We  are  recording.  All  right,  Joe, thank  you  for  joining  me here  as  I  was  just  talking  about. This  will  be  for  the  fourth  season  of Beyond  the  Nasty  Omar's  alumni  podcast. So  first,  who  are  you  and  where  did  you  come  from? Well,  Joe  Marconi,  born  and  raised  in  Newark,  New  Jersey. And  don't  take  this  personally, but  being  from  Jersey, it  means  that  I  am  better  than  you. Welcome  back.  I'm  Amber  Klein, and  this  is  beyond  the  Nest  University of  Minnesota  Rochester's  Alumni  podcast. In  today's  episode,  we  hear  from  the  first  generation  of UMR  campus  leaders  and  innovators,  folks  who, along  with  Umar's  inaugural  chancellor,  Stephen  Lempel, laid  the  foundation  for Umar's  unique  and  forward  thinking  approach to  the  academic  experience. So  stay  with  us,  won't  you? Chapter  one,  coming  to  UMR, the  University  of  Minnesota, Rochester,  as  a  campus  and its  founding  generation  of  leaders,  innovators, academics  and  advisors,  found  one  another, each  in  their  own  unique  way  and  together lent  their  lived  experiences  to  a  novel  endeavor. Reimagining  higher  education. In  the  21st  century, we  were  from  different  places, We  were  from  different  backgrounds. Most  of  us  were  not  from  the  academy, which  I  thought  was  a  big  advantage. Absolutely.  And  yeah, that  was  that  was  the  group  initially. And  so  this  is  in  the  year  2000?  Yes. The  spring  of  2000  is  when  most  of  us  were hired  for  Joe  Marconi, a  recovering  attorney  with  a  Jesuit  education. It  was  his  wife,  Peggy's, job  with  IBM  which  brought  them  to  Rochester. And  it  was  on  the  Grapevine  where  he  learned  about  UMR. What  then  brought  you  to  the  University  of  Minnesota? What  returned  you  to  the  University  of  Minnesota? I  found  out,  and  I  don't  remember  how, but  I  found  out  that  they  had  always  taught  classes  here. They've  been  teaching  classes  here  since  the  1960s. But  I  heard  that  they  were  going  to  start  up a  campus  of  the  University of  Minnesota  here  at  Rochester. And  I  said,  boy, that's  something  I've  really  enjoyed  doing. Because  how  often  do  you  get  a  chance  to  start  up a  new  campus  as  a  major  research  university?  Mm  hm. And  so  I  got  in  touch  with the  folks  and  I  had  several  interviews. Mary  Helsley  was  the  person  who  came  down from  the  Twin  Cities  to  do  this. She  was  one  of  the  vice  Presidents  up  at  the  U, I  believe  she's  now  retired. But  she  came  down  and  she  hired  about  seven  of us  to  get  the  play  started  for  Gail  Soder, UR's  First  Assistant  Vice Chancellor  for  Finance  and  Operations. Coming  to  UMR  meant  moving  from a  respected  and  well  established  community  college to  something  a  little  bit  different. So,  you  worked  at  RC  TC  under various  names  of  the  institution  and  roles? What  brought  you  to  the  University  of  Minnesota? Rochester.  What  brought  you to  the  University  of  Minnesota? Yes,  because  it  wasn't,  UM, R.  Yes,  Yes,  yes. You  know,  as  an  interesting  story, I  didn't  know  that  they  were hiring  a  position  as  they  were, as  Marilyn  probably  told  you. They  were  gearing  up  to  try  and  change  how  things  worked. And  a  friend  of  mine  had  said, look  in  the  newspaper  She  said, I  think  there's  a  job  you  might  be  interested  in Because  the  UFM  was  on  that  campus  at  the  time, but  it  wasn't  through  like  Rochester,  you  know, The  School  of  Engineering  had  programs, the  College  of  Education  programs  continuing. So  there  were  other  employees  there. And  I  looked  at  it, and  two  days  from  the  day I  looked  at  it  was  the  deadline  to  apply  for  the  job. And  I  had  a  dear  friend of  mine  that  said  you  better  do  it. I'm  telling  you  you  need  to apply  for  that  job  because,  you  know, RC  TC  was  quite  small  and  there  wasn't a  lot  of  growth  opportunity  for  me,  you  know. And  I  applied  for  the  job  and then  a  couple  months  later heard  that  they  had  paused  the  search. I  didn't  know  why.  But  then they  brought  the  search  back  up  again, and  I  interviewed  and  was  offered  the  job  and  took  it. J.  Hes  Lee,  a  Rochester  native, came  to  Umar  with  a  vast  wealth  of experience  gained  from  a  career  in  international  trade, sales,  marketing,  and  government  relations. What  year  did  you  arrive  at  the  university? Can  you  remember?  2000.  2000,  Okay. And  Marconi  and  Western and  Zimmerman  had  been  there for  a  couple  of  years  by  then? Yeah,  I  think  Dick  had  been the  longest  tenured  person  M  there. Gail  had  been  there  about  a  year  before  me. Amy,  Rowena  who  was  still with  the  University,  she'd  been  there. Diane  Goldson,  Kathy  Oof. Yep.  They  had  both  been there  for  at  least  a  decade  before  that. So  they  had  the  University  of  Minnesota  as a  branch  or  an  outreach  has  actually served  in  Rochester  since  the  late  '60s.  Mm  hm. But  they  were  kind  of  individual  pursuits by  college  of  education  or  AT, or  whatever  it  was  the  idea  of,  you  know, how  do  you  begin  to  coalesce  some  of  these  things. But  they  actually  had  at  one  time, I  want  to  say  in  the  late  '70s, Early  as  they  had  almost  1,000  students.  Really? Yeah,  they  had  the  Fullerton  building, which  is  now  the  junior  high  by  the  fairgrounds. Wild  and  Diane  and  Kathy  have  great  stories  about  that. But  Diane  and  Kathy  were  both  there  when  they  had  one of  the  old  State  Hospital  building. So  originally  they  were  literally  in  a  building  with that  cream  colored  tile  that  still had  gang  showers  and  all  that  sort  of  stuff  in  it. Oh,  that'd  be  great  to  go  away  too. It'll  be  creepy.  