dependent on the University’s work with “appropriate representatives” from Minnesota tribes to figure out the next steps in the recognition of tribal lands.

Ruel said while she is happy Bettelyoun will no

longer be working under abusive conditions, she mourns the loss of such an authentic space to be in and to take the Indigenous children she teaches.

“It’s shitty to have to bring Indian kids to, like, Gibbs Farm and let them listen to this whole production on colonialism by white people in fake settler clothes. Like, we get it, you won,” Ruel said. “The Garden was a real place to take them without having to drive to a rez, and now it’s gone.

There’s no ground to be gained because the University will never make peace with Indigenous peoples ever.”

In a national context ICOM volunteers still keep in touch with the family. Tice said her relationship with the family has grown stronger with time.

“It’s a friendship that was built through trying times.

That friendship is not going to go away just because Gregorio was deported,” Tice said.

Lisa Temich, an immigration attorney at Kim Hunter Law who worked on the Montejo case, said in her opinion, the reason why Gregorio Montejo was denied ending his deportation was because of his two DUIs. According to Temich, the decision was likely influenced by a 2019 court decision where U.S. Attorney General William Barr ruled that two or more DUI convictions disqualify an immigrant from having “good moral character.” As a result, the judge who denied Gregorio Montejo’s application to stay in the U.S. was likely under pressure to stop providing bond for people with two DUIs, Temich said.

After the judge’s ruling, the Kim Hunter Law legal

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3 Monday, November 30, 2020

Neighborhoods 2020 funding moves to prioritize equity Organizations worry that their equity goals will not be supported.

By Lydia Morrell lmorrell@mndaily.com The Minneapolis City Council recently approved a vast overhaul to how neighborhood organizations will be funded with an emphasis on engaging with communities that have been traditionally underrepresented within these groups.

Neighborhoods 2020 prioritizes equity and engagement with Minneapolis residents, particularly those who are Black, Indigenous, people of color or renters, who have typically been excluded from neighborhood organization boards. City Council approved the plan Nov. 13, and it will go into effect on July 1 of next year.

Currently, $4.1 million is proposed to funnel from the city’s budget into Neighborhoods 2020. The final budget meeting to confirm the amount is Dec. 9.

“The critical part about that is that you build relationships in the community,” said Lynn Von Korff, treasurer for Prospect Park Association (PPA). “And you learn what are the needs out there in the community, great ones that

The steeple of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church peeks over a rise in the Marcy Holmes neighborhood on Tuesday, Jan. 28. The neighborhood provides housing for a significant number of University students. (Kamaan Richards / Minnesota Daily) you haven’t necessarily been addressing.”

As the plan currently stands, neighborhood organizations will receive a base funding of $10,000 for the first six months. In 2021, organizations will receive $15,000 for the next full year, then $10,000 for each year after that.

On top of base funding, an equitable engagement fund will be awarded to organizations based on multiple factors within that neighborhood — such as poverty levels, gentrification and the number of cost-burdened households, families that spend 30% or more of their income on housing — based on an analysis by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Urban & Regional Affairs.

Chris Lautenschlager, executive director of MarcyHolmes Neighborhood Association (MHNA), said that while some neighborhoods have made a “great effort” to engage equitably with their populations, others have fought to preserve the status quo, which he said is not working.

“The status quo couldn’t remain intact with regard to how neighborhoods were being funded,” Lautenschlager said.

Additional grants will also be available to neighborhood organizations that work with other neighborhoods and community organizations.

“The intent there is to draw in more close relationships to try to utilize best practices from both

neighborhoods and community-based organizations to engage more people and have more people involved in the overall enterprise,” said Steven Gallagher, a Neighborhoods and Community Relations policy specialist with the city.

Neighborhoods 2020 has been in the works for about four years, with multiple demographic surveys conducted within neighborhood organization boards. Gallagher said the surveys found that most neighborhood board members are white homeowners.

Von Korff said PPA supports the goals of Neighborhoods 2020. PPA started working on engagement initiatives, such as the tenant’s rights project, before the Minneapolis City Council passed the plan.

“So, the challenge that we face is how do we continue those efforts?” Von Korff said.

“The proposed level of [base] funding is far less financial support.”

Dave Alderson, co-executive director for Cedar-Riverside Community Council, said he is not worried about his organization’s ability to access city funds under Neighborhoods 2020 because of the various racial disparities that Cedar-Riverside faces.

But Lautenschlager said he worries that MHNA’s

outreach efforts will be hampered by the cut in base funding. He said MHNA’s operations funding will drop by about 83% by the start of 2022 — even though the organization will have access to equitable engagement funds and partnership grants.

“I think that we do a decent job of communicating and engaging with people; what’s going to be more impacted is our ability to do that,” Lautenschlager said.

Many Minneapolis neighborhood organizations, including University-area PPA and Southeast Como Improvement Association, signed a letter that urged the City Council to add $3 million more to the equitable engagement fund before the budget proposal is finalized Dec. 9.

Gallagher, the city policy specialist, said the added $3 million would improve neighborhood engagement abilities, but it is hard to justify with the current financial situation brought on by the pandemic.

“It’s kind of a tough situation with revenue shortfalls and the city’s laying off staff and cutting departments.” Gallagher said. “So it’s a tough question then to increase funding to external partners … by $3 million at the same time.”

University’s infectious disease unit receives $25,000 grant to continue COVID-19 research The funding is for production costs and buying new equipment.

By Abbey Machtig amachtig@mndaily.com The University of Minnesota’s infectious disease unit has received a $25,000 grant to continue their COVID-19 research and education.

The University’s Center for Infectious Disease and Research Policy (CIDRAP) researches and produces online content, such as

videos, news articles and podcasts on infectious diseases. Throughout the past several months, CIDRAP has focused almost exclusively on COVID-19.

This grant from the Carlson Family Foundation, a Minnesota-based philanthropic group affiliated with the University’s Carlson School of Management, will assist the group of around 30 individuals working at CIDRAP in continuing their work, said Carlos Cruz, director of operations at CIDRAP. “I would say that actually any funding that we

The Mayo Building, which serves as CIDRAP headquarters, stands on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus on Tuesday, Nov. 24. (Emily Pofahl / Minnesota Daily)

receive or any gifts that we receive … is critical,” Cruz said. “In the current climate, with a number of universities going through tough financial situations, the outpouring of support that we’ve received from foundations and the public has been quite admirable and we’re really thankful for all the support that we have, because we really couldn’t do what we do without the support of other foundations.”

The additional funding was not expected, said Jim Wappes, editorial director of CIDRAP. There was not an application process as is typical with many grants.

“It was completely unexpected and very much appreciated that they had some year-end funding that [the Carlson Family Foundation] then said, ‘We really want to support the CIDRAP effort,’” Wappes said.

The $25,000 grant will go toward covering the general costs of operating CIDRAP, including news and research production costs and salaries for employees.

The unit’s coverage consists of articles, large reports covering different aspects of COVID-19, and a podcast with Michael Osterholm, director of CIDRAP, discussing new research relating to the pandemic. Osterholm was recently added to President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 task force.

Osterholm does not “sugar coat” the pandemic, which has had a large impact on the community, Wappes said.

“I think this is what is really resonating with people — he provides a deep humanity, he’s not just a scientist, he cares about people, which we know, but it’s great to see the country and the world understanding that aspect of Dr. Osterholm, he is a consummate communicator,” Wappes said.

CIDRAP also takes part in scientific research, sometimes in collaboration with outside labs, in addition to publishing informative content.

Currently, the office is researching the

infectious dose of COVID-19, or amount of the virus that is necessary for a person to become infected.

Using this information, researchers can then become better informed on the effectiveness of wearing masks, Wappes said.

The Carlson Family Foundation chose to make this contribution to CIDRAP in order to support their ongoing research and education during the pandemic.

“In addition to being an integral part of our community’s health, safety, and well-being, CIDRAP is a global leader in addressing infectious disease response,” said C. David Nelson, executive director of the Carlson Family Foundation in a statement emailed to the Minnesota Daily.

“Dr. Michael Osterholm has demonstrated continued leadership in the fight against COVID-19, and the Center’s work is especially important as we navigate a pandemic that is disproportionately impacting the health and economic stability of people of color.”

MSA seeks to amend University emergency contact policy

The emergency contact policy is being reassessed

by MSA leaders.

By Ava Thompson athompson@mndaily.com When University of Minnesota student Maddie Johnson was found lying unconscious in the hallway of her residence hall, her mother, Mechelle Malone said it took the University 36 hours to contact her.

Malone arrived at the Hennepin County Medical Center to find that her daughter nearly died after going into cardiac arrest, a result of blood clotting in her heart and lungs.

“Why didn’t anybody call me yesterday to contact me when my daughter was taken away from your campus in an ambulance?” Malone said, describing her reaction when the University called her. “My

daughter was laying in the ICU in critical condition with a ventilator in her throat.”

To address concerns like Malone’s, the Minnesota Student Association proposed a bill during a forum meeting on Tuesday to amend the language of the University’s emergency contact policy.

The bill would develop a framework for understanding what kind of situation would deem the use of emergency contact and allow the University to broaden the sharing of emergency contact information if a student consents.

All University students are required to list an emergency contact, and in the instance of a health or safety emergency, the University would contact the student’s emergency contact, according to Caitlin Hurley, a University spokesperson. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act currently does not allow the University to disclose student

information to another student, unless it is necessary to protect the health or safety of the student or others.

One of the students who found Johnson contacted her roommate, who was then able to reach Malone. A few days after the incident, according to Malone, the University called to ask if she wanted a key to her daughter’s room.

Carter Yost, a member of MSA’s Campus Life Committee and Emergency Contact Subcommittee, said there were also issues with students not being able to access other students’ emergency contact information following the mass arrests and citations after a Nov. 5 protest on I-94. Those students could not notify other students’ listed emergency contacts about the situation because they were not given access to them, Yost said.

“We have had a few instances where students have

been unable to contact students who we knew were there, and not being able to locate them or not being able to get a hold of them,” Yost said.

“There is no strict definition of what an emergency is. And that’s part of the problem.”

Yost and the rest of the Emergency Contact Subcommittee plan to consult with the University’s Student Legal Services before proposing plans for legislation to the rest of MSA. “I really do hope that there are some changes,” Malone said. “They have to be made.”

Top, Illustration by Luis Mendoza. Below, Illustration by Mary Ellen Ritter

Daily Review

4 Monday, November 30, 2020

Como Congregational Church nominated for historical landmark designation

The nomination was approved despite conflict from the owner.

By Megan Phillips mphillips@mndaily.com

After months of debate, Como Congregational Church will see some interim protections while a yearlong historical significance study is underway.

Last month, the city’s Heritage Preservation Commission (HPC) approved the long-contested nomination of Como Congregational Church’s designation as a Minneapolis historical landmark. Concerned Como Neighbors (CCN), a group composed of area residents, has advocated for this nomination since the start of the year following a proposed redevelopment of the church.

“It certainly has a long history in defining that neighborhood and being a center of activity there,” said Ward 2 City Council member Cam Gordon.

The nomination was approved despite opposition from the property owner, Christopher Poor, who has

owned it since 2006. At the HPC meeting, Poor said he opposes the nomination because the building lacks its original architecture, and it would be too expensive to maintain.

“I just don’t think there’s enough of the building to save as a historic property,” Poor said at the meeting.

“I think structurally it’s just gone.”

Poor said he was never made aware of the neighborhood’s early efforts to nominate the church as a historical landmark.

“I’ve been excluded from

this process from the beginning,” Poor said in an interview with the Minnesota Daily. “Both from the neighborhood association and from my actual neighbors.”

The nomination means that the church, built in 1886, will now be part of a yearlong study conducted by city staff and will be protected against redevelopment in the meantime. Staff will report back to the HPC with the findings, and the commission will decide whether to officially designate the church as a historical landmark.

