2015 Mile Markers - College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota

2015 Mile Markers

CLA BY THE NUMBERS FALL 2015 Undergraduate Students Graduate Students Number enrolled 13,617 Number enrolled (fall 2015) 1,587 Fall 2014 freshmen who returned in fall 2015 90.5% Degrees awarded (2014-15) 444

Class of 2019 who are on track to graduate in four years 99.8% Four-year graduation rate (Class of 2014) 57.5% Faculty Five-year graduation rate (Class of 2013) 70.0% Tenured/tenure-track 495 Of color 19.6% Female 42.3%

CLA Alumni and Donor Support 2014-15

5,269 donors

Five-Year Revenue

$11,300,265 raised FY15 Revenue - $250.5 million

180 160

5%

140 120

22%

100 80

69%

60

$ Millions

40 Tuition & U Fees

20

State Allocation

FY11

FY12

FY13

FY14

FY15

Gifts & Endowment Income All Other Revenue

THE ROAD AHEAD 2015 - 2016 Invigorating. Optimistic. Exciting. These are just a few of the words used by CLA community members to describe the goals outlined by Dean John Coleman in his Road Ahead address. Considerable thought was put into designing initiatives that will ensure CLA is a destination college—more than 150 faculty, staff, students, and alumni participated in shaping our goals. Where are we now? One year into our Roadmap, an update: Student Readiness By helping them bridge their classroom and applied experiences, CLA students will graduate with confidence, prepared for meaningful lives and careers. So far this year we’ve doubled our career advising staff and added internship development positions. We’ve nearly doubled the number of students who can participate in our Dean’s Freshman Research and Creative Scholars Program, where first-year students work directly with faculty mentors. And donors provided critical aid to make unpaid internships a possibility for students, regardless of their financial need.

Research and Creative Excellence For faculty, the time after they receive tenure is a critical one in their development as scholars; this is when new projects are launched but fewer funds are available to support their work. It’s also a time when rising talent is most attractive to our academic competitors. That is why we are particularly excited to announce a generous gift from Ken and Janet Talle to launch the Talle Faculty Research Awards. This award provides $300,000 annually to support the work of recently tenured professors. It’s an important step in reinforcing CLA’s commitment to research and creative excellence.

The “Front Door” to CLA We are working on the framework for a new initiative that brings together the interdisciplinary insights and expertise of our scholars with the concerns and ideas of our community. The Minnesota Engagement Lab will create a forum that combines public engagement activities with innovative, technologically equipped spaces.

Here, rigorous debate and discussion will take place on the urgent challenges that face Minnesota citizens today.

Liberal Arts on the Offense We continue to celebrate the liberal arts’ place in our global society. Liberal arts disciplines teach people to think ahead, from multiple perspectives, and to bring many kinds of evidence to bear. In CLA we equip individuals to make sense of themselves in relationship to other individuals, to their broader communities, and to the natural world around them. Ultimately, liberal arts is about answering society’s questions and questioning society’s answers.

This publication is available in alternative formats upon request. Direct requests to clanews@umn.edu or 612-625-5031.

The University of Minnesota shall provide equal access to and opportunity in its programs, facilities, and employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, gender, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

ENGAGEMENT Imagine if the histories you learned in high school didn’t include your history. Would you stay in school? Would you even think about college?

A partnership between the Department of African American & African Studies and three area high schools seeks to remedy a gap in ethnic studies education, all too typical in school curricula, while helping students from underrepresented populations see themselves on a college campus. Introduction to African American Studies, created by Professor Rose Brewer and taught through College in the Schools by teachers at Richfield and DeLaSalle (Minneapolis) high schools and Washington Technical Magnet (St. Paul), is the first ethnic studies course offered and is being piloted this year. Through a humanities lens, students are introduced to the African diaspora and issues of educational inequities, land rights, and cultural and religious expression.

The coursework is challenging and personal narratives are used to help the students comprehend their own histories, which is a tactic not commonly used in high school history courses.