That'd  be  great. They  had  creepy  stories. I  think  the  State  Hospital  was  still  open  at  the  time, so  there  was  quite  a  bit  of  traffic. But  yeah,  so  there's  certainly  been  people  with very  long  tenures  with  Dr.  Claudia  Neuhaus. The  opportunity  to  serve  as  the  campus  first  vice chancellor  provided  her  a  rare  opportunity to  build  an  academic  curriculum, unbound  by  the  weight  of  history. It  actually  started  before  2008. I  became department  five  years  before,  moved  to  Rochester. Somewhere  along  the  way,  my  dean brought  me  into  a  meeting with  the  leadership  was  then  not  a  campus, but  operation  that  offered  courses. We  were  essentially  told,  well, try  to  help  them  develop  something. I  started  driving  to Rochester  once  a  week  for  probably  about  a  year, and  just  interacting  with  people  there, trying  to  find  out  what the  Rochester  Education  Committee Development  Committee  really  wanted, what  the  community  wanted. We  learned  very  early  on  that they  wanted  to  buy  informatics  graduate  program. The  campuses,  except  for  the  Twin  Cities  campus, cannot  really  have  a  Phd  program. It  was  clear  this  would  have  to be  jointly  with  the  Twin  Cities  campus. So  that  started  in  2007  and  we  put  a  committee  together, people  from  the  Twin  Cities  campus,  Mayo  Clinic, IBM  Institute,  to  figure  out  how  can  we start  by  informatics  graded  program and  the  leadership  back  denser  West  London. Jim  Lawson  worked  closely  with  us  to  enable  that. We  had  funding,  we  gave  out  set  grants, we  required  people  to  collaborate  across  the  fields. This  is  how  I  really  got  involved. And  then  I  was,  quite  frankly, quite  intrigued  by  the  idea  of building  a  new  campus  that's  a  once  in a  lifetime  opportunity  that  you can  implement  a  lot  of the  things  you've  sort  of  learned  over  time  and, and  just  build  something  from  scratch. And  for  Jim  Lawson, a  retired  IBM  and  community  advocate, working  with  UMR  was  a  way  for  him  to  continue  advancing. Long  sought  aims  at  offering Rochester  a  deep  wealth  of  academic  opportunities. I  was  Manager  of  Site  education. Okay.  And  we  had  an  interest  in  there. And  in  fact,  in  1992, so  long  before  some  of  these  other  events. Mm  hm.  I  worked  with the  Institute  of  Technology  at  Campus  up  North.  Mm  hm. And  with  an  employee  of  mine,  which  Dick  Westerlund. Yeah.  We  wanted  to  bring  technical  programs  to  Rochester, and  in  particular,  those  that  would  be  used  by  IBM. Yes,  so  we  made arrangements  for  the  program  called  Unite  to provide  classes  through  closed  circuit  TV in  electrical  and  computer  engineering, and  in  computer  science  where  students, employees  of  IBM,  could  get their  master's  degree  in  those  two  fields. Early  versions  of  high  bred  classrooms. Yes.  Yeah,  you  bet. This  again  was  1992, but  that's  clearly  where  I got  my  interest  in  working  with the  University  of  Minnesota  from  2006  until  2009. You  get  a  little  bit  more  involved  in  UMR, how  did  that  occur? It  was  my  participation  on the  Graul  Board  primarily  that  allowed  that. While  I  was  on  the  Grok  Board  for  many  years, I  was  basically  an  advocate,  a  leader, an  administrator,  and  mostly  a  project  manager. From  the  experience  I  gained  at  IBM, I  held  several  leadership  positions  on  the  Grock  Board, including  the  chair  of  the  organization  committee, vice  chair  of  the  board, and  I  also  served  as  Chair  of the  Board  of  Directors  in  2004  to  2005, and  then  as  Executive  Director  from  2016.  2013. Those  assignments  really  allowed  me  to  stay  committed and  in  touch  with  what  was  going  on between  the  Twin  Cities  and  Rochester.  Mm  hm. In  terms  of  growth  in  establishing  UMR.  Another  example. In  2011,  as  the  Grok  Executive  Director, I  worked  with  the  leadership  of the  Rochester  Public  Higher  Education  institutions. That  would  be  the  Rochester Community  and  Technical  College and  Winona  State  University,  Rochester. Along  with  UMR, we  supported  a  community  campaign  to  acquire 26.5  million  dollar  of sales  tax  funding  for campus  advancements  at  the  University  Center  Rochester. And  then  also,  and  for UMR  to  establish  a  permanent  campus  in downtown  Rochester  that  was worth  $14,000,000  Chapter  two, public  private  partnerships  as American  higher  education  faces a  reckoning  with  its  traditional  approach to  the  delivery  of  degrees  beyond  high  school, one  that  has  seen  schools  close  buildings,  deteriorate, sports  teams  dissolve,  and dramatically  shrinking  student  bodies. When  presented  with  the  opportunity to  execute  on  forward  thinking, innovative  approaches  to  how a  university  utilizes  space  and  resource, UMR  stepped  up  for  Mars. First  Chancellor  Stephen  Lem,  Cool. He  writes,  in  Campus  with  Purpose, campuses  are  about  people  and  not  about  buildings. As  a  chancellor  of  a  campus  with  purpose, I  wanted  to  attend  to the  learning  business  rather than  the  real  estate  business. I  wanted  buildings  to  serve  students  and  not  the  reverse. My  approach  was  to  understand space  needs  and  not  dwell  on  new  buildings. What  are  the  properties  about space  that  best  support  the  campus  purpose? Well,  I  found  these  answers  to this  question  in  the  planning  assumptions. First,  space  must  support the  creation  of  living  and  learning  communities, leverage  the  power  of  networks. Second,  the  space  must  be  flexible  and  adaptable. And  third,  I  wanted the  institution's  mental  energy  to  be devoted  to  student  learning  and  development in  the  health  sciences  and  not  to  