Larry Crawford, a

representative of CCN, said the group is going to continue collecting donations and conducting additional research about the church’s history.

Como Congregational Church currently represents two historical criteria: neighborhood identity, because it was one of the most visited community spaces for more than a century and cultural history, because it is thought to be the neighborhood’s first church and was a multidenominational space that influenced the area’s development.

The Como Congregational Church on Sunday, July 5. (Andy Kosier / Minnesota Daily)

However, little is known about the history of the Southeast Como neighborhood overall, according to Connie Sullivan, a CCN member and retired University of Minnesota professor who lives near the church.

The group conducted much of its own research to help protect the church. Sullivan said the neighborhood is often ignored because it is a mostly industrial area, not residential. Plus, many of the houses are owned by absentee landlords.

“That has an impact on community life,“ Crawford said. “When you don’t have personally invested homeowners … that’s an important part to keep a neighborhood vital and vibrant.”

While neighbors conducted research, Sullivan said they found that Maria Sanford, a key historical figure, was heavily involved in the church from the start.

Sanford was the first female professor hired at the University and regularly spoke at the church, Sullivan said. She was a vocal environmental advocate who helped establish Itasca State Park at the headwaters

of the Mississippi River. In 1920, Sanford was chosen to speak at a state celebration of the passage of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote, according to a MinnPost article.

“On her basis alone, the church should be preserved,“ Crawford said. “To kind of memorialize and interpret her civic legacy to the people of Minneapolis.” \Crawford said CCN wants the church to be a community-oriented nonprofit that hosts community events such as art exhibits, music and community meetings. But Poor, the property owner, said he has unsuccessfully worked with the neighborhood for years trying to get a nonprofit into the church. Now, he is skeptical that an organization would be able to raise the nearly $1 million that he thinks is necessary to preserve the building.

Still, the neighbors are steadfast in their dedication to save the building.

“It’s important for a sense of cohesion and community and a sense of who we have been, which informs who we are,” Sullivan said.

New Mixed Blood program will use storytelling and live theater to break down health stigmas The program will create dialogue to foster and build community.

By Katelyn Vue kvue@mndaily.com Cedar-Riverside’s Mixed Blood Theatre is helping one of their employees build a new studio that will use live theater and storytelling to foster community dialogue about health taboos, quality health care and health disparities in East African communities.

The studio, called City of Nations Storytelling Studio, will launch virtually in December. It will tackle reproductive education, mental health and substance abuse by bringing members of East African communities together across gender, generation, ability and religion to share their stories and experiences with these taboos.

Abdu’s City of Nations Storytelling Studio is a followup to a 2017 program called Project 154, which brought together Somali and Oromo community members to share their personal stories about health care and its barriers. Abdurrahman Mahmud, Mixed Blood Theatre’s project coordinator, said it was the conversations from Project 154 that helped

him identify the health taboo topics that inspired founding City of Nations Storytelling Studio.

“These were the things that we learned from the community when they came together,” Mahmud said.

“And now, through the City of Nations Storytelling Studio, what we want is to expand.”

The major connection between the three taboos are based on intergenerational conflict, Mahmud said. The wave of Somali immigrants who settled in Minnesota in the 1990s after fleeing a civil war and the younger generation of Somalis who were born or raised in the U.S. have clashing viewpoints on health.

Reproductive education, mental health and substance abuse are uncomfortable topics to talk about in Somali families, but not talking about them can gradually affect someone’s willingness to open up about health problems that need to be addressed, he added.

“We’re trying to, through the City of Nations Storytelling Studio, ignite these conversations within families, within faith community, within the youth, within the population, within the community and then help the people feel comfortable to

Project coordinator Abdurrahman Mahmud poses for a portrait outside of Mixed Blood theater on Monday, Nov. 16. The theater is holding a new program to open the discussion about reproductive education, substance abuse and mental health within Somali and East African communities. (Emily Urfer / Minnesota Daily) speak up openly about all these three issues,” Mahmud said.

Before he took up the role of project coordinator of Project 154, Mahmud’s professional background was in nursing and public health. He said his job at Mixed Blood Theatre was his first time working in arts and theatre.

“The journey was eyeopening for me, and it was really a great experience.

Nowadays, I still — I don’t prefer to call myself an artist,” Mahmud said. “But sometimes when I’m around the community, I tell myself, ‘I’m a storyteller.’”

Jack Reuler, Mixed Blood Theatre’s executive director, founded the theater in 1976

when he was 22 years old. In the ‘90s, he said he saw the surrounding neighborhood change around the organization.

“Instead of becoming an island in Cedar-Riverside, we wanted to remain an anchor,” Reuler said. “So, starting in about 2000, we started trying to have our programming be connected to our neighbors.”

After years of trying to connect with the community, the organization had little success. So in 2017, the theater began to change its programming to focus on oral storytelling and created Project 154, he added.

Somalia is nicknamed “a nation of poets” because of its rich history of oral storytelling. The written Somali language was not formed until the 1970s, but Somali culture, language, traditions and religions have been passed down through generations of oral storytelling.

“When we organize people and bring them together, they’re really good storytellers, especially among the elders,” Mahmud said.

A University alum, Sulekha Ibrahim, plans to participate in the City of Nations Storytelling Studio.

She is a public health nurse and founder of Healing Path Wellness Services, a Blackowned mental health clinic located in South Minneapolis.

Ibrahim said, “Storytelling and being able to share their experiences is a great way to connect; it’s a great way for other people to receive information, and it’s even therapeutic.”

M Dining and Aramark host roundtable series with students The meetings collect student feedback about food and dining.

By Katelyn Vue kvue@mndaily.com Last month, Aramark and M Dining started a series of virtual monthly roundtable meetings with University of Minnesota students to collect feedback about the current challenges of food and dining on campus.

Aramark and M Dining invited some University students to attend the meeting, which was set up as a webinar. The meeting covered topics such as climate change, local purchasing and responsible food sourcing.

Most students who attended were on a meal plan through the University’s

dining halls on campus.

“We are constantly working on efforts to promote the local products that we currently source and expand that network of local suppliers,” Austin Johnson, Aramark and M Dining sustainability coordinator, said in an email to the Minnesota Daily. “When students show an interest in local items and have a desire to learn more about the local food system, it helps guide our efforts for the future.”

Some members from Uprooted & Rising Minneapolis (UNR), a community group led by University students advocating for food sovereignty, also attended the roundtable meeting.

Priscilla Trinh, a thirdyear University student and UNR member, said the webinar format did not allow students to see each other or

unmute themselves to speak.

“It wasn’t really a roundtable because a roundtable ... is an open discussion,” Trinh said.

Since its formation in August, UNR has been bringing together community members and students advocating for the University to end its relationship with big food corporations, like Aramark and Cargill.

Now, the organization is growing in members and continuing to advocate for the University to transform food and dining on campus. UNR’s demands include transitioning to a Universityoperated food system and committing to justice efforts like racial justice and workers’ rights.

After the meeting, UNR members sent an email to Johnson in which they raised

concerns about the webinar format and lack of discussion surrounding long-term issues, like the University’s contract with Aramark and Aramark’s engagement in kickback programs. Those programs block local farmers from entering the college market, according to a study from Real Food Generation, an organization that advocates for fair food systems in higher education.

Chris Elrod, the senior marketing manager for Aramark and M Dining, said in an email response to Trinh that the webinar format was intentional as it intended to “prevent issues that [other departments and universities] had experienced when giving all participants full access.”

UNR members who attended the meeting said they were also concerned that Aramark and M Dining staff

focused on the current challenges of food and dining, especially as a result of the pandemic, rather than looking ahead.

“The meeting explicitly refrained from addressing the future, which we see as a direct attempt to avoid pressing issues such as the UMN dining contract with Aramark and tangible longterm solutions to address the blatant food insecurity [and] injustices on campus,” Trinh said in the email to Johnson.

In his response, Elrod confirmed the roundtable was specifically designed to address current dining related topics.

“This roundtable, hosted by M Dining/Aramark, was not meant to inform, or address, the University’s decision-making process in terms of contract/self-operation, but

instead to engage with students on what changes can be made immediately,” Elrod said in the email.

The next roundtable meeting will be held on Dec. 9 and will cover Aramark’s diversity and inclusion efforts. UNR plans to attend and bring up other issues highlighted in its demands.

“They expect civil discussion, but if they repeatedly ignore points we’re bringing up, then I think we’re justified to push harder for certain things or bring in other stakeholders to talk about this issue,” Trinh said.

This winter, UNR is working to expand its network of local farmers and vendors who are Black, Indigenous and people of color for potential partnership with the University if it were to become a self-operated food system.

5 Monday, November 30, 2020

ART

Celebrate Native American Heritage Month every month Indigenous art is available at the MIA all year-round.

By Nina Raemont nraemont@mndaily.com To the Minneapolis Institute of Art, celebration, education and further exploration of Native American heritage and art is not just a month-long endeavor encapsulated in the form of a heritage month. It is a continual initiative for the museum to celebrate the various Native communities year round.

Though November is nationally recognized as Native American Heritage month, the Indigenous art that Mia showcases this month is available and can be seen throughout the year.

“We do content aggregations for certain months, but they are a reflection of the work that we’re doing year round,

and the work that we do with the local Native American community is really important and a high priority for us,” Michaela Baltasar-Feyen, head of strategic communications and Converged Media at the Mia, said.

The Mia has been working to showcase different perspectives of Native American art with help of Juan Lucero (Isleta Pueblo), full-time fellow of Native American art.

“It’s my opportunity to try to share my cultural perspective, which is Pueblo from New Mexico, so that’s one thing that Mia has been working hard at is trying to share those cultural perspectives from Native people throughout the community … and it’s not something that all institutions currently do,” said Lucero.

In compliance with the state’s COVID-19 restrictions, the Mia will be temporarily closed starting Nov. 21, but

patrons who are interested in learning more about Indigenous art can go through the virtual galleries and other offerings on Mia’s website.

Jill Ahlberg Yohe, the Mia’s associate curator of Native American art, recommended the Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists virtual exhibition. The exhibition features over 115 Native women’s work that spans 1,000 years. Hearts of Our People seeks to answer the question of “Why do Native women make art?” and explores the themes of legacy, relationships and power.

Visitors can also spend time in Mia’s Native American art gallery permanent collection to learn more. Ahlberg Yohe also recommended patrons check out the Frank Meyers Steiner Gallery of American Western Art, where Native art is incorporated into the narrative of Western art.

Starting Nov. 19, the Mia’s

Virtual Care Package will be available for viewing. This care package explores the idea of resiliency and calls on local Native artists, teachers, elders and healers.

“A large part of resiliency is actually being generous, and thinking about generosity, and how we can create opportunities to share with one another as it helps us build our own resources to be able to have some sustainability and longevity,” Mia activation specialist Anniessa Antar explained.

In the beginning of the pandemic, Antar helped to put together these care packages.

“So for this care package, we just wanted to collaborate with folks that we’ve worked with in the past, to continue developing the relationships with the Native community and the Native artists that we work with often, and reflect on what is resiliency,” Antar said.

Through the care package, viewers can listen to the

Left, The “Clay Lady” spirit provides clay for potters.

Right, The Olmec mask is believed to have been used in ceremonies. (Shannon Doyle / Minnesota Daily) Minnesota blues/rock band, Bluedog, learn more about the importance of wild rice harvest by making Robert Rice (White Earth Ojibwe) of Pow Wow Coffee Grounds Coffee Shop’s Wild Rice Quiche recipe, build Dakhota language vocabulary and pronunciation skills with Šišóka Dúta (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate) and Wóokiyewiŋ (Upper Sioux) and engage in many more activities provided through

the care package. These different events and learning experiences, like the rest of the art opportunities offered this month, will be available year-round.

“These months are always a challenge,” said BaltasarFeyen. “They’re good months to celebrate, but they can also be seen as tokenizing if you are not making this a regular practice every single day or thinking about it other times of the year.”

