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Civil Rights Icon Bettie Mae Fikes Commemorates Bloody Sunday with Soulful Tribute

Students, faculty and staff alike sat in awe as the sound of Bettie Mae Fikes' voice swept over the 60 listeners in the room Jan. 30 during the 60th Anniversary Jubilee of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Ala. Fikes, known as the Voice of Selma, has been involved in Black Freedom activism since she was a teenager, including the Bloody Sunday march with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. across Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge.State troopers and local residents on March 7, 1965, attacked unarmed protes...
Mankato Free Press •

Small business program would get a boost under proposal at Capitol

A program that aims to help small businesses in rural areas and in other parts of the state would get another two-year funding boost under a bill being considered at the state Capitol. Legislation sponsored by Sen. Susan Pha, DFL-Brooklyn Park, would renew a $7.4 million “one-time” increase in funding to the Small Business Assistance Partnerships Program that it first received two years ago. That funding was in addition to the $5.45 million in base funding allocated to the program.In 2023, the Sm...
Mesabi Tribune •

Proposed funding would boost mental health and outdoor programs for Minnesota veterans

Nathan Burr, a member of the Minnesota National Guard, went to a resort near Ely called Veterans on the Lake for the first time in 2019 to reconnect with his wife and two young children, fresh from a year-long deployment in the Middle East .

“I’ve done four deployments but only one with kids, and it’s a completely different thing,” Burr said.

A year later, Burr heard the organization that runs the resort needed board members, and after conferring with his wife, decided to give back to the organization after a stay that had meant so much to him and his family.
KAXE •

MN law change could ease restrictions, expand sales of homemade food

ST. PAUL — People who sell baked goods, jams and jelly, and other foods they make at home without a license would be allowed to sell more with fewer restrictions under a change being considered at the Minnesota State Capitol.Since 2015, Minnesota has allowed the sale of homemade products that are shelf-stable without refrigeration. Known as “cottage foods,” the products are officially defined as “non-potentially hazardous food and canned goods.”People registered with the Minnesota Department of...
The Minnesota Daily •

How Minnesota keeps its Scandinavian heritage alive

When Swedish, Norwegian and Danish immigrants first set foot in Minnesota, they came for the promise of land and opportunity, but they remained determined to preserve their culture and traditions. Nearly 150 years later, Scandinavian cultural centers are living proof of how early settlers shaped Minnesota’s identity.Today, about 43% of Minnesotans who reported multiple ancestry identify as Scandinavian, according to the 2023 American Community Survey. Evidence of the state’s Scandinavian roots i...
The Minnesota Daily •

Symbols of resistance, the identity of movements

When describing the historical pattern of missing and murdered community members that motivated former roller derby player and Navajo activist Melissa Skeet to roller skate across the United States with a red handprint painted on her face, the name Matoaka came to mind. She is known to many as Pocahontas, a Native American woman who fell in love with colonizer Captain John Smith in the 1995 movie of the same name. Indigenous activists remember Matoaka differently, as the first Missing and Murder...
The Minnesota Daily •

Muslim and Jewish students navigate rising tensions on campus

Since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent conflict in Gaza, Jewish and Muslim students at the University of Minnesota learned to balance their expressions of religious identity with concerns about increased hate speech and isolation from campus communities.The number of reported antisemitic incidents across the U. S. was 8,873 in 2023, according to an audit by the Anti-Defamation League, an almost 140% increase from 2022.A report by the Council on American-Islamic Relation...
The Minnesota Daily •

Board of Regents approve President’s Biennial Budget Request

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents unanimously voted to approve the President’s Recommended FY 2026-27 Biennial Budget Request on Oct. 10.The Board also unanimously approved the President’s Recommended 2024 Six-Year Capital Plan and 2025 State Capital Request. The Six-year Capital plan is required by Board policy and is the document that sets the direction for major capital projects, according to Alice Roberts-Davis, the vice president of University Services.For 2025, the University wi...
The Minnesota Daily •

Police present as protesters gathered in front of Minnesota Hillel

Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated in front of Minnesota Hillel, a University of Minnesota Jewish cultural center, following UMN Divest Coalition’s “One year of Genocide” walkout on Monday, Oct. 7, according to Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) officer Lieutenant Marcus Brenner.Minnesota Hillel planned on hosting events on Monday to commemorate the Oct. 7 attack and mourn the loss of Israeli lives with events leading up to a memorial service and dinner, according to its website.Minnesota...
The Minnesota Daily •

UMN protesters walk out on one-year anniversary of Oct. 7

Around 100 protesters gathered at the University of Minnesota at noon Monday, marking the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel where the Israeli government estimated 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 hostages were taken.Protesters chanted outside the Coffman Union, “Up up with liberation, down down with occupation,” among others, before placing small colored flags on the lawn in the pattern of the Palestinian flag. Some protesters would later gather in front o...
The Minnesota Daily •

Blind and low-vision students forge community at UMN

Blind and low-vision students at the University of Minnesota have the same concerns as students without disabilities in navigating their academic and social lives in addition to the unique circumstance of not having full vision.Enjie Hall, the director of the Disability Resource Center (DRC) at the University, said the DRC aims to ensure the University is as inclusive as possible, so students do not need to go out of their way to provide accommodations. According to the National Federation of th...
The Minnesota Daily •

Senior citizens practice lifelong learning at UMN

The Senior Citizen Education Program (SCEP) at the University of Minnesota allows Minnesota residents age 62 or older to audit courses for free or pay a $20 administrative fee per credit, according to One Stop’s website.The program was implemented after a 1975 statute was passed — and since updated — requiring state-supported universities and colleges in Minnesota to allow senior citizens to enroll in courses based on available space after all tuition-paying students were accommodated. The statu...
The Minnesota Daily •