be misdirected  and  dominated  by operation  and  maintenance  of  space. This  is  why  I  aggressively pursued  public  private  partnerships. And  how  come  UMR  entered  into several  P  three  to  address  space  needs? One  partnership  involved  the  construction  and operation  of  a  $30,000,000  building. It  was  a  mixed  use  facility, and  UMR  had  a  time  limited  lease  for  80%  of  the  building. The  space  included  dorm  rooms, office  space  for  faculty  and  staff, student  interactive  spaces,  and  learning  labs. In  these  public  private  partnerships, we  focused  on  what  we  do  best, The  learning  and  development  of students  for  Mar's  early  staff. The  adoption  of  a  P  three  model for  a  university  located  in the  heart  of  downtown  was an  adventure  and  a  welcome  to  change. If  you  look  at  the  top  ten  or 15  medical  centers  around  the  country, all  of  them  are  located  right  near  or  in the  same  city  with  a  major  university. Mm  hm.  Except  for  male. And  they  wanted  a  presence  of  the  university  here. Hm.  So  did  IBM,  Of  course, a  lot  of  people  say  IBM  is  in  Rochester, because  they  wanted  the  engineers from  the  University  of  Minnesota. So  both  institutions  wanted a  presence  of  the  University  of  Minnesota  here. That  was  very  clear  from my  wife's  discussions  with  people there  and  discussions  with  folks  at  mail. So  it  was  not  a  hard  sell  to  get  them  interested. What  did  downtown  Rochester  look  like  at the  turn  of  the  century?  Ghost  town. Really?  Yeah.  Okay.  It  had  had a  great  flurry  of  activity  in  the  '80s, but  by  the  late  1990s  and  into  2000, it  was  well  on  its  decline. It  needed  some  injections and  you  by  the  time  we  came  downtown, the  gallery  was  less  than  half  full. What  so,  what  was  in  the  gallery  at  that  time, or  what  was  supposed  to  be  in the  gallery  at  that  time?  If  it's  half  full? The  fourth  floor  was  movie  theater. How  many  do  you  remember  how  many  screens? Three,  I  think  three,  Judge. So  it  was  a  normal  movie  theater. The  third  floor  was  all  food  court, but  it  was  more  than  half  empty. And  then  he  had  the  businesses  on  the  first  floor, the  retail  businesses  on  the  first  floor.  Mm  hm. That  was  it.  But  some  of  those  store  fronts  were  empty. They  had  a  little  funky  mezzanine  level that  you  had  to  climb  steps  to  get  to  for  retail. And  those  were  mostly  empty. Food  court  was  half  empty, and  the  fourth  floor  had  been  empty  for  four  years. Maybe  five.  Mayo  Clinic  had  talked  about  taking  it  over. So  they  had  started  to  rebuild  the  cubicle  farm  up  there. But  it  didn't  go.  Something  didn't  go  right. Yeah.  So  when  we  eventually  got  to  making that  decision  to  go  downtown,  it  was. Pretty  empty.  Downtown?  Yeah. Yeah.  It  was  a  fun  decision. The  whole  idea  of  going  downtown  was  a  story  in  itself. Because  we  knew  we  wanted  to  be  downtown. We  knew  that  the  legislature to  approved  that  we  were  going  to  become  a  campus. There  was  lots  of pressure  from  a  lot  of  directions  to  not  go  downtown. We  always  called  them  the  White  Building. The  IBM  White  buildings  on  North  37. Oh,  parking  and  easy  access  and  everything  else. We'd  gone  up  to  those  buildings that  just  wasn't  a  very  good  quality  building. There's  not  much  you  could  do  because the  ceiling  heights  were  structured  in  such  a  way that  you  could  leave  screens  and  larger  spaces. It  just  wasn't  a  good  no, but  downtown  was  more  than  double  the  cost. Probably  three  times  the  cost  per  square  foot. And  I  remember  going to  the  Twin  Cities  campus,  going  to  Moral  Hall, and  sitting  down  in  238, which  is  like  the  Executive  Executive  Conference. It's  all  wood  paneled. Yeah,  It's  not  in  the  President's  office, but  it's  just  outside  the  president's  office. It  was  myself,  Gail  Sauer, Zimmerman,  tick  Westljoercsani,  Provost  Carlo. And  we  were  sitting  down  with  President  Bruni, Senior  Vice  President  Sarah  Senior, VP  Jones,  top  finance  guy. I  can't  think  of  his  name  right  now, but  I  know  Fitz  and  Rider  was there  and  three  other  people. We're  all  sitting  around  this  table  and  Dr.  Sarah, who  was  headed  Senior  Vice  President of  the  Academic  Health  Center, who  was  traditionally  late, was  late.  We're  all  sitting  around. We've  got  all  our  numbers,  all  of  our  data. We're  all  ready  because  we  want  to  be  in  the  gallery. We  want  to  be  downtown. We  know  the  five  minute  walk  thing  from  mail  clinic. We're  dead  in  the  water.  If  we're  not  downtown. Pretty  much  understood  that. But  we  were  expecting  an  argument  as  the  cost. I  remember  we're  all  set  up.  We're  ready  to  go. Dr.  Sarah  walks  in,  sits  down. What's  this  meeting  for?  It  goes  into  the  conversation. Well,  this  is  about  selection  of  choice. And  he  says  there  were  three  or  four  options that  have  been  reviewed  and  looked  at. And  he  says,  well  that's  stupid. You're  down  down.  Yeah, that  was  the  end  of  the  conversation. We  were  all  ready  to  have  a  beat  down, drag  out  argument  about finance  and  whatever  and  how  would  you  make  a  cash  flow. And  Frank,  still,  that's  stupid. You  got  to  be  next  to  male  clinic, otherwise  this  doesn't  work.  Are  we  having  this  meeting? What  was  it  like  when  you learned  you  would  be  moving  to  a  new  space? And  that  new  space  would  be downtown  on  the  third  and  fourth  floor  of  a  mall. Okay?  So  first,  everyone  was  excited  about  moving. Okay?  