ANIMALS

Butter is doing alright during the pandemic She is still able to receive all the attention she’s used to.

By Emalyn Muzzy emuzzy@mndaily.com On the University of Minnesota’s Northrop Mall, a small corgi runs around.

She curiously sniffs as she rummages through the bushes, pulling on her leash as students walk past and garnering smiles from various passersby who are too shy to say hi.

Before COVID-19 shut down campus, seeing Butter the chemistry corgi was a regular occurrence for students.

Butter’s owner, Bach Nguyen, a graduate student studying computational chemistry, would regularly bring her to work at Kolthoff Hall and walk her around campus multiple times a day.

In the age of COVID, Nguyen mostly works from home but still shares Butter’s life by walking around

campus several times a week, sending her on walks with third-year chemistry student Liz Schulz and posting on Butter’s Instagram account.

Butter, described

by Nguyen as, “hyper, very hyper,” has become famous on campus. She’s recognized by students who became accustomed to her regular walks, who follow her Instagram, or who, like Schulz, showed up at Nguyen’s office just to meet her.

Schulz said she had Nguyen as a teacher’s assistant last semester and soon began showing up at his office every day to meet with Butter. Eventually Nguyen started sending her out on daily walks with Butter.

Because Nguyen is rarely in his office these days, Schulz, who thinks of herself as Butter’s “cool aunt,” stops by his home and continues to take Butter out for walks once a week.

“If I’m having a down day or am stressed out about school, she helps me get out of my head,” Schulz said.

Butter the Chemistry Corgi poses for a portrait near the St. Paul Student Center on Tuesday, Nov. 17. (Emily Pofahl / Minnesota Daily) While Schulz and Nguyen from therapy animals; people Cheng, Ngyuen’s wife and agree that Butter would make find her comforting because a biochemistry graduate a terrible therapy dog, her she’s more energetic. student, said that Butter’s an existence helps them — and Nguyen said Butter is extrovert and misses meeting others — destress. handling the pandemic well, new people.

“Therapy dogs are trained because she gets enough Nguyen and Cheng to be calm and nice, but she’s walks to sustain her energy adopted Butter in October of more playful,” Nguyen said. levels. But she’s ready to go 2019 and began bringing her He thinks that sets her apart back to her old routine. Sze on campus to help socialize

her shortly afterwards.

Cheng said it was important to socialize her early in her life.

Nguyen also didn’t want to leave his baby corgi behind while he was at work.

When he first started bringing her in, there were no rules on whether he was allowed to have a dog at work. Soon after, because of Butter, his department created animal guidelines, and he was able to get Butter registered with the University.

The chemistry department has wholeheartedly welcomed Butter. She’s made friends like Schulz and Mollie Dunlap, an assistant to the chemistry department head, who even bought her a custom University of Minnesota dog jacket with “Butter” stitched into it.

When asked if Nguyen was surprised at people’s reaction to her on campus, he laughed and said, “It’s a baby corgi! I’d be slightly concerned if everybody didn’t respond.”

FOOD

Chef Yia Vang cultivates community through food Chef Yia Vang is set to open Vitai, a Hmong eatery, in 2021.

By Nina Raemont nraemont@mndaily.com To chef Yia Vang, it’s never about the food; it’s about the cultivated community that happens through food.

As Vang begins his residency for Union Hmong Kitchen, a pop-up restaurant that aims to tell stories of Hmong culture and ritual through food, and seeks to open his own brick-and-mortar shop in 2021, he keeps coming back to the question of, “What is food?”

“Food is a universal language that speaks into the souls and hearts of people.

And that’s when we came up with this mantra: Every dish has a narrative,” Vang explained. “And if you follow

that narrative long enough and close enough, it’s actually not about the food.

It’s about people. The food is a catalyst to cultivating great relationships.”

Working in the industry since his early 20s (Vang is 36 now), Vang’s own relationship with the restaurant industry was on-again-off-again.

He compared it to a flickering romantic relationship: some days you never want to do it again, other days you’re feeling kinda lonely so you check in, then one day, you realize you love them, so you might as well put a ring on it. Nine years ago, he came back from an off period and decided that, if he’s going to commit to this industry, he better know his “why” before getting too serious.

He found it by coming back to his mother and father’s table. His brick-andmortar shop, Vinai, set to open in 2021, is a love letter — and a redemption letter —

to them, naming the shop after the Thailand refugee camp he was born in.

“Now [Hmong food] becomes this platform where I get to tell the story of two of the most amazing people I know,” Vang said.

And the stories, while heartwarming, are also impressively delicious. His menu and his philosophy of cooking, as one of his line cooks, T.J. Lauth said, is simple but flavorful.

Beginning its residency in Republic on Oct. 23, Union Hmong Kitchen currently offers its menu through takeout and curbside delivery. Some customer favorites include the taro chips, the purple sticky rice, the Hilltribe Fried Chicken Sandwich and Nam Khao, the crispy rice salad.

To add a little kick to each dish, Justin Horsch, a good friend of Vang’s recommended the Tiger Bite sauce to balance off the flavors of each dish. In 2017,

when Horsch and his wife Christa were about to get married, they asked Vang to cater their wedding. When asked how the food was, Horsch responded, “People still talk about it. It was incredible wedding food.”

In 2013, Vang was hired as the kitchen coordinator for the Bethlehem Baptist church in Minneapolis.

There he met his now friend of seven years, MingJinn Tong, a pastor for the church. Vang would explain to Tong over plates of food at Hmong Village what Hmong food means to him.

It’s food without boundaries, not attaching to one certain style of cuisine.

“He’s able to adapt to new ingredients and new techniques that he encounters wherever he goes,” said Tong. “And I think that’s beautiful.”

Tong helped Vang to create the initial website for the restaurant. Reviewing the original copy of the

ChefYia Vang poses for a portrait. (Photo Courtesy of Lauren Cutshall) website, Tong expressed we sit down to eat together. how the main mission was So when we sit together and always to bring people eat together, we walk away together. as friends. Food plus people “Equality is created when equals community.”

6 Monday, November 30, 2020

FOOD

Shui Project delivers ‘food hug’ The recent popup from the Shui Project brought comfort to many.

By Nina Raemont nraemont@mndaily.com In the Twin Cities, a good meal isn’t hard to find. But right now, when the city — and the country — is dealing with a pandemic, a reckoning of racial injustice and a chaotic political atmosphere, we want more than just a good meal. We want a meal that will make us feel good.

And that is what Kenji Yee and their team of 20 at The Shui Project intends to do: to make accessible and delicious food for the Twin Cities community.

Recently, The Shui Project held a pop-up at Keefer Court Bakery & Cafe on West Bank.

Food Hug, the incredibly wholesomely named popup, was intended to provide tranquility to the community during a stressful time through comforting food.

Their next pop-up is set for Dec. 15 at the same location,

from noon until sellout, where hungry customers can get more savory and sweet Shui Project creations.

Yee, 36, who had worked in the restaurant industry for six years, began The Shui Project in 2019 after finding themself with an abundance of ingredients following a catering event. On their way home, Yee decided to make a menu out of the leftover ingredients and invite friends from Instagram over to their apartment to share the food.

“It was kind of through these family meals that were donation-based that The Shui Project was born,” Yee said.

The Shui Project has done various pop-ups since then, expanding their audience of close friends to a greater community.

Food Hug, like every other event The Shui Project conducts, was donationbased: a pay-what-you-can model.

“Shui Project was recontextualizing what service meant — what a restaurant meant — under our current capitalistic society of like, you go to a

The Shui Project volunteer Kori Quillo prepares a meal for Food Hug, a donation-based pay-what-you-can pop-up, at Keefer Court Bakery & Cafe on West Bank on Tuesday, Nov. 17. (Nur B. Adam / Minnesota Daily) store, you get a plate of food for $15 and then you give tip and that’s it,” Hercules Goss-Kuehn, social media coordinator for The Shui Project, said.

This donation-based model, Goss-Kuehn elaborated, allows for those who are just making ends meet, as well as those who

can spend more on a meal, to pay for what they can. “I love having that accessibility so people are not pressured into feeling guilty for not paying as much, because someone else who can is going to take that shouldering,” they said.

The items on the Food Hug menu included egg foo young with thyme, mushroom

gravy and herbs over white rice, chicken adobo with a soy egg and herbs over rice, kabocha congee, a kind of squash rice porridge that was topped with various mushrooms, sun-dried tomato, caramelized onions and herbs, and red bean and lotus skin mooncakes.

The team lauded all of the

impressive flavors of the menu, describing them as delicate, comforting, filling and flavorful.

Mel Koe has gotten to eat many of Yee’s mouthwatering creations throughout their time at Shui.

Koe began as a customer and now develops recipes, works front of house for the events and helps with prep. They believe in food accessibility on many different levels and how this project allows community access to food that marginalized individuals in areas now have the opportunity to access.

“The accessibility piece really stood out to me, but more importantly, accessibility to food that is so unique where people who cannot financially access those foods in the first place cannot culturally access them, like all these fusion foods and marinades and sauces that I’ve tried,” Koe said. “It aligns with my public health background … and food justice and food politics, and striving to bring all this food to people who can’t access it.”

CARNIVAL

St. Paul Winter Carnival is back with a new look

Walk around on a brewery tour and see ice sculptures.

By Meg Bishop[ mbishop@mndaily.com

What are Minnesota winters without wearing three layers of socks to go tubing or sipping hot chocolate while you walk around a holiday lights display?

For people in the Twin Cities, the annual St. Paul Winter Carnival (SPC) is another great winter tradition, and this year it’s back with a COVID-19 twist.

Classic events like ice sculpture carving, the winter run and hot chocolate stations are still alive this season. But the carnival

crew is also bringing in new attractions, like a drivethru ice and snow sculpture park at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. The drive-thru experience allows visitors to hop in their car and play the SPC’s bingo card game. There will also be different stops along the path to purchase winter treats to enjoy during the ride.

“Every year we try to mix it up. We try to modernize it based on what the community is asking for and what’s going on in the world,” said Alyssa Olson, a St. Paul Winter Carnival committee member.

In past years, the SPC would keep all attractions within a certain radius of downtown St. Paul, but this year, in order to allow for social distancing, the carnival has created new

walking excursions around St. Paul.

One of the events is a scavenger hunt where people can find prizes and solve clues while discovering many of St. Paul’s historic sites. Another option is the carnival’s craft drinks passport, called Crafted. The passport will be available on the SPC app and have a large selection of local breweries and wineries around the city that people can visit to collect stamps and win prizes.

University of Minnesota students are known to head out to the carnival with their family, friends or significant other and join in celebrating the winter season, too.

University fourth-year student Sydney Laumeyer went to the carnival last year with her family and enjoyed watching the ice

sculpture carving, where local sculptors embraced the cold to create winterthemed sculptures such as a giant fish.

“The sculptures are really cool and those artists are really talented,” Laumeyer said.

Last year, Eleanor Muzzy, a University second-year, was dragged along with her family to attend the carnival’s family day. Her favorite part was the number of dogs she saw there.

“There were a lot of dogs there. It was a really dog friendly event, so that was really cool. We got to meet a bunch of different dogs,” Muzzy said.

For students and community members involved in the carnival, and those who aren’t into ice sculpting, the SPC’s Softball

Illustration by Mary Ellen Ritter Tournament is back after a couple year hiatus. Anyone will be able sign up to join teams and participate in the bracketed tournament.

Many of the carnival’s usual attractions will not be in store for visitors this year, like their downtown ice skating rink or winter carnival games hosted by

local businesses. But, with the entirely new set up and opportunities to explore the city, this year will be a chance for visitors to try new things, according to Olson.

“We had to get rid of a lot of in-person activities but we’re really excited to be able to move carnival activities into a new space.”

THEATER

UMN student protests Nigerian SARS with original play Wariboko Semenitari created the play “Naija is Alive.”

