October 28, 2014

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e d i u G n o i t Elec —SEE B Section Inside—

MOSTLY CLOUDY HIGH 49° LOW 37°

U OF M

MINNEAPOLIS

ST PAUL

TUESDAY

OCTOBER 28, 2014

ONLINE EXCLUSIVES AT MNDAILY.COM

CAMPUS

Regent Larson dies at 70 David Larson, a Board of Regents member for nearly a decade, died on Saturday. BY ETHAN NELSON enelson@mndaily.com

A University of Minnesota regent and former Cargill executive died on Saturday after a period of illness, the University said in a release Monday. David Larson, 70, was elected to the Board of Regents in 2005. He received a political science degree from the University in 1966 and formerly worked as an executive vice president for Cargill.

COURTS

Alleged killer goes to trial

“It’s a sad day,” Regent John Frobenius said. Larson, who worked with several organizations including the University of Minnesota Foundation and the Minnesota Historical Society, established a scholarship aimed at middle-class students in 2008. Larson endowed the Dave Larson Scholarship with $5 million, and the University has since admitted 350 Larson scholars. His endowment was never something he liked to talk about, Regent Thomas Devine said. “[The endowment] is almost unparalleled by any single donor,” Devine said. Larson began his 44-year career at Cargill shortly after graduating from the

University. He retired from the company in 2010. Some regents said Larson’s business success informed his work at the University while allowing him to support the school. “He really wanted the ‘U’ to be managed well and for the name to be respected,” Frobenius said. Devine, who first met Larson in 2011, said he acted as a mentor during Devine’s first months as a regent. He and Larson had lunch together at least once a month, Devine said. “He left a legacy with people he worked with,” he said. u See LARSON Page 5

HIGHER ED

CLA to clump disciplines

A trial for the man accused of killing former student Anarae Schunk started on Monday. BY ETHAN NELSON enelson@mndaily.com

A man accused of murdering a University of Minnesota student last fall went to trial Monday for another killing he allegedly committed on the same day. Shavelle Chavez-Nelson, 32, also known as Anthony Lee Nelson, appeared in court facing a second-degree murder charge for allegedly killing Palagor Jobi in the parking lot of a Burnsville bar on Sept. 22, 2013. According to charges filed in the Dakota County District Court, Jobi was talking to Ashley Marie Conrade, who was allegedly dating Nelson at the time, in the parking lot of Nina’s Grill in Burnsville at about 2 a.m. Nelson confronted Jobi and shot him several times after the two started fighting, according to the charges. Nelson and Conrade are both charged in the killing of University student Anarae Schunk later that day. Schunk and Nelson had dated in the past, but she reportedly cut ties with him about a year before her killing. Authorities say Schunk met with Nelson and Conrade hours before Jobi’s killing, and the three later went to Conrade’s townhouse. Police found Schunk’s body in a rural ditch more than a week later. She had been stabbed almost two dozen times. Nelson allegedly dropped off a garbage bag at his estranged wife’s St. Paul home after the murder. Court documents state the bag contained the University sweatshirt Schunk was last seen wearing. Before Monday’s trial, Nelson fired his attorney. Jury selection could last the rest of the week, said Monica Jensen, a spokeswoman for the Dakota County Attorney’s Office.

CORA NELSON, DAILY

The College of Liberal Arts’ new dean, John Coleman, discussed future plans for the college at the McNamara Alumni Center on Thursday.

The college’s new dean unveiled a plan to simplify its structure and further its reach in greater Minnesota. into three areas — arts, humanities and

BY TAYLOR NACHTIGAL tnachtigal@mndaily.com

social sciences — to simplify its current

The new leader of the University of Min-

“overly complex and under-structured” lay-

nesota’s College of Liberal Arts released

out, according to the plan. The college will

plans Monday to rework the college into

also work to strengthen its ties with greater

three distinct discipline areas and better

Minnesota to offer students more opportu-

arrange a complicated web of departments.

nities, like internships and alumni connec-

The University’s largest college will be-

tions.

gin regrouping its departments next year

New CLA Dean John Coleman

u See ROADMAP Page 3

HEALTH

For cancer care, songs heal University researchers are using reverie harps to ease pain for children with cancer. BY KAYLEE KRUSCHKE kkruschke@mndaily.com

JULIET FARMER, DAILY

Dr. John Wagner works in his office Monday in the Mayo Building. Wagner and Annie Heiderscheit, a music therapist at the University’s Center for Spirituality and Healing, are leading an ongoing music therapy study in which child patients listen to and learn to play a reverie harp to ease their pain.

From the moment of receiving their diagnosis, children with cancer and their families deal with agonizingly high levels of stress. And deciding to undergo potentially lethal therapy only heightens that burden. It’s important for families and doctors to tr y to reduce the risk of reoccurring cancer with ever y possible option, said John Wagner, director of pediatric blood and marrow transplantation at the University of Minnesota Medical School. But there could be simple, short-term methods for alleviating the physical and

emotional pain of childhood sickness. Wagner is part of a research collaboration that’s exploring how music can reduce anxiety, pain and nausea for children receiving treatment at the University’s Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinic. “There’s much more to living through this cancer than just getting chemotherapy or surger y,” he said. “You also need to ... focus on ways to reduce the anxiety that goes along with that.” Music keeps patients engaged in a fun activity and gives them a sense of power and control, said Mar y Jo Kreitzer, founder and director of the Center for Spirituality and Healing. “Studies like this are so impor tant in that we want to do all we can to improve symptom management, ease suffering and improve quality of life,” she said. u See THERAPY Page 4

VOLUME 119 ISSUE 33


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