No more "funny stuff" coming out of UMM campus?

Entrance to our UMM campus, wintertime (B.W. photo)

First, a little background from being out and around:

 

Inflation may consume us before long. People with pretty good credentials on this are ringing alarm bells. Janet Yellen has spoken up recently, adding to an already aroused chorus. Larry Summers has said it's already too late for the Federal Reserve to begin mounting the fight. Then again, some people would suggest that if you took all economic forecasters and lined them up end-to-end. . . 

That can be funny, but there's more than a decent chance that the doomsayers are right. Personally, I don't see the current inflation specter as being a whole lot like the 1970s. It seemed we really felt it in the '70s. There were jokes about how often restaurants had to print up new menus. 

Our Detoy's has not gone out of its way to raise prices. Maybe just once since the pandemic set in? BTW I think DeToy's is to be commended for how it has handled things since the pandemic started. It was forced into the takeout-only phase. Finally it could accommodate in-person customers again. The Sunday afternoon business appears nearly as robust as ever. 

We have all become a little more restrained. No more salad bar at DeToy's and other places. Will that ever come back? Restaurants went through a period where they had to install "sneeze-guards" on the buffets. You know, the glass panels that you had to reach under to get your food. When I was a kid, no one thought anything of bringing a "used" plate back up for an additional serving, and no one thought of sneeze guards. No such thing as a gluten-fee alternative either. 

Just think if Archie Bunker had been told about "gluten-free." It's part of the "woke" consciousness, I guess, with this word having crossed the line to become an annoying buzzword. Just listen to Tucker Carlson. I think we have reached the point where Carlson and some others like him simply need to be put in their own category. They do not warrant being critiqued as if they are serious commenters in the political/social realm. They are reactionaries trying to push certain buttons to get attention. 

It would be a serious mistake to underestimate the "mobs" of right wing provocateurs sprouting across America now. These people were marginalized when I was young. They were like a sideshow attraction, almost cute sometimes. Today these people can show up at public meetings and be truly disruptive. They can cause change. They use the legal system with its lawsuit powers. There are lawyers and advocacy groups assisting them. Maybe they are a minority in terms of their true numbers. But their assertiveness appears to be compensating for that. 

  

Scrutiny for UMM

All this brings me to a subject close to our hearts here in Morris MN. It is our University of Minnesota-Morris. This is wholly speculation, but perhaps we're looking toward some changes in focus for the institution. My recent exploration on the subject of local U administration prompts such thoughts. 

I discovered how the "executive chancellor" of UMM is now the Crookston chancellor, fully located in Crookston. I had to feel this is strange. My writing on the subject - three rather extensive blog posts - was not well-received in some quarters. Why the defensiveness? It has been my cross to bear, to alienate powerful interests in Morris from time to time. There is no joy to be found in this. 

I am fully a Watergate-era journalist who seeks at all times to look past pretensions. The administrative arrangement in connection to Crookston is irregular - should be as plain as the nose on your face. So what's up? 

Can't we all weigh a pretty credible theory here? UMM has a checkered history of oddball stuff like an overly zealous embrace of gay rights, beyond what was reasonable at the time. The legitimate legal rights of gay people have always been a serious and worthy effort. The crusading in this regard is what rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. 

Look, if a school wants to get rid of the king/queen thing for Homecoming, fine and dandy. To say this is the "empty calories" of education is an understatement. So fine, let's move on from it, but if it is to continue, the idea should be enforced that the queen is a student who was born a biological female, and the king a male. Oh but wait a minute, what about transgender? Oh my, we twist ourselves into pretzels trying to find order in all this. 

I strive to be progressive, yet I have difficulty feeling comfortable with the transgender thing. And I try. Young people who were born as biological males should not be on high school girls teams. If I lose on this, then I guess I'm really an outlier. I consider myself a Bernie Sanders liberal these days - please don't beat up on me. 

I recall a blog post I once wrote about a new UMM student organization called "gay devil worshipers." This is a perfect example of the kind of embarrassing news stories that float out of our halls of ivy sometimes. It is but one example. 

Let's cite the horrific UMM goalpost incident of 2005: it was an example of how UMM has gone out of its way at all times to let the kids "do their own thing." Do not impede them. My late mother said anytime a conflict arose on campus between a student and staff member, the institution bent over backward to facilitate the student. Was this just "the customer is always right?" Whatever, a little moderation was needed. 

The goalpost incident invited media coverage from all over. 

The "Northstar" publication was an embarrassment. There's no problem with a libertarian-oriented student publication on campus - none at all, and I'd relish picking up a copy and reading it. But "Northstar" was not even that. It was basically a big piece of excrement on the UMM campus. It did not reflect facts or reason. It certainly seemed deliberately offensive. A student like Joe Basel should be managed through his college career and then patted on the back, given his diploma and then told to move on in life. The administration must run a tighter ship. 

Mary Holz-Clause, UMM executive chancellor

And maybe that's where the Crookston chancellor comes in now. She's Mary Holz-Clause. Maybe she has been assigned something far-reaching. In the short term it would step on toes. 

I'm probably stepping on toes writing all this, although my critics would say my ideas and writing don't amount to anything. I got in a battle royal with the local public school teachers union in the late 1980s, and bear the scars of that to this day. That was old-fashioned unionism I was up against. They went scorched-earth. They tried putting certain people in town out of business. I considered some of those teachers to be fundamentally bad people, some of them very bad. They were vengeful and hate-filled. They had all the answers: "Just pay us more. Give us unfettered job security." 

In the end they lost, mostly, because "the customer is always right." The customers are the parents. 

The Crookston chancellor reportedly has a two-year pact to be the executive chancellor here in Morris. 

Managed from Crookston! Isn't that amazing? Has Ms. Clause even made a publicly-announced appearance in Morris? I couldn't help but think of her as "Mrs. Santa Claus." Crookston is way north. I'd have to consult a map.

From an email I sent to a friend the other day:

 

A theory on the Crookston person: I don't think this is an insignificant arrangement. One guess: UMM is going to start erasing all the "woke" stuff that it has been famous for. A new letter to LGBTQ students might read: "Your legal rights will be respected 100 percent if you attend UMM, but the institution will no longer go out of its way elevating awareness of LGBTQ. You are here to be serious college students, period."

Also, no more "silly stuff" on campus, like what UMM has been noteworthy for. Remember that devil worshipers club? This stuff has gotten in the Mpls. newspaper. Enough already. Let's just be a serious campus, all the time. No more making the news for the "wrong" reasons. The U can't afford it.

Do Indians still get their tuition paid at UMM? Mike Miller told me once, that was actually an issue on campus, whether it should continue. He explained it had become a revenue issue.

 

Flashback to 2005

I could have done an interesting interview with the late Mike Miller about the goalpost incident. He shared a lot with me in informal conversations like at McDonald's. He was pretty insightful. Please click on the permalink below to read my September 9, 2010, post about the goalpost incident.

http://ilovemorris73.blogspot.com/2010/09/goalpost-incident-was-day-of-infamy.html

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com