Not  because  we  were unhappy  or  didn't  get  along  with  our  neighbors  there. But  then  we  knew  we  could  do our  own  four  year  degree  so that  we  knew  was  where  we  needed  to  be. Well,  you  imagine  you  went down  to  the  mall  at  that  point  in time  and  you  looked  up  and  you could  see  all  the  way  up  through  the  third  floor. Yeah.  Because  there  was  a  big, you  know,  it  was  an  open  atrium,  you  know, and  the  only  thing  that  was  closed  off  was fourth  floor  because  it  was a  movie  theater  which  hadn't  been  opened, you  know,  had  been  closed  for  a  long  time. So  it  was  abandoned  up  there. He  have  you  ever  gone  to a  movie  in  that  movie  theater?  Uh  huh. Quite  a  number  of  them.  Okay. You  can  you  tell me  what  it  was  like?  What  did  it  look  like? Because  obviously,  I  mean, even  Umar  today  looks  different  than Umar  several  years  ago  absolutely  did. What  did  that  space  look  like  before? Um,  are  okay. So  if  you  go  all  the  way  up  to fourth  floor  and  you  know  where  classroom  419  is. Yes,  De  that  was  where  the  popcorn  stand  was  really. And  of  course,  third  floor  was  the  food  court  judge. Okay.  You  know,  and  so  kind  of  right  outside where  I  used  to  be  officed  there  as you  used  to  be  able  to  go  downstairs, that  used  to  be  like  a  subway. It  wasn't  the  subway  brand, but  it  was  a  sub  shop. And  so  I  was  downtown  with a  friend  before  we  had  moved  in. But  everybody  knew  they  were  moving,  you  know, And  a  lot  of  the  restaurants  had  closed  down anyway  cause  there  wasn't enough  people  to  keep  them  all  going. But  there  was  a  sign,  we  stopped  to get  some  subs  and  there  was  a  sign  on the  cash  register  and  it  said,  unfortunately, due  to  the  incoming  university, our  restaurant  will  no  longer  be located  here  Do  I  have  anything  on  that? I'm  from,  you  know? So  and  we  all  wanted  to  make sure  we  could  see  the  steel  beams  they  were putting  in  so  that  we  knew  the  third  floor wasn't  going  to  collapse  onto  the  second  floor. Where  did  the  public  private  partnerships  come  from? Where  was  that  original  idea? 'cause  I  imagine  that  in the  cauldron  of  ideas  about  how  to  do  this. You  know,  the  traditional  model  was  thrown  around. You  know,  you  build  on university  owned  property  and have  the  university  manage  it  and  have  all  the, you  know,  physical  plant  and union  folks  that  would  need  to  manage  all  of  that. Who  came  up  with  a  public  private  partnership  Actually, that  was  at  least  this  is  my  recollection. So  take  it  for  what  it's  worth that  actually  came  from  a  friend  of  mine,  Mark  Jasmine. So  Mark  Jasmine  was  an  architect  here  in  town. And  the  firm  that  he  worked  for  as a  national  firm  was  doing  work  in  Canada, building  a  new  hospital, public  private  partnership  in  the  city  of  Toronto. A  massive  $3,000,000,000  development project,  public  private  partnership. And  we  were  chatting  one  day, I  want  to  say,  he  mentioned  to  me. And  I  said,  well,  come  in  and  talk to  Chancellor  Leko  with  me. And  I  want  to  say  we  sat  down. My  memory  serves  me  right, but  it  was  just  like  he's  like. You  look  at  Canada,  you  look  at  Europe, you  look  at  a  lot  of  other  countries, and  they're  using  this  more  public  private  partnership. Mom,  well,  what  is  it? Well,  people  develop  facilities  on  your  behalf, they  manage  them,  they  operate  them. It's  built  to  your  specifications, but  you're  going  to  make  a  commitment  for 101-52-0530  years  in  order to  occupy  the  space  or  have  it  specially  developed. We  knew  that  this  was  a  new  concept, which  we  liked  because  we  also knew  we  didn't  have  any  fund raising  capacity  on  the  building  that  we  are  in  now, in  the  building  that  we  started  out  in, are  so  different  from  each  other. Absolutely.  I  mean,  just  the idea  of  sense  of  community  engagement, how  people  want  to  use  space, it's  non  existent  there. Yeah.  So  Chancellor  Lem  didn't  want  that  to  happen. Mm  hmm. And  so  all  of  a  sudden this  became  the  only  viable  option. Thankfully,  we  had  again  G  and  H  Holdings  and  others. We  had  some  obviously  dollars from  the  city  in  terms  of  city  sales  tax  dollars. Again,  we  do  we  tried  to  tell  people, They  said,  well,  you  have  no  big  investors in  the  University  of  Minnesota,  Rochester? Yeah,  we  have  a  $26,000,000  investor  in the  U  of  M  Rochester.  It's  the  City  of  Rochester. It's  the  people  of  the  City  of  Rochester  admitted $26  million  in  city  sales  tax  funding to  support  the  university. That's  one  of  the  largest  donors in  the  university  system. Mm  hm.  They'd  have  stadiums  named  after  him. If  they  gave  $26  million,  they  do. Yeah.  Yeah.  Yeah.  So  I  mean, so  from  that  standpoint, we  do  have  a  significant  donor. Yes.  But  it's  how  it  came  Mm  hmm. Was  through  a  different  mechanism. But  thankfully,  there  were  people  that were  flexible  enough  within  the  university  structure, within  the  legislative  structure.  Mm  hm. Because  again,  city  sales  tax  is  legislated. Yep.  And  within  the  city  and  the  city  leadership, and  the  elected  city  leadership  that  said, we  see  this  as  an  economic  development. And  that's  how  we  posed  it. What  year  to  move  in? We  moved  in  August  of  2007. August  of  2007. So  we  were,  surprisingly  enough, the  legislature  acted,  so  we  were officially  decreed  a  campus  at the  December  regents  meeting,  December  of  2006. It  was  kind  of,  I  mean, we've  been  working  on  some  of  the  issues, but  it  was  a  bit  of  a  surprise because  it  was  just  part  of  the  president's  comments. Mm  hm.  