UMN St. Cloud regional campus to begin instruction in 2025

The University of Minnesota St. Cloud CentraCare Regional Campus will begin instruction in fall 2025 with an initial cohort of 24 medical students, according to CentraCare’s website. The campus was approved by the University’s Board of Regents in December 2023 to provide care to underserved communities, specifically rural and immigrant populations. St. Cloud, a metropolitan area, is surrounded by rural communities.CentraCare is a health care system based out of Central Minnesota that employs alm...
The Minnesota Daily •

Protest tensions echo 1985 fight for South Africa divestment

Mistrust in administration, protesters facing off with police and the Board of Regents declining to divest from a foreign country may sound familiar to both current students and 1980s alumni.University of Minnesota President Rebecca Cunningham presented the University’s plan for “systemwide planning for civic engagement” for the fall semester at a special Board meeting on Aug. 27, wherein the Board adopted “institutional neutrality” with its endowment investments. Cunningham said the University...
The Minnesota Daily •

UMN President Rebecca Cunningham breaks down her recommended budget request

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated for greater context.University of Minnesota President Rebecca Cunningham announced her recommended biennial budget request for the fiscal year 2026-27 on Thursday at the Board of Regents meeting.Cunningham’s proposal asks for an overall fund increase of $235 million from the Minnesota state legislature, a 32% increase from the last fiscal year.This year, Minnesota state leaders allocated 6.4% of available funds to higher education. Roughly 2% will go...
The Minnesota Daily •

UMN Divest Coalition renews calls for divestment

“Board of Regents you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” students, faculty, community members and staff chanted. Among a crowd of roughly 50 protestors, signage included three flags, a bullhorn, various sound equipment and smaller posters, distinguishing this protest as the first conducted under a newly reinforced University of Minnesota protest policy that set limits on attendance without a permit, poster size and sound equipment.On Sept. 5, around 50 protestors marched along the train t...
The Minnesota Daily •

UMPD evacuated Walter Library after finding suspicious package

The University of Minnesota Police Department (UMPD) reported that a suspicious package was found outside of Walter Library, 117 Pleasant St. Wednesday afternoon in a SAFE-U alert sent to students and faculty at 4:24 p.m. UMPD reported they evacuated the building at 4:44 p.m. and asked students and faculty members to avoid the area until further notice while police moderated the situation. Nearly twenty minutes after evacuation, UMPD reopened Walter Library and the surrounding area, reporting th...
The Minnesota Daily •

How social media fueled the flames of Iran’s women’s rights revolution

Since the death of Mahsa Jini Amini in 2022, Iranian women have led a women’s rights movement to advocate for gender equality and the expansion of women’s rights in Iranian society, which has gained global attention for its effective usage of social media.On Sept. 16, 2022, 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Jina Amini died in the custody of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s morality police. Despite Iranian officials saying she died of preexisting health conditions, her family maintains she wa...
The Minnesota Daily •

Beyond patrol: UMPD’s community engagement initiatives

The University of Minnesota Police Department’s Community Engagement Team (CET) is composed of civilians, sworn officers and student interns intending to foster a positive relationship between the University community and the University of Minnesota Police Department (UMPD). Founded in 2015 with the arrival of UMPD Chief Matt Clark, the team expanded beyond the initial three sworn-in officers in 2017 and now includes a civilian community liaison, two graduate student interns, a UMPD officer and...
The Minnesota Daily •

Navigating the digital marketing landscape: UMN’s Digital Marketing Boot Camp

The University of Minnesota’s boot camps, offered through the College of Continuing and Professional Studies (CCAPS) in partnership with the online learning platform edX, started a new session of classes on Monday.The boot camp programs were launched at the University with a general web development program in 2017. In Fall 2021, the program expanded to include five different specialized programs including a digital marketing boot camp. The digital marketing boot camp is an 18-week part-time prog...
The Minnesota Daily •

UMN offers a Graduate Certificate in Sustainability Leadership

The University of Minnesota is preparing to launch a 12-credit graduate-level certificate program in Sustainable Environmental, Social and Governance (SESG) Leadership next fall to keep up with growing demands for education in sustainability best practices in corporations.An interdisciplinary program, the certificate was created to ensure students are well-versed in a variety of topics concerning sustainability and climate change. The program was developed in collaboration with the Carlson Schoo...
The Minnesota Daily •

Nurturing innovation: A closer look at UMN’s Plant Growth Facilities

The Plant Growth Facilities on the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus encompasses greenhouses, classrooms and labs, provides a venue for research, and serves as the primary classroom space for students in the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS).The University’s horticulture building and greenhouse were built in 1899, making their department one of the first horticulture programs in the United States. Since then, the facilities have expanded with the St. Pau...
The Minnesota Daily •

UMN program offers first-year students guided research opportunity

Select incoming first-year College of Liberal Arts students at the University of Minnesota are offered a unique opportunity to get first-hand research experience through the Dean’s First-Year Research and Creative Scholars Program (DFRACS).Students in the DFRACS program are paired with a mentor whose research matches the student’s interests during their first semester. During their second semester, students collaborate with their mentor and occasionally other program members to get first-hand re...
The Minnesota Daily •

UMN criminal justice programs vary by campus

The study of crime and punishment within the University of Minnesota system varies greatly by campus, with each program tailored to a different set of career opportunities post-graduation. The Twin Cities program is particularly unique for its foundation in sociology and research. Alternatively, the Crookston, Morris and Duluth programs offer course content leading graduates to more traditional careers in law enforcement.Twin CitiesThe murder of George Floyd in 2020 had more of an effect on the...