By Frankie Carlson mbishop@mndaily.com “Africans, listen to me as Africans. And you nonAfricans, listen to me with an open mind.”

Originally from the song “Shuffering and Shmiling”

by Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, Wariboko Semenitari, a third-year student in the University of Minnesota/ Guthrie Theater BFA Acting Program, chose this phrase to be the standout line of his virtual play, “Naija is Alive,” which premiered online Nov. 6. Repeated powerfully throughout, this line highlights Semenitari’s hopes for how the stories and messages of his production will resonate with audiences.

The play centers around stories of victims of police brutality under the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police force in Nigeria. SARS is a division of the Nigerian Police that was formed in 1992 to combat theft and other local crimes. Since its creation, there have been hundreds of accounts of physical assault, sexual violence, kidnapping and murder committed by

SARS officers.

As a Zoom-based production, “Naija is Alive” is organized in a unique fashion. It moves and cuts between actors as they dramatically recite monologues and real testimonies of SARS victims.

The scenes are frequently intercut with footage of protests in Nigeria, speeches from End SARS activists and various other firsthand video content acquired from online resources and social media.

Having created the play for a project in his BFA acting program, Semenitari dove in with the “do it yourself” mentality. He took on the roles of writer, director, vocal coach and more for the production, which is available to the public on YouTube.

From its inception to the final product, “Naija is Alive” comes from a personal place for Semenitari. Having been born and raised in Nigeria, he felt a strong motivation to bring awareness to the injustices taking place there and to the End SARS movement. “[End SARS] is not something that’s new; it’s been going on for a while.

But recently it has gained more traction and higher impact,” Semenitari said.

“In seeing that, I was like, ‘If

I don’t write about this, I’m cheating myself.’”

Along with the premiere of the play, Semenitari launched a GoFundMe campaign in order to raise money for various End SARS organizations and to establish a scholarship fund dedicated to a Black woman in the University acting program.

When presented with the script, Assistant Director Adedotun Salami saw the timing of “Naija is Alive” to be impeccable.

“My first thoughts were how incredibly timely it was as the End SARS movement really started to gain traction and notoriety, especially from global media in October,” Salami said.

The End SARS social movement officially took its name from the widely circulated social media hashtag #EndSARS in 2017, and it has experienced a recent revitalization.

“Oct. 1 is Nigerian Independence Day, and to see the End SARS movement pick up in the month that we just celebrated freedom from colonial rule was actually very inspiring,” Salami said.

Semenitari was deliberate in his inclusion of an allfemale and all person of color cast, hoping to challenge trends of mainstream theater and provide representation

where he saw it to be missing.

“I cast all Black women because I didn’t see enough of that on Twin Cities’ stages,” Semenitari said. “I want to write more parts for them, and I want to see more Black women onstage and onscreen.”

Actor and University graduate Jennifer Waithera Waweru played several roles in the production. While the show dealt heavily in what can be difficult and painful subject matter, Waithera Waweru sees the play’s content as a necessary examination on police brutality as a global issue.

“I think for us as Black people doing this content, it was very familiar,” Waithera Waweru said. “Although we’re still stepping into new territory. The concept of police brutality is something that a lot of us feel very close to, especially this year.”

As a director, Semenitari aimed to create a safe space where the cast and crew could thoughtfully work through the material.

“It was metamorphic,” Semenitari said. “Out of the times of rehearsal where it hit us emotionally, that’s where the most beautiful moments would come out. I tried as a director to foster this space of safety for my actresses in dealing with this hard subject matter.”

Wariboko Semenitari poses for a portrait in Dinkytown on Tuesday, Nov. 17. Semenitari performed his play “Naija is Alive” with an audience over Zoom. The play is now available on YouTube. (Emily Pofahl / Minnesota Daily) Like the Fela Kuti lyric repeated throughout the show, Semenitari hopes viewers go into “Naija is Alive” open-minded and prepared to educate themselves on the issues of police brutality in Nigeria and on the End SARS movement.

“I want people to watch it,” Semenitari said. “Everyone’s always asking, ‘How can I

do more? What can I do?’

You can watch this show and educate yourself, you can share the GoFundMe and you share the show with people.

And as you’re sharing this, you’re not only giving back to Nigeria and Black women’s education, you’re giving back to Black artists, especially these women, [the cast and crew].”

Editorials & Opinions

7 Monday, November 30, 2020

COLUMN

Female disparity in STEM It’s not just a lack of interest.

I

n 2020, EmmanuSidney Clarke elle Charpencolumnist tier and Jennifer Doudna made history as the f irst two women to share a Nobel Prize in chemistry. Their system, called CRISPR-Cas9, allows chemists to make precise changes to human DNA. Their work holds the potential to eliminate inherited diseases like sickle cell anemia, which is currently under research.

Similarly momentous is the work of Nina Tandon, a biomedical engineer who has used stem cell research to revolutionize the world of skeletal reconstruction. Her contributions

bridge invention with imagination: bones for children that grow as the rest of their bodies do, replacement bones that work like their originals and bones that resist immune rejection.

And still, only about 28% of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) workforce is claimed by women. University of Minne sota data is predictive of the disparity. Last spring, the university enrollment report showed roughly 2,000 female students in the College of Science and Engineering, or about 28% of its total class. But even when female students hold the majority, as they do in the College of Biological Sciences with a 62% upper hand in spring 2019, their success is still impaired. In 1996, women made up 42% of the national graduates with degrees in the biological sciences but by 2006, they held less than a quarter of tenured faculty positions.

Studies from as early as 2005 repor t that gendered differences in STEM self-confidence begin in middle school and exponentiate throughout high school and college. Not surprisingly, the belief that one can succeed in a given field is highly related to success. While some still claim that the cause is neurologically

based, more researchers are studying social marginalization in early education leading to the gendered disparity in STEM fields. In environments where mathematics and sciences are thought to be fixed skills instead of acquired ones, girls are almost always out-performed. Research on the stereotype threat, which applies not only to women but a number of other socially just applications, proves that social expectations often dictate reality. Early presence of role models and positive reinforcement can both be used to combat the early divergence girls take from STEM careers.

C o nt i nue d s upp o r t fo r wo m e n throughout college is just as important as early exposure to STEM. Research done by the Harvard Business Review found that women who left a science and engineering major often reported a negative cultural aftertaste. Women from the universities studied reported reductive commentary by professors and unsavory group project experiences. Without a sense of belonging or purpose, a lot of women transfer out of STEM programs.

Despite programs available for women to become involved in STEM, under-the- counter cultural influences often discourage women from

the f ield. At the collegiate level, “bro culture” fur ther perpetuates t h e b el i ef t h a t wo m e n d o n’t b e long in these f ields, and a lack of female representation throughout the entire system extrapolates that problem. While protections like Title IX are intended to promote gender inclusivity on college campuses, the issue of gender discrimination in STEM often goes unnoticed, or written off as a “lack of interest.” But before female representation in STEM can expand, elementary school classrooms and collegiate labs alike need to internalize the belief that women belong.

Sidney Clarke welcomes comments at sclarke@mndaily.com.

COLUMN

The podcast revolution and COVID-19 How disembodied voices are getting me through the pandemic.

A

s Minnesota Emily Eaton columnist enters a new era of COVID-19 restrictions, I can’t help but reflect on the last nine or so months during which many of our lives have changed dramatically. If you told me a year ago that I would be completing the first semester of my final year of college entirely online via Zoom, I probably would have laughed in your face (and then asked what “Zoom” was). Now, I often dread the thought of staring at my computer screen all day instead of attending in-person lectures. I even miss the awkward silence of having a professor ask a

question and not receive an answer — it’s somehow worse over Zoom. But most of all, I crave the time when my eyes didn’t ache at the end of the day, and my screen time report at the end of the week regularly stayed below a few hours.

The COVID-19 pandemic has upset the balance of our lives. Too much screen time, too little social time. We get college classes without the opportunity to easily form connections with our peers and professors and work meetings without the chance to maintain coworker relationships through small talk. But, we are resilient. As the world slowed to a halt mid-March of 2020, there was one area of the world that didn’t pump the breaks: podcasts. Podcast consumption across the world signif icantly increased in March, though the United States saw a decline. Many U.S. consumers listened to podcasts during morning commutes, but the shutdown caused listener numbers to drop when that morning routine was interrupted. But by June of 2020, consumption numbers increased back to where they started, though the listening locations had changed dramatically.

I used to be an avid consumer of online news publications. Now, after a day of online readings, lectures, quizzes and homework assignments, the last thing I want to do is stare at

my screen just to learn what’s going on in the world. And so enters the podcast. Podcasts are, arguably, the perfect medium and news platform for a pandemic world. They’re flexible, ranging dramatically in length and topic, so there’s truly something for everyone. And as you listen to a podcast over time, the host becomes more than a disembodied voice. You form a connection and come to understand their personality and tendencies. To an extent, it helps with the absence of social interaction that many of us have been struggling to fill.

Best of all, you don’t have to look at yet another screen. Personally, I like to listen to my podcasts while I’m working out or on a walk. The variety of podcasts available to choose from vastly supersedes the amount of content available on video streaming sites like Netflix, and they range in time from a quick five- or 10-minute catch-up to two-hour-long productions.

In this uber-visual world, it can be hard to f ind time to go screenless. And now, when social interaction comes at a potentially high cost, sometimes screens are our only tie to the friends, family and coworkers we used to see every day. Try listening to a podcast, and give your eyes (and mind) a break from the hectic, stressful world we live in.

Never listened to a podcast before and don’t know where to begin? The Opinions Desk has you covered.

I recommend “Crime Junkie” for a dose of personality and some bonechilling stories or Code Switch” to learn about how race impacts every facet of the world we know (it sounds heavy, but it’s amazing).

Other recommendations include “My Favorite Murder” for more true crime, “ The Daily” for a deep dive into the news story of the day, “Revisionist History” (because who doesn’t love Malcolm Gladwell?) and “Where Should We Begin?” for human vulnerabilities at their finest.

And, of course, the Minnesota Daily’s podcasts, “In the Know” and “The Weekly Rundown.”

Emily Eaton welcomes comments at eeaton@mndaily.com.

COLUMN

Should affordable housing be this expensive?

Should the government pay $900k for affordable housing next to an airport?

I

n M i n n e a p o l i s , Jonathan Ababiy $900,000 can buy columnist you pretty much any kind of pad you would like. If you want some help paying your mortgage, there is a $855,000, 8-bedroom duplex in cushy East Isles. Or, if you want lake views, there is a one-bedroom penthouse condo with views of Bde Maka Ska near Lake Street.

Maybe you are more of a North Side person. $900K can get you a huge 130-year-old restored Catholic rectory plus a newly renovated duplex, with $160K to spare. Save that $160K, or perhaps splurge on a studio pied-à-terre condo a few blocks from Bde Maka Ska. Wherever you decide, $900K gets you

pretty far in Minneapolis.

Last week, Hennepin County and affordable housing developer Dominium confirmed what they and their partners were capable of with $172.5 million: 191 units at Fort Snelling’s Upper Post, just a thousand feet away from the runway at MSP’s Terminal 1. At a cost of $900,000 per unit, Dominium would build six studios, 60 one-bedrooms, 75 two-bedrooms, 33 three-bedrooms, 15 four-bedrooms and two five-bedrooms in the 26 crumbling buildings at the Upper Post.

In a public meeting last week, the Hennepin County Board voted 4-3 to provide the last piece of funding for that $172.5 million money pit, $88 million in bonds.

It’s a remarkable splurge because, as of two weeks ago, there were 222 tents scattered across 14 parks in Minneapolis. Hundreds of unsheltered people have spent an entire summer living outside in Minneapolis. The county has helped house unsheltered people, but it has also stumbled.

When the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) forcibly evicted most people from the Powderhorn Park encampment, it was community members that helped encampment residents find a new home or move to a new park.

