Politics here

JBStillFlying
Fri, 13 Jan 2017 18:36:25 +0000

FWIW, the issue is not so much the protests (because those go on at a LOT of notable campuses) but how the admin. responds to them. So far, Pres. Kaler has come out on the side of free speech for all groups, not just some.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/10/free-speech-prevails-at-the-university-of-minnesota.php

Things can change on a dime, of course, (as they have at other places). However, OP, your issue isn’t the one that would concern me the most about UMN. THAT issue would be the current efforts by some to unionize faculty. Very few prestigious universities have unionized their faculty and the risk, of course, is that such a move would serve as job protection for faculty or even departments that are sub-par (when compared to other selective state universities). In addition, such a successful effort will focus financial resources on “contingent” faculty (non-tenure-track) at the expense of traditional faculty (tenure-track). To the extent that UMN’s primary reputation is that of a world-class research-university, you need a competitive tenure-track system in order to attract the best in the field and keep that reputation going.

Here are a couple of helpful articles. The unionization one is about a year old - not sure what’s happening currently other than the university is appealing the mediation board decision. Of course, all of that was prior to the recent election which gave state legislative control to the Republicans; in addition, last I heard anyway, Gov. Dayton is not running for a 3rd term in 2018. So who knows what the future holds!