I  mean,  the  president  always  does an  opening  commentary  in  the  state  of  the  university. And  he  just  said,  I'm  happy  to  say  that  today  we recognize  the  University  of  Minnesota  Rochester  as the  next  coordinate  campus. At  the  time  they  called  them  coordinate  campus. Yeah.  The  University  of  Minnesota  system  with full  rights  and  privileges  to  develop and  deliver  undergraduate  academics. And  then  and  that  was  it. It  was  no  fanfare,  nothing. I  think  I  wasn't  at  the  meeting  that  day. I  think  Faith  and  I  mean, Gail  and  David  proscar  up  there. And  now  all  of  a  sudden  it  was  like,  oh,  okay, so  now  you  literally,  that  was  December, so  two  weeks  off  for  Christmas basically  and  January  5  or  whatever  rolled  around. We're  all  sitting  around  going, we  had  a  lot  of  work  to  do. Chapter  three  academics  at  UMR. Undergraduate  students  are  offered one  of  two  degree  options, a  Bachelor's  of  Science  and Health  Sciences,  or  Health  professions. And  within  each  is  a  highly  orchestrated  set  of classroom  curricular  and  real  world  experiences to  prepare  them  for  careers  in  health  care. From  respiratory  therapists  to  physicians, to  counselors,  to  human  resource  managers and  medical  sales  reps. I  want  to  say  it  was  in  2003, 2004  mail  did  a  study  male  went  back  and  said, well,  should  mail  be a  baccalaureate  granting  institution? I  remember  going  through  and  sitting  with  consultants and  Faith  sitting  on  the  committee through  some  of  these  conversations. Because  males  like  well. We  need  to  be  able  to  generate more  Back  laureate  students  and  all  the  rest  of  us. But  now  you're  talking  about government  involvement  with  financial  aid. And  of  course  there's  being an  undergraduate  opens  this  whole  can  of  worms. And  male  looked  at  it  when we  don't  want  to  touch  that,  we  don't  want  to  touch  that. We'll  do  graduate  work  that's more  flexibility,  that's  non  specific. Financial  aid  and  all  these  other  pieces  of  the  puzzle aren't  as  influential.  We  don't  want  to  do  that. Yeah,  well,  that  opened  the  door. The  biggest  group  that  potentially was  in  a  position  to  do  it  wasn't  going  to  do  it. Now  it  basically  said, all  right,  somebody's  got  to  do  this, we  need  this,  this  is  a  recruitment, this  is  how  do  we  grow  our  industry  question. And  we  knew  we  had  to  be  downtown. So  we'd  had  a  lot  of  conversations  with  mail, a  lot  of  conversations  with  IBM  and  other  employers. And  we  said,  well,  you  know,  where  do  we  need  to  be? What  we  learned  early  on  is  we  wanted  to  engage  mail. They  were  not  going  to  commit  2  h  to  a  1  h  engagement. Hm.  Somebody  would  not  come out  of  a  department  and  get  in  their  car, or  get  on  a  bus  and  go out  to  the  community  college  campus. R  CTC.  Yeah. Spend  an  hour  with  those  students  and  then spend  another  half  hour  going  back. Yeah.  But  they  would  walk  5  min  across  the  plaza. Yeah.  Yeah.  The  minute that  became  clear  and  then  we  talked  to  IBM. Ibm  was  still  a  big  stakeholder in  the  institution  and  they  said, we'll  go  wherever  you  are  and  we  don't  care. Yeah.  You  know,  if we  could  take  an  hour  an  extra  hour  to  go down  to  do  what?  Yeah,  exactly. And  so  all  of  a  sudden,  it  became  very  clear. We  knew  we  had  to  be  downtown. We  knew  we  had  to  have  housing. We  knew  we  had  to  have  all of  these  other  pieces  of  the  puzzle. And  we  knew  we  needed  a streamlined  undergraduate  education  system because  no  one  was  ever  going  to  give  us  the  money  to build  anything  more  than that  at  the  undergraduate  program. I  think  we  made  some  really  radical  changes and  they  were  driven  partially by  we  only  had 14  year  degree  program  in  the  health  sciences. We  wanted  to  make  sure  it's  broad. What  I  learned  over  the  years, looking  at  student  data  as  well, a  lot  of  students  don't  finish  in  four  years. When  you  talk  to  students  and look  at  why  they  don't  finish  in  four  years, quite  often  it's  actually  they  get lost  in  the  first  two  years, not  the  last  two  years. I  heard  this  from  our  students  when  I  was  Director  of Graduate  Studies  in  the College  Elution  Behavior  Department and  the  Twin  Cities  campus. I  heard  this  from  them  as  well. I  asked,  well,  why  does  it  take you  67  years  to  finish  a  Phd, which  is  really  a  five  year  program? And  I  said,  you  know,  the  first  two  years we're  sort  of  struggling  around, and  then  we  figured  out, and  then  it  takes  five  years  to  do  a  Phd. And  that  stuck  with  me,  quite  frankly. And  I  was  always  thinking,  you  know, maybe  it's  the  first  two  years  where  we  need  to  provide the  structure  that  doesn't  delay  the  progress. There's  no  reason  to  decide  in the  first  two  years  what  you  want  to  do  with  your  life, but  we  sort  of  know  in  the  health  sciences the  certain  body  of  knowledge you  should  have  as  a  starting  point. So  we  designed  the  curriculum, that  in  the  first  two  years, especially  the  first  semester, there  was  essentially  no  choice. We  wanted  to  make  sure  every  student took  the  same  courses. We  also  wanted  to  make  sure  these  courses  wouldn't require  them  to  have  gone  to  a  really  good  high  school. Because  we  know  there's  uneven  preparation. And  quite  often,  being  in  math, I  know  math  is  usually  the  one  field  that  kills  progress. People  fail  their  first  math  course and  then  they  get  a  low  grade, and  everything  looks  bad  From  then  on  them. We  wanted  to  make  sure  that  we offered  the  first  semester  courses  where the  high  school  preparation  didn't  matter  all that  much  and  that  math  would  not  be  a  barrier. The  courses  we  offered so  much  more  challenging  in  some  ways. But  it  turned  out  that  the  combination  of  them really  helped  students  to  be  successful. In  the  first  semester,  they  took  organic  chemistry, which  is  usually  a  course everybody  is  scared  of.  