It was community members who brought food and supplies for encampment residents. With enough community pushback, the MPRB began issuing permits for encampments, giving residents a sense of certainty. Additionally, it was the community who pushed Hennepin County to explore purchasing hotels. In October, the County agreed to purchase a hotel and a

warehouse in Minneapolis for housing, providing at least 135 beds, while a deal for a Bloomington hotel fell through.

Even without these circumstances, the cost of this project is much larger than the average affordable housing project in the United States. It’s already triple the median home value in Minneapolis. A 2018 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found the median cost for an affordable unit in pricey areas like Chicago and New York City was only $301,529 and $260,089, respectively. Even in San Francisco, one of the most expensive and difficult-to-build-in cities in the U.S., the price cap of publicly funded housing is $825,000.

The Upper Post is not in the center of a global financial hub, and it is mostly one and two-bedrooms, not the larger unit sizes that many families desire. It’s unclear how the costs could balloon to be so high.

Two years ago, the price tag was $600,000, just one year after the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency voted unanimously to not fund the project due to its excessive cost. Now, the cost is $900,000 per unit. The state and county should do more for affordable housing, but this project isn’t the right path. That $900,000 can go much further on other projects.

The 26 crumbling buildings at the Upper Post are beautiful and of great historical importance, but the exorbitant cost can be better used elsewhere. People are more important than buildings.

Jonathan Ababiy welcomes comments at jababiy@mndaily.com

8 Monday, November 30, 2020

Editorials & Opinions

COLUMN

Shut up and shut down once again If a second nationwide shutdown occurs, will it be the same as the first?

D

uring our first Henry Kueppers columnist COVID-19 shutdown in March, I did a lot of puzzles. I thought maybe with all the time in isolation, I might make some groundbreaking discoveries about myself or the world. Maybe develop a new lease on life. But no, I just did a lot of puzzles. Now, with the country on the verge of a second shutdown, I find myself wondering if I will be right back in the same situation I was before: doing puzzles and worrying about the coronavirus. I know

a lot of Minnesotans are probably in the same boat as me. And while we all know a shutdown could save thousands of lives, it is hard to let go of that return to semi-normalcy we have developed since this summer. But, I am afraid Minnesotans have to come to terms with the fact that a second shutdown is incredibly likely to happen.

According to Minnesota Public Radio, Minnesota reported 7,559 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, Nov. 15.

This brings Minnesota’s grand total to 231,018 cases of the coronavirus.

As cases continue to surge in Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz implemented new restrictions on social gatherings, which include no service in restaurants and bars from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., a limit of 10 people for indoor or outdoor gatherings and a 50-person limit for all weddings and funerals (subject to change to 25 people on Dec. 11). It is clear that Walz, like the rest of the country, dreads enforcing yet another total shutdown. It is becoming abundantly clear that another shutdown is the most practical and responsible way to ensure that we save the lives of thousands of more people. However, it has been many months since our last shutdown. Will the next be any different?

On the surface level, another shutdown would be the same for us. If the

state went back to the shutdowns we had in March, all schooling would revert back to virtual learning — at the University of Minnesota, we are basically already at this step. Besides grocery stores and other essential businesses, all restaurants and bars will close down. However, one significant difference would be that health officials understand much more about the virus now than they did in the spring. In March, testing was limited, hospitals were unsure how to treat patients, and we still were not sure how exactly the virus spread. Now, health officials in Minnesota and all over the nation have a better grasp on what measures can help diminish the spread of the coronavirus.

Another silver lining going into a second shutdown is the shortened time frame. Previously, Minnesota residents were in quarantine for nearly three months. However, according to the Biden advisors, they believe four to six weeks is all the country would need. Dr. Michael Osterholm, coronavirus adviser to President-elect Joe Biden and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, argued that if the government pays businesses and implements another release package for the unemployed, we could shut down and greatly decrease the number of

COVID-19 cases once again. Osterholm went so far as to say, “... if we are going to keep making restrictions state-by-state, there is no compensation for the businesses that are being impacted. What we are doing right now is not working.”

A second shutdown is the right call. It will upset people, it will hurt businesses, and it will cause national stress, but right now, people are dying, and this is the most surefire way we can save lives. I am currently in the process of buying three new puzzle sets. I am bracing myself for what is to come, and I can only hope you do the same.

Henry Kueppers welcomes comments at hkueppers@mndaily.com.

COLUMN

On being a college student with epilepsy I am one of the few college students I know who has epilepsy, but I am not alone.

I

was diagnosed with Tara Brankin epilepsy when I was columnist 1 5 ye a r s o l d . B e fore I had my first seizure, I didn’t give a second thought to my habit of losing control of my arms and dropping things first thing in the morning. The only time I’d seen someone have a seizure or even heard about them was from watching shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” that occasionally featured a character who had some form of epilepsy. That character’s seizures were usually uncontrollable and required brain surgery, which would play out in a dramatic scene set to an even more dramatic score. I never would have thought having epilepsy would become such a huge part of my life.

The remainder of my teenage years were a series of trial and error with different medications. While I never dealt with constant seizures, developing a chronic health disorder as a teenager was not easy. It became especially difficult as I prepared to leave for college and realized the transition would be challenging.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 3.4 million people nationwide have epilepsy. Three million of them are adults and 470,000 are children. The seizures caused by epilepsy range from tonicclonic seizures, where the person loses consciousness and convulses, to myoclonic, which is characterized by the quick jerking of one’s arms or legs. I have myoclonic epilepsy. My seizures are triggered by lack of sleep and stress and — on occasion — dehydration. As I entered college, I also realized that a new catalyst had developed around my seizures: drinking too much.

When I thought about college as a high schooler, I pictured late nights cramming at the library, humid parties with warm beer and staying up until 2 a.m. with friends. I was forced to realize that doing any of these things with epilepsy would be wildly irresponsible.

I don’t want to throw myself a pity party. Yes, having epilepsy is tough, but there are others with this same disorder who have it so much worse than I do. I found a medicine that controls my seizures very well, and I am able to go about my day like anyone else. While

I can’t stay up all night, I can hang out with my friends without worrying about having a seizure in front of them. Having epilepsy does not control my life. It is something that has arguably made me stronger, as cliche as that sounds.

Tara Brankin welcomes comments at tbrankin@mndaily.com.

COLUMN

David and Goliath: Students get screwed by off-campus housing Instead of a slingshot, try Student Legal Services.

A

s someone who Emily Eaton columnist was crammed into an expanded triple (otherwise known as four college students living in a room barely meant to hold three) as a first-year student, housing is a touchy subject. Oncampus living certainly has its downsides and tends to be more expensive than off-campus options. While dorm life isn’t ideal, at least students know who to hold accountable for their living conditions and reduce the risk of dealing with a landlord who wants little more than to pick up the rent check at the end of the month.

The average college student doesn’t know a whole lot about housing law or regulations. I mean, why would we?

Many students transition from living at home to living in a dorm freshman year. Moving into an off-campus apartment or house after freshman year is a popular choice for many students, but it is not always as simple as finding a place in your price range and signing a lease. Students commonly live in neighborhoods like Dinkytown and Stadium Village, located conveniently within walking distance of campus. We often look for the easiest, cheapest option that fits our needs, giving little thought to the legal terms of the agreements we sign. The geographic restrictions, lack of knowledge and desire for cheap and easy housing all provide landlords with the perfect opportunity to take advantage of students.

One example of this? Bedrooms without windows. In most cases, a room cannot be considered a legitimate bedroom unless it has two areas of egress.

Normally, this takes the form of a door and a window. I toured Northstar Apartments last fall and was shocked to be shown several so-called bedrooms that lacked windows entirely. While not necessarily illegal, as some older buildings can be grandfathered into current housing regulations without compliance, Northstar is not the only building

to engage in this practice. The Marshall also lists properties as having multiple bedrooms, with at least one such “bedroom” lacking a window.

Emily Astfalk, a third-year at the University of Minnesota, volunteered with the tenants’ rights organization HOME Line after her own negative leasing experience. After moving into a subleased room for the second semester of her first year, she quickly discovered that the room she had agreed to live in was less than ideal. The furnace didn’t work reliably, and her room lacked a heating vent, meaning that she and her roommates were left without heat during the polar vortex. They ended up suing their landlord and were able to recover three months of rent for the winter months they endured without proper heat.

However, students with less knowledge of tenant rights or willingness to pursue the matter might have suffered through those deadly conditions without compensation.

According to Astfalk, some of the most common issues students face are illegal clauses in leases. “The only reason landlords take so much advantage of students is because they know students don’t know the law, students are too poor to hire lawyers and that students are only going to be living there for one or two years, so they don’t have the motivation to stand up for

themselves. … A lot of these problems are easily solvable if students learn their rights as tenants,” she explained.

There are many resources available to help students through the complicated and confusing process of leasing.

If you have issues with your housing situation and your landlord isn’t being responsive, Student Legal Services is a great resource to begin with. HOME Line, the hotline that Emily worked for, can provide free counseling services to help you understand your rights and how to utilize them. Emily also recommends “How to be the Smartest Renter on Your Block,” a tenants’ rights guide that even provides example forms to help students sound more official.

Many see college students as being in a gray area between childhood and adulthood. College may be a transitory period in many of our lives, but students still deserve the same treatment and respect as any other renters. Know your rights, use your resources and read that fine print at the bottom of your lease, no matter how tiny and annoying and unnecessary it may seem.

Emily Eaton welcomes comments at eeaton@mndaily.com.

Sports

9 Monday, November 30, 2020

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Gophers win season opener over Green Bay

Center Daniel Oturu leaps to block an opponent at Williams Arena on Tuesday, Nov. 5. The Gophers went on to defeat Cleveland State 85-50. By: Kamaan Richards

Marcus Carr led the Gophers with 35 points.

By AJ Condon jcondon@mndaily.com The Gophers’ men’s basketball team took off running in its first game in the 2020 season. After a long-awaited season, the Gophers scored the first 12 points of the game and 21

of the first 25 points. The second half wasn’t all too friendly for the Gophers, but they hung on and defeated the Green Bay Phoenix 99-69.

Offense Points were coming everywhere for the Gophers as ten different players found the scoring sheet.

Redshirt junior Marcus Carr, coming off a career season, did not disappoint in his season debut. He

picked up right where he left off and carried the Gophers on offense with 35 points along with seven boards and four assists.

He tied his career high in points, which was set last season in an upset win over No. 3 Ohio State.

Carr wasn’t even thinking about his box score or that he just tied his career high in points; his mind was on closing the game out.

“They went on their run, and I was just so focused on getting us back to where we needed to be. I kinda wasn’t even thinking about it; it wasn’t on my mind at all. I was just focused on trying to get us back to playing the way we needed to be,” Carr said.

With the void to fill in Daniel Oturu’s absence, Carr was up for the challenge.

When the Gophers’ offense went dry, it was Carr who woke them up. He’ll be a big asset to the team, and they’ll look to him the rest of the season to lead the way.

“He went home and clearly got in the best shape of his life. You can see he went back home and didn’t sit on the couch. He got himself in terrific shape; he’s very, very confident,” head coach Richard

Pitino said.

The biggest struggle from the Gophers’ offense tonight came in the three point shooting, an area they struggled in last year, shooting just 33.7% from deep. In their first game they combined to shoot just 20.6% on 34 attempts.

Junior Gabe Kalscheur started out his Gopher tenure with an impressive freshman year from beyond the arc. He shot 41% that season but saw that drop to 34.1% last season. He continued his sophomore slump struggles from deep, making just one of eight in his season debut.

Kalscheur was still able to finish second in scoring with 17 after he was able to get scores late to push the game out of reach.

After missing so much time throughout his Gopher career, redshirt senior Eric Curry got the start tonight and scored four points. In a recent media availability, Curry mentioned that he has lost 10 pounds so far and will continue to drop weight in hopes of taking away pressure on his knees and staying healthy.

