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University of Minnesota's focus has drifted
History shows that Minnesotans need to know what the school is doing for the state.
By Steven Miles
April 10, 2023 at 10:45PM
•••
The University of Minnesota has run off the rails again. Some legislators complain that the president was poor at communicating reasons for supporting the U. That complaint alone reveals how difficult it is for Minnesotans to see and feel how the university helps Minnesota flourish.
History illuminates.
In 1851, seven years before becoming a state, Minnesota Territory created the U to provide Minnesotans with a thorough knowledge of "Literature, Science and the Arts." That wasn't convincing. In 1854, the debt-ridden U closed its one building.
In 1857, South Carolina's former governor, William Aiken, visited the popular tourist spot, St. Anthony Falls. When he saw the U, he saved it with a huge gift of cash that came from his plantation of 900 slaves.
In 1863, flour baron John Pillsbury joined the Board of Regents, made a huge donation and led a commission to put the U on a sound footing.
In 1867, the U became a "land grant" university under President Abraham Lincoln's program. The mission of land grant universities was to teach agriculture, science, engineering and other fields to enable states to flourish through the economic and social changes of America's industrial revolution. The university was not envisioned as a trade school but was intended to provide Minnesota and Minnesotans with the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in a rapidly changing world. In the fractured country after the Civil War and the fractured world after World War I, the U also helped Minnesotans understand complex tragic and heroic truths about our culture, our nation and our experience in the broader world. That is not indoctrination; it is education to enable citizens to build from a broken society to a better future.
Fast-forward. There have been successes. The U found a way to vastly extend production on the Iron Range. The farm campus, extension division and arboretum are strong partners with rural development and agriculture. There have been other successes as well.
However, in recent decades, the U has drifted from the partnership with a changing Minnesota envisioned in the land-grant mission.
- The health science campus has embraced research and developing highly complex care, leaving the state with a third of the number of primary care doctors as other states. Its new programs to address crushing shortages for primary care doctors, nurses and other clinicians are clearly inadequate.
- A sports empire, never envisioned as a land grant priority, has carved a huge footprint on the campuses as academic buildings have been neglected. Straightforward reporting of the cost and revenues of arcane finances within the U's sports empire are extremely difficult to obtain.
- Despite the fact that the university was rescued with money that Aiken accumulated by exploiting slaved labor, the U has a poor record of educating African Americans.
- The university's forestry center in the middle of the Fond du Lac reservation sits on land that was stolen from the tribe. The U took additional land from Indians in violation of the La Pointe Treaty all the way up to 2003. The U says that it needs to do more forestry research before it can pay the tribe or return the land. It's like saying, "Yes, I stole your car. We should discuss how to return it, but I need it to get to work right now."
- Leadership by accounting has ironically failed to tame the U's bloated bureaucracy.
- And the regents seem unwilling or unable to manage ongoing scandals in the senior administration, academic departments and relationships with industry.
So, again, as in 1854 and 1863, the Legislature and people of Minnesota are having difficulty seeing the value of a university that is focused on internal priorities that have drifted from its land grant mission to help Minnesota thrive.
The university is essential to Minnesota.
As the regents hire a new president, they should ensure that the candidate understands that the university is not job one: Minnesota is.
Dr. Steven Miles, of Minneapolis, is an emeritus professor of medicine and bioethics, University of Minnesota.
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Steven Miles
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