They  loved  it. We  asked  them  to  take  statistics, which  also  doesn't  require  a  whole  lot  of  Algebra. So  that's  new  to  them.  They  can all  get  a  fresh  start  and  do  well. We  want  them  to  philosophy  so  that  they  could  really start  learning  how  to  think  in a  structured  way  and  then  sociology. So  they  could  learn  where  we  could also  combine  some  of  the  other  fields  and it  would  prepare  them  for  the  health  sciences. Really  importantly,  we  know that  students  don't  come to  college  with  great  writing  skills, but  that's  a  skill  that's  really,  really  important. We  hired  a  lot  of  writing  instructors who  would  also  work  with the  faculty  on  how  to  come  up with  writing  assignments  that  made  sense. And  whether  writing  assignments  would  always relate  to  the  courses  was  like, you  take  this  writing  course  somewhere. It  sign  stuff  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  your  major. We  really  wanted  to  integrate, Students  would  see  that  you can  actually  with  the  skill  you  learn  in  one  course, you  can  do  something  in  another  course  as  well. And  you  can  do  meaningful  projects and  not  just  draw  into  mode  with  lectures. I  think  we  realized  that  Faith  was  probably  one  of the  bigger  pushers  and  said  the  future  in  2000, she's  the  future  of  healthcare is  not  in  associated  degrees, it's  coming  too  fast. Technology,  everything  has  changed. We  need  kids  with  more  background,  more  broader  science, mathematics,  just  nursing  care to  drive  what's  going  to  go  on  this  industry. And  you  can't  do  it.  You  can't do  it  at  the  two  year  level. In  fact,  we  were  saying  back  then, you  almost  can't  do  it  at  the  two  year  level. It  almost  needs  to  be  even  the  four  year  level might  be  a  little  shy  as  things  were  going  to  change. So  you  needed  an  undergraduate  degree  at  minimum. Mm.  So  we  made  some  four A's  to  try  to  develop  programming. And  we  did,  we  had,  we successfully  developed  the College  of  Continuing  Education, the  Bachelors  of  Science  in Respiratory  Care  and  Radiation  Therapy. It  was  a  continuation  from  UrCTCd. Two  years  of  online  TV, sort  of  male  connected  education. And  then  they  would  get  their  back  Glu  degree from the  University  of  Minnesota  College  Continuing  Education. But  they  would  have  their  clinical practice  work  through  Male  Clinic, School  of  Health  Sciences.  Mm  hm. So  we  started  to  do  that  and  I  think  there  was a  lot  of  learning  there  as  to what  was  going  well  and  what  wasn't  going  well. I  mean,  we  had  difficulty and  this  isn't  just  from  a  university  side. Healthcare  has  to  have  their  certifications  and  they  have their  own  responsibilities  to  who  delivers this  and  how  do  you  get  accredited and  how  do  you  get  licensed. So  there's  some  challenges when  you  start  having  faculty  come  from two  different  institutions  with different  goals  and  progressions, What  are  the  qualifications  of  them? And  then  when  you  get  to  licensures, there  was  lots  of  conversation  who holds  the  licensures?  Mm  hm. So  I  think  we  went  through that  conversation  and  the  idea that  was  always  health  care  driven, I  don't  think  was  some  people  wanted  a  different. And  if  you  look  at  some  of  the  early  RE  DC, there's  all  these  technology  things. But  I  think  we  knew  pretty  much  if  you  didn't do  healthcare,  nothing  else  mattered. Hm.  That's  what  this  down  was. But  when  you  spend  a  year  in the  ecology  department  there, I  realized  that  what  we  actually  teach  to non  majors  in  calculus  was  really  not  very  useful. That  was  an  Aha  moment  for  me  because I  assumed  I've  been  around  for  a  long  time. Everybody  taught  it.  It  was  required  course. There  must  be  a  reason  for  that. And  then  I  looked  at  what the  credit  students  did  in  that  program. They  never  used  what  we  taught  them. I  was  like  something  not  quite  fitting  together. And  I  started  to  think  about what  should  we  be  teaching  at  the  graduate  level. Umr  offers  Master  and  doctoral  degrees in  Bioinformatics  and  computational  Biology. And  it's  best  if  Dr.  Neuhaus  explains, for  those  who  don't  know  what  it  is, what  is  bio  informatics? It  really  teaches  the  tools  you  need  to  analyze. For  instance,  the  genomic  data  that  we  have. Those  are  very  large  data  sets  and  extracting information  out  of  those  strings  of  four  letters. That's  pretty  much  what  we  teach  The  other  areas, biology,  mathematical  modeling  is  really  important. For  instance,  drug  design. You  can  build  models  of  the  molecules  to  figure  out which  small  molecules  fit  into a  binding  site  on  the  big  molecule  and  can  act  as  a  drug. There  are  a  lot  of  sort,  computational  approaches for  various  areas  of  biology  where  these  tools  work. What  we  build  is  a  program  where  people can  learn  the  computational  approaches and  the  work  with  data  sets  from the  biological  sciences  to  extract  information  out  of  it. And  as  you  can  imagine  with  having  May  Or Clinic  in  Rochester  as  by  far  the  largest  employer, they  were  really  interested  in  getting  people  who would  have  these  computational  skills  so that  they  can  make  sense  out  of  the  data and  come  up  with new  treatments  or  understand  diseases  better. This  was  just  match  made  in  heaven,  quite  frankly. Well,  I  had  the  good  fortune  of  being contracted  by  UMR.  