Defense The Gophers were playing great team defense,

getting eight steals and forcing 15 turnovers in the first half. However, the Phoenix came alive in the second half and gave the Gophers a fight to keep things close.

Green Bay was a little more disciplined with the ball in the second half.

After leading by 31 at half, the Phoenix were able to cut it to a 10 point game at one point. The Phoenix finished with just eight turnovers in the second half, which helped them force a comeback.

“They cut the lead down; we were fouling a lot.

Honestly on the defensive end, I thought for the most part we were in good position,” Carr said. “I kinda just wanted to regroup the guys, reiterate that we got to get it done on the defensive end.”

Over halfway through the second half, the Gophers looked like their first half team and broke the game back open. The Gophers defense worked off Carr’s electric offense, en route to a 30-point win.

“The other teams got scholarships too. They’re gonna play, they’re gonna fight, they’re well coached,” Pitino said. “You’re not just going to beat teams by 60 points. They threw a punch back at us.”

Newcomers All the talk about this season has been linked to the three freshmen and three new transfers.

Junior Liam Robbins and junior Both Gach both got involved right away, finding themselves in the starting lineup. Redshirt senior Brandon Johnson wasn’t far behind and made his presence felt early with a put-back dunk for his first points of the game.

Freshman David Mutaf was seen in street clothes pregame and was inactive for the season opener.

The two other freshmen, Martice Mitchell and Jamal Mashburn Jr., each saw action early in the first half.

Robbins struggled with fouls during the first half, picking up two offensive fouls early and his third later in the half. Robbins finished with 10 points and was one rebound away from a double-double.

Gach struggled offensively at first but, after a well designed out-ofbounds play, got his game rolling. He finished with 14 points going perfect from the charity stripe along with five boards and four assists.

“Being back home, being able to play for the Gophers, playing in front of my home state. It was really exciting for me,” Gach said.

Mashburn finished with five points on 2-of-6 shooting, while Mitchell was held scoreless in his sole shot of the game.

Looking forward The Gophers will be back in action Saturday evening when they face Loyola Marymount at the Barn.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Carr leads Gophers to second straight win against Loyola Marcus Carr led the game in scoring with a total of 28 points.

By Paul Hodowanic phodowanic@mndaily.com The Gophers’ men’s basketball team improved to 2-0 on the season with a 88-73 win over Loyola Marymount Saturday.

The Lions committed 19 turnovers and didn’t take advantage of the Gophers’ slow start.

The start of the game wasn’t too favorable for the Gophers. Junior Liam Robbins again found himself in foul trouble early and was forced to see the bench for most of the first half. The Gophers were forcing turnovers and sloppy play, but they weren’t getting favorable shots.

Just six minutes into the game, the Gophers were already in the bonus. Courtesy of LMU committing offensive fouls, the game didn’t get too out of reach for the Gophers. With enough time to shake off the cobwebs, the Gophers offense started to click.

Coming off a 35-point performance that tied his career-high, redshirt junior Marcus Carr came alive midway through the half and sparked the offense. After Robbins, junior Gabe Kalscheur and grad transfer Brandon Johnson all found themselves in foul trouble, Carr got hot.

“We were surprised, I think, by their physicality.

We knew they had size, it’s a big team, they got Big Ten size,” head coach Richard Pitino said. “There was a lull there offensively in the middle of the first half where Marcus [Carr] took over, and we needed that.

Marcus made some big time plays but that’s what a big time player does.”

Carr put up 22 of the Gophers’ 41 first half points. With LMU getting into foul trouble early, Carr was able to get favorable matchups and maneuver into the paint. He shot 8-of-12 while the rest of the Gophers combined for 6-of-18 in the first half.

The second half wasn’t quite as easy for Carr. LMU was able to contain him and forced the Gophers to beat them elsewhere. With Robbins getting into foul trouble again, Johnson saw an uptick in minutes

and gave the Gophers much needed bench points. Johnson was held scoreless in the first, but finished with eight points.

“Seeing that we needed some type of jolt on the court at that time, I couldn’t worry about [fouls] at that time.

Regardless if I had three fouls, four fouls, I was just willing to do whatever it took for my team to get a W,” Johnson said.

Junior Both Gach struggled in the first half shooting just 2-of-7, but was able to get going in the second. He scored 17 points and was an efficient 4-of-5 in the second half while finding the highlight reel with junior Jarvis Omersa for a transition alley-oop.

“He’s one of those guys, if you’re running with him, you gotta throw it up cause he’s one of those guys that’s gonna get it. For me, whenever I see Jarvis on those opportunities, I’ll always try to throw him the ball,” Gach said.

After struggling in the season opener with a 6-for-17 performance, Kalscheur was more conservative with his shot selection. He moved the ball around on offense and used his versatility to drive

Guard Marcus Carr shoots through the opponents at Williams Arena on Wednesday, Nov. 28. (Nur B. Adam / Minnesota Daily) to the hoop. He finished the game with nine points, on 3-for-8 shooting, and didn’t attempt a single three pointer.

The Gophers saw its lead grow as big as 22 late in the second half.

However, LMU didn’t back down and continued to fight back. With the lead

cut down to just 10, Gach hit a three pointer that sealed the deal for the Gophers.

“He was phenomenal tonight, he’s a stat-sheet stuffer and I think when you’ve got him, Gabe, Marcus going downhill, going to the lane, good things can happen. Both

really really impacted the game, made a big three late,” Pitino said.

Minnesota held off the Lions after a late push and improved to 2-0 on the season. The Gophers get a day off before returning back to the barn on Monday to face LMU again.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Carr named to Naismith watch list Carr adds to his preseason accolades.

By AJ Condon jcondon@mndaily.com

Gophers Guard Marcus Carr prepares to inbound the ball at Williams Arena on Wednesday, Jan. 15. Minnesota defeated the Penn State Nittany Lions 75-69. (Kamaan Richards / Minnesota Daily)

Gophers’ redshirt junior Marcus Carr earned a spot on the 2021 Jersey Mike’s Naismith Trophy Watch List Thursday. This is Carr’s second preseason honor after he was named

to the All-Big Ten Team earlier this month.

The trophy is annually presented to the men’s college basketball player who achieves great success on the court. The past two winners of the trophy include Obi Toppin of Dayton and Zion Williamson of Duke. Both ended up top-10 picks in the NBA draft, with Williamson going No. 1 overall in 2019.

After an impressive sophomore year, Carr will hope to continue his success on the court. He finished second on the team last year in points per game with 15.4 and led the team with 6.7 assists per game.

Carr is one of 50 players on the preseason watch list, including eight others from the Big Ten. In early February, the list will be cut down to 30 for a

midseason watch list. On March 4, it will be brought down to 10 semifinalists before ultimately the four finalists are announced March 16.

Staying on the list isn’t an easy task throughout the season, and Carr will have to prove himself worthy of it throughout the season. The Gophers open their season Wednesday against Green Bay.

Sports

10 Monday, November 30, 2020

MEN’S BASKETBALL

FOOTBALL

Gophers’ Men’s basketball names captains defense troubles midway through season Kalscheur and Curry join Carr as leaders for the Gophers.

By AJ Condon jcondon@mndaily.com

On Monday, the Gophers’ men’s basketball team announced their three captains for the upcoming season. The players voted in redshirt junior Marcus Carr, junior

Minnesota might not see improvement until 2021.

By Brendan O’Brien bobrien@mndaily.com

Coming into the 2020 season, Minnesota knew it would have holes to fill on its defensive unit.

The Gophers lost eight defensive starters from their season opening lineup against South Dakota State in 2019, four of whom were selected in the most recent NFL draft. With that much experience lost, somewhat of a dip in success on this side of the ball was to be expected.

But who knew the drop would look like this?

Halfway through the condensed 2020 season, Minnesota is giving up an average of 447 yards per game, 140 more than last year. That mark is good for third worst defense in the Big Ten and ranked No. 93 in the country.

The Gophers’ pass defense has not been as bad statistically, partially because teams have not had to throw the ball to win against Minnesota.

Teams are averaging 7.2 yards per rushing attempt against the Gophers.

The next worst team in the Big Ten in this category? Maryland at 4.9.

The defensive problems were immediately evident against Michigan in what was supposed to be college football’s game of the week. The Wolverines torched the Gophers on the ground and Michigan quarterback Joe Milton did not receive much pressure in his first start.

A week later, similar problems arose against Maryland, except the offense was able to execute throughout the game to make it a close, high-scoring affair.

Fans had reason for optimism after Minnesota’s first win of the season at Illinois, but this improved performance now appears to be more a product of the Fighting Illini being forced to

start their fourth-string quarterback rather than actual improvements being made.

And now with its most recent debacle against Iowa last Friday, Minnesota is not showing signs of making significant defensive improvements until the 2021 season. Ten defensive freshmen and redshirt freshmen played at different points against the Hawkeyes, and the Gophers never could find an answer to stopping Iowa’s rushing attack.

Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck and defensive coordinator Joe Rossi have discussed throughout the season how important it is to develop young players by getting them more experience. But this has shown to be a doubleedged sword. While young players are getting more experience in different game situations that could be beneficial in the future, it is difficult for players to make drastic improvements in the present.

“You might not see [success] yet,” Fleck said.

“But it’ll hit. We’ll see the result of the fruit of the labor eventually, and you want to see it sooner.

Everybody wants to see it sooner. But again, we’re a developmental program, and some of those challenges when you are that, that’s what you’re going to constantly fight through, and that’s okay.”

The last time the Gophers had this many issues defensively was 2018. With three games remaining in the regular season, Fleck fired Robb Smith from the defensive coordinator position and promoted Rossi.

Minnesota immediately looked like a different unit and continued that level of play into 2019.

But the defensive problems from Fleck’s first two seasons have reemerged, and the schedule only looks to be more challenging with matchups against predominantly running teams in Purdue, Wisconsin, Northwestern and Nebraska looming.

Third Team and was most recently selected to the preseason All-Big Ten Team.

Kalscheur has been one of the Gophers’ best perimeter defenders in his first two seasons and has shown his ability to shoot from deep. Though his three point percentage took a hit last season, he brings a career 37.2% from beyond the arc. The Edina, Minnesota, native led the Big Ten in three-pointers made and ranked third on

WOMEN’S HOCKEY

Women’s hockey faces tough 2020 schedule

Photo Courtesy of Gopher Athletics.

The Gophers face three top WCHA teams.

By Matthew Kennedy jcondon@mndaily.com The Minnesota Gophers women’s hockey team enters the shortened 202021 season ranked No. 4 in the nation.

The Gophers will play four two-game series versus the No. 1 Wisconsin Badgers, the No. 8 Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs, and the No. 5 Ohio State Buckeyes. They will play the Buckeyes for two of those series, first at home this weekend, and to end their season in Columbus.

Head coach Brad Frost spoke to the team’s challenging schedule in the 2020-21 season.

“Obviously these are some of the three best

teams in the country that we are playing so it’ll be a great challenge,” he said. “Quite frankly, as a team, we could care less about who we play, we just want to play. We are very fortunate to have the opportunity to step out on the ice this year due to unique circumstances.”

What is especially daunting about the Gophers’ opponents is every team they face has at least one player in the AllWCHA preseason team. For the team’s opening series against Ohio State, the Buckeyes return leading point scorer in Emma Maltais and goaltender Andrea Braendli who are both featured on the AllWCHA preseason squad.

The Gophers are returning their starting blue line from a season ago in Olivia Knowles and Emily Brown. Brown was the sole Gopher representing

Minnesota on the AllWCHA squad. The team also returns its top-three goal scorers from a season ago in Grace Zumwinkle, Taylor Heise and Amy Potomak. Frost also is welcoming a big freshman class with open arms.

“We’re really excited about our class; there’s seven of them, which is a bigger one compared to other years. We have some dynamic players in Abbey Murphy, Anne Cherkowski, Maggie Nicholson, and more which will provide needed depth,” Frost said.