The students in the course also visit campus, where they meet with Professor Brewer and have an opportunity to picture themselves on the University campus and see what we have to offer. This is also one example of how we are leveraging faculty expertise within the College to address the achievement gap; other initiatives include ethnic studies curriculum development for younger students in the Minneapolis Public Schools.

CLA will deepen a culture of engagement for our alumni, community, and state.

READINESS Vanessa Nyarko could be called the “Queen of Internships.”

Throughout her years in CLA Vanessa has used internships to explore both her majors and potential careers. “I had a lot of majors when I started,” she says, “and internships helped me look into different careers.” Thinking she wanted to be a reporter, Vanessa’s first internship was with a news organization. But then a history class got her wondering, “could I get a job in this?” That led to interning as a diversity liaison with the Minnesota History Center and mentoring underrepresented grade schoolers for History Day. And that led to an interest in community relations, which led to an internship with Congressman Keith Ellison…. you get the picture.

“Prior experiences helped at each location,” she says. So did an internship scholarship from the Kevin Mossier Foundation, which made it possible for Vanessa to take yet another unpaid internship. Now in her final year of college, Vanessa has her first paid internship with Meet Minneapolis, the visitors and convention bureau.

Watching new students on campus during orientation week, Vanessa reflected on her own time as an orientation leader and said she encourages freshmen to intern ASAP. “Get out there, do something, get an internship, volunteer. It’s not just the degree, it’s what else you do.”

CLA alumni will be the most desirable graduates available.

RESEARCH Liberal arts research and creative activities span our disciplines and show themselves in myriad ways: books and articles published, new findings shared in the media, operas written, treatments developed, and awards won to support field research or writing time.

Martindale Chair and McKnight Distinguished Professor of Sociology Chris Uggen has had a busy year.

He published four books and has been involved in six different research projects that received $4 million in funding. Professor Uggen’s research on felon voting rights probably reaches its largest audiences, however, through his frequent citations in media outlets across the United States, from the Washington Post and New York Times, to Slate, to Minnesota Public Radio, and MinnPost.

What is he finding? That when you return the right to vote to former felons they are more likely to engage with their communities and show other positive signs of citizenship. Further, he and his students have found racial bias in the design of disenfranchisement laws in a number of states. By identifying these issues, they hope to influence policy that can help make all citizens productive and involved in their communities.

Professor Uggen is one of 15 faculty profiled in a short video highlighting CLA research. Visit z.umn.edu/10co to watch our faculty describe their work and to judge for yourself what sets liberal arts research apart.

CLA will have a relentless focus on research and creative excellence.

DIVERSITY How can we be a college that addresses societal challenges, prepares students to live and work globally, and educates and empowers them to create intellectual and social transformation?

More importantly, how can we do this without diversity in our student and faculty ranks?

Short answer: We can’t.

Now the Race, Indigeneity, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Initiative (RIGS) in CLA seeks to address these challenges. Proposed and developed by faculty from African American & African, American Indian, Asian American, Chicano & Latino, and Gender, Women & Sexuality studies, RIGS is in its first year under the leadership of Professor Catherine Squires. The top priority? Review the nearly 400 applications submitted this fall for four faculty positions in RIGS disciplines.

Why four new hires? “Cluster” hiring efforts create intellectual vibrancy, productivity, and community in ways that exceed what can be achieved by individual hires. New faculty may work in any RIGS discipline; CLA is simply looking for the most innovative people. And having faculty whose background and research interests intersect with those of students makes it likelier that those students will come here, stay, and flourish.

The RIGS hires are expected to help CLA students better engage with the critical issues of our time. “When social movements like Black Lives Matter or transgender rights come to the forefront of public debate, people shouldn’t be so surprised,” says Professor Squires. “We want our students to be ahead of these issues, to have deeper understandings, not knee-jerk reactions.”

The CLA community will mirror the community at large.

CLA UNDERGRADUATE CLASS OF 2019 2,560 FRESHMEN

(out of 29,276 applications)

21%

students of color

61% female

79%

graduated in the

TOP 25%

of their high school class

27

average ACT score

63% Minnesota residents

15% Wisconsin residents

7% International students

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