Mm  hm. To  come  in  as  a  project  manager  and  actually  work on  the  big  program  to  establish  the  big  program. And  while  we  were  doing  that, I  was  able  to  see  the  growth  of  UMR  occurring. Mm  hm.  Where  they're  looking  for the  interdisciplinary  programs  and  so  on. That  I  was  kept  informed  through  being  invited  to the  auditorium  where  they're reviewing  the  programs  as  well as  programs  to  the  community, keeping  the  community  informed  y So  I  was  able  to  keep  in  touch  with  that. I  did  not  participate  in  the  career  development, but  I  watched  it  develop. Yeah,  yeah. And  like  I  said, most  of  my  time  was  on  the  Bibi  program  at  that  point. Do  you  have  any  thoughts  on  the  unique  way in  which  UMR  introduces  its  academics? I  really  did  follow  the  growth  of that  idea  of  integrated  programs  and  courses. And  son,  and  I  thought  it  was  an  outstanding  idea. I  wish  I  could  have been  doing  that  while  I  was  in  college. And  I'm  born  too  late  m, or  too  early  I  guess  in  this  case. But  I  think  it's  the  right  way  to  go. And  I  can  see  integrating  math  and  so  on. In  biology  programs  or  health  science  programs, it's  like  learning  the  language to  gain  more  knowledge  in  those  fields. Yeah,  and  you  do  it  by  applying  multiple  disciplines. Yes,  that's  a  great  way  to  go. Chapter  four, The  Center  for  Learning  Innovation for  Chancellor  Lempel  and  Dr.  Neher, the  opportunity  to  construct a  new  academic  department  presented an  exciting  opportunity  to  offer a  different  and  perhaps  more  streamlined  approach  to curricular  design  and  camaraderie  within  the  academy. Having  only  one  academic  unit  that cuts  across  all  academic  disciplines, is  not  typical  in  higher  education. The  common  practice  at most  established  universities  is  to  have many  academic  departments  separated by  academic  discipline  or  field  of  research. This  administrative  grouping  of faculty  by  academic  discipline is  linked  to  the  close  and  deep  ties  faculty have  with  their  discipline. Some  say  discipline  affiliations  are  more important  to  faculty  than  their  campus  affiliation, which  follows  from  the  plasticity and  density  properties  of  social  networks. The  housing  of  faculty  from  different  disciplines  in the  same  administrative  unit  goes against  the  cultural  underpinnings  promoted  by  the  ghost. My  purpose,  however,  to create  an  academic  home  that  would  nurture the  formation  of  a  networked  community among  faculty  centered  around  student  learning, research  and  not  around  an  academic  discipline. That  academic  home  must  be a  safe  place  for  faculty and  staff  to  have  deep  discussions about  21st  century  foundational  skills  devoid  of the  customary  competition  between academic  disciplines  or  between individuals  with  differing  employee  status. This  would  be  a  place  where  it  was natural  for  faculty  to  integrate different  ways  of  thinking  associated  with the  different  disciplines  to  enrich  the  learning, research,  and  curricular  conversations. They  found  people  who  wanted,  that's  the  key. Well,  there  are  two  keys  to  the  success  of  this  campus. I  believe  small  class  sizes and  teachers  who  really  want  to  teach. We  started  off  with  a  core  group  of  teachers, the  tenure  track  faculty, and  the  non  tenure  track  faculty, But  they  really  wanted  to  teach. You  could  tell  that  right  from  the  start, the  ones  who  didn't  really  want to  teach,  they  didn't  last  long. But  you  had  small  classes and  tremendous  accessibility  to  these  faculty  members. That's  been  the  key.  It  still  is  the  key  to  it. What  was  that?  Like  trying  to  not only  bring  in  new  students  but bring  in  faculty  members  who  would  be  interested in  being  at  a  place  like  Omar. People  you  brought  in  there  were  very  energetic and  they  bought  into  the  concept  that  obviously  helped. What  we  also  realized  is  building a  new  curriculum  takes  an  awful  lot  of  time. Especially  if  you  make sure  that  you  actually  build  a  curriculum. And  not  just  a  set  of independent  courses  where  everybody teaches  whatever  they  feel  like. The  amount  of  time  it  takes  to  work together  to  understand  what  the  other  person  is  saying, initially,  there  just  wasn't  any  time  for  research. Just  realizing  that  it  takes  time  to  build  a  campus. But  the  time  we  spend  on  this, I  think  was  really  worth  spending  it on  building  a  curriculum  that's  cohesive, where  it's  intentional,  where people  have  to  come  up  with  meaningful  projects. And  you  can't  just  lecture  every  day. That  takes  an  enormous  amount  of  time. And  I  think  that's  what  we  realized  very  early  on  that. Let's  just  focus  on  building  a  really  good  curriculum, do  some  research  on  learning  as  it  comes  up. But  don't  stress  out  too  much. We  also  had  an  extended  tenure  lines ten  time  because  of  this, because  it  just  takes  time  to  build  that. They  built,  in  my  view, a  really  good  curriculum. I  was  excited  and  happy  with  what  they  did. It  was  clear  that  the  early  faculty  hires were  phenomenal. They  wanted  to  be  educators. Yeah.  They  knew  we had  people  that  would  eventually  be  tenure  track, and  they  knew  they  had  to  do  some  research. But  they  were  here  because  they  were  good  teachers. They  were  good  educators.  