“As coaches we expect them to receive a lot of experience and playing time this year.”

Frost also thinks Murphy is the most dynamic freshman in the country, noting she has “great speed, has a knack for scoring and plays with a chip on her shoulder.”

“She’s a special player and will continue to be electrifying. People will definitely see why she was voted WCHA preseason rookie of the year,” he said.

If Murphy does win WCHA rookie of the year at the season’s conclusion she will be the second straight Gopher to do so, following Madeline Wethington in 2019-20.

The Gophers open their season against Ohio State at Ridder Arena this weekend on Saturday at 3:07 p.m. and Sunday at 2:07 p.m.

The team is prepared for a tough opponent.

“They are a fast, ubertalented and hardworking team, yet we have a lot of quick skaters, so in practice we’ve been trying to to have a raised tempo in preparation for this weekend,” Knowles said.

“And regardless if we are playing a speedy team like the Buckeyes, we want to get back to playing and practicing like we are competing in crucial games because it has been a while since we all have been in pressurizing, win-loss situations on the ice due to COVID-19.”

Knowles also added the Gophers are adding a lot of “interchangeability” to their lines this season due to unknown circumstances with the pandemic. Players could be forced to miss time if they were to test positive. The expected starting forward line of Heise, Zumwinkle, Potomak with Knowles and Brown anchoring the blue line, could shift at any point this season.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Clippers acquire Daniel Oturu in 2020 NBA draft Oturu is the first Gopher in the NBA draft since 2004.

By AJ Condon jcondon@mndaily.com

Gophers linebacker Mariano Sori-Marin follows the ball at TCF Bank Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 24. Minnesota fell to Michigan 49-24 in their first showing of the season.

(Nur B. Adam / Minnesota Daily)

Gabe Kalscheur and redshirt senior Eric Curry.

Carr is the only secondyear captain as he shared the leadership role last season with Michael Hurt.

Carr was a huge piece to the Gophers’ success last year while playing just under 37 minutes per game. He was able to set a school record with 207 assists while finishing ninth nationally with 6.7 assists per game.

Carr finished last season on the All-Big Ten

the team in scoring behind Daniel Oturu and Carr with 11.6 points per game.

The third captain for the Gophers’ has dealt with injuries his past two seasons. Curry missed all of last season after he suffered a knee injury before the season got started. Back in the 201718 season, Curry used a medical redshirt for a different knee injury. The next season, he missed the first 12 games while starting in five of the 15 games he played in that season.

In his limited play, Curry has averaged 5.1 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. The 6-foot-9 forward has only played in 49 games with seven starts.

It had been a long wait for the Minnesota Golden Gophers to hear one of their players’ names called in the NBA draft –16 years to be exact.

But on Wednesday, former Gophers’ center Daniel Oturu ended the drought, as he was selected No. 33 overall to the Minnesota Timberwolves, and was ultimately dealt to the Los Angeles Clippers.

Oturu was the first Gopher selected in the NBA draft since Kris Humphries was taken No. 14 overall in the

2004 draft.

Oturu played two seasons with the Gophers before declaring for the draft. He made an immediate impact in the post alongside Jordan Murphy his freshman season and took a big step forward in his second year under head coach Richard Pitino.

He put up a monster sophomore season in 201920, leading the Gophers in points, rebounds and blocks per game and was named to the All-Big Ten second team. He took control of the offense, averaging a double-double with 20.1 points and 11.3 rebounds per game.

He ranked second in the Big Ten in scoring and first in rebounding, while leading the Gophers to a 1516 overall record.

Oturu chose to stay home and play in Minnesota for the Gophers. This will mark the second straight season a Gopher will join the NBA after Amir Coffey was signed after the 2018-19 season by the Los Angeles Clippers.

Coffey and Oturu will be reunited once more in their careers. From being competitors in high school, to teammates in college, they are teammates once again. Last season, Coffey didn’t play much but averaged 3.2 points in just under nine minutes of playing time per game.

“Daniel really chose Minnesota for all the reasons that we constantly try to sell. He valued playing for the name on the front of the jersey. He’s got a great level of pride for

Minnesota,” Pitino said in a recent media availability.

The 6-foot-10 center holds a 7-foot-3 wingspan and has been drawing attention from scouts about his ability to move for his size. He has been developing a very strong post game as well as a midrange shot. Scouts have said he could benefit from adding more muscle to his frame, especially in his upper body.

Oturu will hopefully be able to make his NBA debut next season and answer the questions scouts had on him.

“That’s huge for the growth of the program.

You want to win, you want to graduate players but you also want to show that you can help them achieve their dreams,” Pitino said.

11 Monday, November 30, 2020

Cataloging Minnesota’s native bees The University Insect Collection aids in native bee research.

By Becca Most bmost@mndaily.com Using the University of Minnesota Insect Collection, a team of bee researchers at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is tracking and studying native bees in the hope of understanding how the insects have been impacted by the climate crisis.

Because researchers do not have a comprehensive list of which bees are native to Minnesota, they do not know much about these insects.

By collecting and studying native bees, future research will examine deeper questions about migration patterns and changes to bee habitats, said Robin Thomson, the University’s

Illustration by Mary Ellen Ritter Insect Collection curator.

Through this, the Minnesota DNR has been able to put together a historical picture of which bees have lived in the state and when, she said.

This research will also help scientists predict what bee species they would expect to find today, Thomson said.

“There are some species that maybe have shifted ranges.

They’re being found in different counties, which might correlate to changes in land use for agricultural reasons,” she

said.

Some bee species that the DNR has found in the past are no longer popping up in their recent surveys.

“There’s a question of where did they go? And why did they move?”

Thomson said.

Nicole Gerjets, the bee survey specialist for the DNR’s Minnesota Biological Survey, has been leading a survey of native bees since 2017. Part of this project, which has continued in the pandemic, is creating a baseline survey documenting what bees are

present around the state.

Gerjets and her team have already covered the western and northeastern areas of Minnesota, with next year being their last field sweep through the state. The project is anticipated to finish in 2023 and is funded by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.

The commission makes funding recommendations to the Minnesota legislature for environmental and natural resource projects.

The survey work includes physically capturing bees in the spring and summer, sorting through and identifying the bees, then pinning and labeling each one.

The information is then entered into a database, and the bees are stored at the University’s Insect Collection.

So far, the team

has collected around 45,000 specimens, tens of thousands of which have been donated to the University Insect Collection, Gerjets said.

The University collection has over 65,000 bees in storage, both native and nonnative to Minnesota.

“We can’t know what we need to conserve unless we know what we have,” said Jessica Petersen, a research scientist at the DNR who also is involved with the Minnesota Biological Survey. “Bees are incredibly diverse. So, it’s really important to be able to look into what bees we have here in the state … and be able to see what makes them so diverse.”

With around 450 bee species in Minnesota, she said there are many questions that need answers, such as the longterm impact of the climate crisis on bees.

Typically, surveyed bees are thrown away after they are catalogued, Petersen said. But once the data

is collected, these bees will be transferred to the University’s collection, where they will be available to anyone who needs them.

“We hear about pollinator decline in the popular press, but we don’t have any numbers to put to that,” she said. “A lot of the initial pollinator decline interest and worry was with respect to honeybees, which are not native, and it’s just one species.”

Because native bees are different biologically and ecologically from honeybees, Petersen said they are likely being impacted by environmental change in different ways.

Without knowing what bees are out there, they will not know the effects.

“People talk about pollinator habitat and pollinator decline as if it’s one species, and it’s really 450,” she said. “If we don’t ask questions about how they’re interacting with the environment, we can’t know how to help save them either.”

The University joins national network focused on improving faculty diversity in STEM programs More than 50 schools make up the IChange Network.

By Abbey Machtig amachtig@mndaily.com The University of Minnesota will be performing a selfassessment and a series of policy changes to improve faculty diversity in STEM as a part of a three-year national initiative.

The University recently joined the IChange Network, which focuses on retention, hiring and recruitment of faculty in underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering and math.

Nationally, this network consists of more than 50 institutions.

The University is one of 19, including four Big Ten colleges, to enter at the end of October. The network is an initiative of the Aspire Alliance, a collaboration between the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) and the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Although the University has several other initiatives aimed at improving diversity within STEM fields, this support network will likely help to address practices that have not been considered before, said Keisha Varma, associate vice provost of the Office of Equity and Diversity.

“Being a part of this network is really focused on that assessment piece.

We’ll spend the whole year doing an assessment, which is amazing,” Varma said. “From looking at some of the questions and things that we have to respond to, there’s going to be things that we haven’t even thought about that we’re doing.

And now we’re gonna have a way to document that.”

Comparing faculty diversity to the diversity of the student population shows there is more work to be done, said Michael White, associate dean for academic programs and faculty affairs in the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences.

“Potentially institutionally, and I don’t mean just at the University but I mean across essentially the whole country, there’s racism that is inherent in things that we

don’t even understand that it’s there,” White said.

Improving representation among STEM faculty will also impact students studying in those areas, he said.

“We’ve been working for years to make sure that our faculty look like the students that are coming into the University of Minnesota.

That is helpful when students see professors, faculty, that look like them or come from similar backgrounds,” White said.

John Ward, professor and associate dean for undergraduate education in the College of Biological Sciences echoed White.

“This is important for students because when they see themselves represented in the faculty, they know that they can also be successful in science,” Ward said in an email to the Minnesota Daily.

The University has yet to begin work with the network since its announcement in late October, Varma said. The University will receive guidance from national experts and the APLU as they complete the threeyear process.

The University will begin by completing a oneyear self-assessment. This

Illustration by Motasem Kadadah will involve compiling a team of stakeholders and leaders from around the University to complete an audit of the policies and practices relating to faculty hiring, recruitment and retention.

“We also ask institutions to look at the last five years of data on faculty hiring, promotion, and retention so that they can better understand where their current policies and practices (or lack thereof) may be impacting outcomes for their faculty,” said Jessica Bennett, assistant director of STEM education

at APLU, in an email to the Minnesota Daily.

The group of stakeholders involved in the self-assessment process will likely consist of senior administrators and faculty members, said Rebecca Ropers, vice provost for faculty and academic affairs.

Following the completion of the selfassessment, the University will begin to carry out several action steps.

These actions potentially include changing tenure and promotion policies, application processes and

relationships with other institutions to improve faculty diversity.

Leaders are prepared to take strategic and specific actions in order to address faculty diversity, Varma said.

“I know that we are a data-rich institution; we have so much data. But I don’t think that we always connect the dots in terms of paying attention to what the data is telling us and in translating that into meaningful action,” Ropers said. “I think that this is a unique and highpotential model for moving us forward.”

Interim deans weigh in on being in leadership roles during pandemic Interim deans say they do not act as “seat warmers.”

By Abbey Machtig amachtig@mndaily.com Throughout the pandemic, interim University of Minnesota deans have been responsible for making unprecedented decisions, and some have filled their temporary roles for longer than expected.

The University’s hiring restraints have prolonged job searches for some administrative roles in recent months, placing a higher workload on interim administrators.

Many of their decisions have involved the shift to online instruction and the freeze of almost all University research, while managing their individual college’s finances.

Some of these administrators occupied these positions prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, while others have transitioned throughout the past several months.

Laura Molgaard, DVM, poses for a portrait with her dog Lucy on Friday, Nov. 13. (Audrey Rauth / Minnesota Daily) Currently, there are several administrators serving in interim positions around the University. The Office of Human Resources (OHR) is providing individual consultations with these administrators to support them as they navigate their additional responsibilities.

“The Office of Human Resources provides support to leaders all across the University through confidential consultations on HR issues and leadership development.

We work with interim and permanent leaders to hone their skills, knowledge, and abilities to navigate challenging and everyday circumstances,” read an OHR statement emailed to the Minnesota Daily.