Yeah,  they  were  here  because they  tried  to  do  some  innovative  things  and  had spent  enough  time  in  a  traditional  institution  to recognize  there's  a  different  way  to engage  students  around  the  topic  of  learning. And  I  think  you  know that  group  of  people  and  the  leadership, and  certainly  Chancellor  Lempel  and  certainly  Claudia, Vice  Chancellor  Neuhauser,  they  played  important  roles. And  certainly  Lempel  always  said  he  wanted  to  grow the  institution  to  the  point  where  he  spent all  his  time  recruiting  students  or  recruiting  dollars. Yeah,  he  says  that's  when  we're success  is  when  recruit  students  recruit  dollars. And  every,  everybody  else  has a  role  and  responsibility to  continue  to  build  and  to  grow. And  he  did,  it  was a  constant  stream  of  students  in  his  office. And  finally,  chapter  five, High  Impact  Practices  in  Higher  Education. The  term  high  impact  Practices  refer  to  a  set  of  actions and  activities  which  promote deep  learning  through  student  engagement. This  engagement  is  seen  to  have significant  impact  and  benefits  for  students, especially  those  from  under  represented  backgrounds. At  present,  the  American Association  of  Universities  and  Colleges endorses  12  such  high  impact  practices, including  undergraduate  research,  writing, intensive  courses,  and  living  learning  communities. Many  of  these  practices  were adopted  by  early  UMR  administrators, faculty  and  program  designers  with  three  standing  out. The  student  success  coach  was a  combination  of  academic  advisor, counselor,  and  life  coach. The  student  success  coaches  were  essential  in  guiding students  to  discover  their  sweet  spot between  passion  and  ability. The  student  success  coaches counseled  students  how  to  structure  a  conversation with  their  parents  that  going  to medical  school  was  their  parents  dream  and  not  theirs. They  wanted  to  pursue  a  different  career trajectory  to  care  for  others. The  student  success  coaches  were  often  first  to know  if  students  were  struggling  physically  or  mentally, and  referred  students  to the  appropriate  support  services. The  student  success  coaches often  had  the  first  conversation  with the  student  who  had  dreamed  of  going to  medical  school  ever  since  kindergarten. That  attending  medical  school  was  unlikely. The  student  success  coaches  shared  in  the  sorrow, but  then  redirected  the  student to  consider  other  ways  that aligned  with  their  abilities  to live  their  passion,  to  care  for  others. When  it  came  time  to  look  at  faculty  office  hours, Chancellor  Lem  Cool  and his  compatriots  envision  something  different. A  mechanism  by  which  students  and  teacher  could  meet  on a  more  level  playing  field  and  one  in which  would  allow  conversation  to  flourish. The  Just  Ask  centers  were  spaces  distributed  throughout the  campus  that  were  designed  to promote  interaction  between  faculty, especially  the  student  based  faculty  and  students. The  space  was  designed  to  accommodate both  small  groups  and  individual  students. Each  space  had  amenities  that  enabled students  and  faculty  to  write  on  white  walls, project  images  or  slouch  and  bean  bags. They  were  designed  to  be  bright, welcoming,  and  blend  in  with  the  remainder  of  the  space. We  wanted  the  Just  Ask  space  to  not only  be  a  place  you  go  if  you  are  seeking  help, but  also  a  commonplace  that  is  simply there  and  where  students  and  faculty  hang  out. The  just  ask  centers were  popular  because  of  the  commitment, camaraderie,  and  expertise  of  the  student  based  faculty. The  student  based  faculty  interacted  extensively  with many  individual  students  over  the  course  of  a  semester. As  a  result,  they developed  learning  relationships  with  the  students. They  developed  an  understanding  of the  student's  strengths  and  weaknesses. The  evolving  relationship  shaped  how  the  student based  faculty  tailored  their  support  for  the  students. They  became  academic  coaches, pushed  when  needed,  but  were supportive  and  compassionate  at  other  times. And  rounding  out  a  student's  time  at Umar  was  a  capstone  experience. Something  that  not  only highlighted  their  academic  strengths  and  prowess, but  reflected  on  the  journey  their  path took  from  bright  eyed  first  year  to  college  graduate. The  approach  in  designing  the  capstone  was  to recognize  in  the  curricular  structure, something  that  I  had  observed over  my  administrative  career. Student  activities  and  interests  reflected  in their  overall  portfolio  had a  greater  impact  on  their  future  career than  did  their  major  per  se. A  signature  capstone  experience, represented  by  the  branches  of  the  tree, involved  a  very  deliberate  process. The  capstone  process  was  intentional about  how  a  student  developed  it,  implemented  it, experienced  it,  reflected  and  wrote  about  it, and  debriefed  with  advisers  about achieving  their  learning  and  development  objectives. The  Capstone  proposal  required the  student  to  consider  how  they  will  acquire, integrate,  and  apply  their  specific  knowledge aligned  with  their  passion. Not  only  the  what,  but  also  the  why  and  the  how. When  taken  together,  the  courses  and external  activities  created a  tailored  experiential  journey, preparing  the  students  for  their desired  career  path  or  branch  of  the  tree. The  Capstone  was  designed  to unbundle  the  learning  and  create  rich, individualized  experiences  for  all  students. Thank  you  for  listening  to  Beyond  the  nest. We'll  be  back  next  month  for our  final  episode  on  the  origins  of  UM  R  with a  look  at  the  class  of  2013 and  what  it  took  to  get  them  to  U  Square. Beyond  the  Nest  is  produced  by  UMR  Alumni  Relations, written  and  narrated  by Marco  Lance  and  edited  by  Dante  Fumo, until  then  I,  Member  Klein.