These additional responsibilities were not expected when accepting the interim dean position, said Laura Molgaard, who has been serving as the interim dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine since August 2019. Molgaard was originally asked to fill the position for one year.

In June, this appointment was extended until a permanent dean is eventually hired. This timeline is still unknown, Molgaard said.

“I believe during that transition they asked if I would reup for a year.

So my appointment is, I believe, until June of 2021.

[The contract] may even say, ‘or until such time as a permanent dean is recruited.’

These terms are not set in stone,” Molgaard said.

Michael Rodriguez took on the interim dean position in the College of Education and Human Development in August 2020, after the search for a permanent dean was halted due to the pandemic.

Rodrigzues previously served as an associate dean within CEHD. “The transition wasn’t that dramatic for me. It does place a new level of radar; my radar has expanded dramatically,” Rodriguez said. “The thing that made it smoother is having a really outstanding senior management team and being part of a team, so it’s not all on me.”

Although the interim position is a temporary appointment, Molgaard and Rodriguez both expressed that they do not want to act as “seat warmers” until someone fills the position permanently.

Interim deans need to be just as accountable as permanent deans, Molgaard said.

“Your accountability is not different because you’re an interim. Both the previous provost and the current provost have been very clear and very supportive of the idea that

‘you’re the dean, do your job.’

There isn’t any expectation that you’re keeping the seat warm at all,” Molgaard said.

However, making the position attractive for prospective candidates is an additional responsibility of the interim position, according to Rodriguez.

“When I came into this position, I told the college in our fall assembly that I am not just going to keep a seat warm for the next dean,” he said. “We need to present a college that someone would actually want to be part of and lead. That’s a different perspective from an interim position than if I were appointed dean because if I were appointed dean, I wouldn’t be thinking quite in that frame of mind.”

For Molgaard, an unexpected challenge of the position was the need to focus largely on COVID-19 over the past several months.

Work on other long-term projects was delayed but still able to continue, she said.

“The tremendous disruption that the pandemic has caused distracts or competes for our attention to all of the creative strategic priorities

that we would much prefer to be focusing all of our attention on,” she said.

Molgaard has also been tasked with making some final decisions regarding instruction delivery that sometimes differ from the rest of the University.

Some professional programs within the College of Veterinary Medicine have been able to operate on different academic calendars and continue in-person instruction for longer periods of time, she said.

For Rodriguez, continuing to discuss racial and social justice and promote accessibility has been a main focus throughout the pandemic within CEHD. “Those bigger scenarios around the pandemic and conscious awareness of racial justice, I think what they’ve gotten us to do is to think out of the box,” Rodriguez said. “We are engaged in all kinds of new approaches to teaching and learning, to doing research and discovery, to doing outreach and service, and we’re learning about new ways of making ourselves accessible.”

12 Monday, November 30, 2020

Local Meals on Wheels sees nearly 45% increase in need

The organization has been able to keep up, but cash will run out.

By Lydia Morrell lmorrell@mndaily.com When Andrew Whitman is not on Zoom teaching University of Minnesota students the ins and outs of corporate risk management, he spends his time delivering meals and playing the harmonica for participants in the Meals on Wheels program.

Whitman is one of many volunteers who has stepped up to deliver meals to an increasing number of participants in the Eastside Meals on Wheels program.

The number of people requesting food has risen by nearly 45% since the beginning of the pandemic and is continuing to grow as

COVID-19 cases climb and more people face difficulties leaving the house. The organization has responded by offering up to 21 meals a week per person rather than the seven meals per week offered before.

“We are growing, and we want to give the folks that are our clients everything that we can, especially right now when social contact is challenging and … it’s hard to get out to supermarkets,” said program director Jessie Hausman.

The program typically reaches older adults in most parts of northeast and southeast Minneapolis who struggle to get out of the house. But as CARES Act pandemic relief funds have flowed into the organization, Eastside Meals on Wheels has expanded its reach to any adult who is struggling with food insecurity or has difficulty leaving the house.

The CARES Act funding will cease at the end of the year.

“I am concerned for that transition,” Hausman said.

“But I feel glad that we are able to serve as many people as possible now.”

The qualifications to receive meals will change once the organization can no longer support “unlimited” meals for people who are facing food insecurity.

“It will return to what is typical, which is like, if they’re 60 or older and they struggle to get out, they for sure will be on the list,” Hausman said. “But if not, it might be a waiting process. … We’ll have to look at our funds and see what we can provide.”

Hausman added that the organization will have to rely heavily on fundraising campaigns in 2021.

The volunteer base has grown in response to the

increased need, thanks to people from local churches and those with extra time because of pandemic-related cancellations, Hausman said. She said volunteers have longer routes and more food to carry, but a lot of young people came forward to help after the pandemic hit, so the group has not struggled under the sudden influx of more participants.

Alexandra Fuher, a fourth-year medical student at the University, was taken off of her inperson clinical rotations in March. With extra time on her hands, she started delivering meals on a route near her neighborhood.

“It’s just a quick and easy way to give back to my community,” Fuher said. “I mean, it’s so close to where I live, and it’s somebody’s food.

So it’s obviously incredibly important that somebody has access to that.”

A Meals on Wheels volunteer appreciation event.

(Courtesy of Jessie Hausman) Before the pandemic, volunteers would deliver five days a week and often visit with participants. Now they deliver three days a week while minimizing contact with other volunteers and participants.

Whitman, the harmonicaplaying University professor, said one of the participants on his route used to invite him inside his house to show

off his annual Christmas display with village houses and train stations wrapping around the living room.

Whitman cannot go in the house anymore, but he still makes conversation from afar.

“Every time I go there now, I say, ‘I can’t wait for the day when you can again show me all of your villages,’” Whitman said.

University continues work on national insect curation project despite COVID-19 pandemic National project will allow scientists to access data.

By Becca Most bmost@mndaily.com Walking through the University of Minnesota Insect Collection, curator Robin Thomson pulls a series of cases from one of dozens of shelves lining the storage facility. Opening it up, she pulls out a glass slide, pointing to a small louse pressed up against a flat surface.

As one of 28 universities and museums part of a national project called the Terrestrial Parasite Tracker, the University is working to digitize parasite data in order to make it more accessible to researchers around the world.

Uploading photos and transcribing data for terrestrial parasites like lice, fleas, ticks, mites and various groups of biting flies, a group of curators and bug enthusiasts around the country are compiling data in ways they have not been able to before. Some of the data they collect includes the location where the insect

A high-resolution scan of a louse specimen. (Courtesy of the University of Minnesota Insect Collection) was found, its scientific name and the name of the person who found it.

Thomson said it is sometimes challenging to share insect information with researchers out of state.

If a researcher in Arizona, for instance, wanted to access a type of louse in the collection, she would have to mail the specimens to them directly or type up the data needed and send it back.

“It’s kind of physically inaccessible,” she said.

“So the idea is to take all of this data sitting in these collections, and somehow get it online and available to the public and to

general researchers.”

The University is compiling images and data for all of the fleas and lice in its collection, which includes over 8,000 specimens of fleas, 14,000 specimens of sucking lice and 242,000 specimens of chewing lice.

Through this work, researchers will be able to better understand the evolution of the parasites’ behaviors and health challenges they cause, said Jennifer Zaspel, the director of the project and a research curator at the Milwaukee Public Museum.

“These collections are libraries of life on our

planet, and represent those organisms where they have occurred over long periods of time,” Zaspel said.

Digitizing these collections allows researchers to access information about when, where and what organisms were collected over the past 100 years, Zaspel said.

Such baseline data can help them better understand environmental change, habitat loss, pollinator distribution and invasive species, she said.

Zaspel said there are numerous challenges involved with documenting these collections. Many

insects are stored in different locations inside museums or universities. They are also stored differently depending on size and anatomy, sometimes pinned, put in vials or placed on microscope slides, which can also pose a challenge for photographing the specimens, she said.

“We’re going to have to deal with hosts and parasites, and understanding those kinds of evolutionary dynamics will help us deal with them in the future,” said Sarah Bush, an associate professor at the University of Utah who is also involved with the project.

“Getting this data is a good solid foundation to start.”

All of this work is done by hand, and with COVID-19, the transition to working from home has been relatively well-suited for this work, she said.

For the last eight months, Bush has been scanning specimens on her dining room table, with the help of her two 12-year-old sons.

Members of the public can also assist the team by interacting with the University’s Notes for Nature website, where they can view insects and transcribe handwritten labels from microscope slides that computers cannot interpret.

Participants can identify lice from the University’s collection or fleas from Chicago’s Field Museum.

“We’re using volunteers to help get this information, and that is really fun because they see things from places all over the world,” Bush said. “Sometimes they’re from an albatross collected … just after World War II, or sometimes it’s something that was collected last year.

We have some specimens that were from 1850. So it’s kind of a nice window into museums that most people don’t get to see.”

Ward 3 Council member continues fight against facial recognition tech Experts say the technology is largely inaccurate.

By Samantha Hendrickson shendrickson@mndaily.com Use of facial recognition technology is on the rise in the United States, and so are attempts to ban it. Ward 3 Council member Steve Fletcher wants to stop that use in Minneapolis before it can begin.

While the ordinance to ban this technology is still in its drafting stages, Fletcher is working alongside the city council, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Minnesota, the Minneapolis city attorney and technology experts.

Cities like Portland, Boston and New York City already banned facial recognition technology in recent months after increased use to identify protesters during social justice demonstrations.

Studies have shown the

technology to be largely inaccurate and racially biased.

“There are good reasons to think twice about how much information we give out for free about ourselves,” Fletcher said. “Privacy is going to be a very interesting conversation over the next several decades, as technology creates the ability for us to collapse privacy entirely, and let corporations and governments know everything about you.”

The ordinance likely will not be passed until January, though Fletcher is currently going through a second round of community engagement with the ordinance while drafting it.

According to a report by Electronic Frontier Foundation, a leading California-based data privacy nonprofit, facial recognition technology is meant to do three things: identify an unknown person, verify the identity of a known person and find specific people in public places who are already wanted by law enforcement.

However, this technology has come under significant fire for its inaccuracy over

City council members Cam Gordon, Ward 2, and Steve Fletcher, Ward 3, answer questions on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (Carter Blochwitz / Minnesota Daily) the years, especially when it comes to identifying people of color, women and children.

Emun Solomon, a University of Minnesota alum who works as a data scientist and product manager at Snapchat, attended a virtual town hall last month alongside Fletcher, community members and the national ACLU, where the groups discussed the damage this kind of technology has on a community.

“The technology is racist on two levels,” Solomon said. “It’s about an algorithm, an automated

math problem, made by a skewed group of engineers.” And it is that first problem, Solomon said, that contributes to the second — technology does not represent or account accurately for the actual population.

A 2018 study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Microsoft found that darker-skinned BIPOC women are nearly 35% more likely to be misidentified by facial recognition technology than lighter-skinned white men Munira Mohamed,

a policy associate at the ACLU Minnesota, said one of the key issues with the technology is that it appears to only benefit one part of the population.

“It begins with the people making this technology … which is disproportionately white men. So they’ve made a technology that works for them,” Mohamed said. “And disregards communities of color.”

According to Solomon, many of these facial recognition softwares are trained with mugshots of homeless individuals who

are paid to participate in trainings, which could increase the technology’s error rate and feed stereotypes.

The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department is still authorized to use facial recognition technology, a fact made public by local journalist and data privacy advocate Tony Webster in 2016.

Fletcher also introduced data privacy principles before the city council in February and sees this ban as an extension of that.

While Fletcher added that facial recognition technology is all around us, like in our smartphones and other security systems, this ordinance would ban city government from its use — including the Minneapolis Police Department.

His next step is to extend the ban to things like security cameras in stadiums and other large public spaces.

“This has a lot of potential to really get really invasive in people’s lives and track too much data that we’re not consenting to,” Fletcher said.