Education News

MPR News keeps track of the latest education news in Minnesota so you can understand the events shaping the future of learning and how it impacts students at any level.

Stay informed about local education events, policies and more happening in schools and colleges across Minnesota.

Budget analyst: U's administrative costs are still really high
Remember last Friday’s presentation on University of Minnesota finances by accounting professor Howard Bunsis, an officer in the American Association of University professors? He said spending on administration was a big factor in the rise of university costs. He was confronted at the session by the U’s CFO, Richard Pfutzenreuter, who said Bunsis was presenting…
What the royal couple will do at St. Olaf College
“It has so many vowels in it and my students always struggle with that one. So we’ve been really working on it.” — St. Olaf College professor Kari Lie, whose class of Norwegian-language students are practicing saying Hyggelig Ka mHote Deres Majesteter (“Nice to meet your majesties”) along with other basic Norwegian expressions in advance…
What one Hamline professor says about education and the 99 percent
If you’ve been on Facebook in the last few days, you may have seen David Davies rail about the cost of education. The associate professor of anthropology at Hamline University, inspired by some posts on the We Are the 99 Percent blog, writes: I am a college professor increasingly frustrated by the incredible debt I…
Elite liberal arts colleges question financial models If you glanced at Smith College’s “Futures Initiative,” you might think the college was in serious financial trouble. (USA Today) At Some Colleges, Professors Live in Dorms, Too Though university websites trumpet faculty embedded in dorms, some students are wary. (U.S. News & World Report) Most colleges not ready to…
What some St. Cloud State students and faculty are protesting
According to the UTVS video above and accompanying story, St. Cloud State University is seeing a little unrest over the firing last month of Mahmoud Saffari, its associate VP for enrollment management. The Students and Faculty of Color Caucus at SCSU on Thursday protested the apparently abrupt Sept. 20 dismissal of Saffari, who’d had the…
A few thoughts and photos of Inver Hills Community College
After a day at Inver Hills Community College, I’ve noticed that one of the defining things about it might be the campus itself — something the students seem to pick up on. The architecture first hit President Tim Wynes when he toured the college before coming on board in March 2010. He said the shaker shingles…
Why have Minnesota's future Nobel Prize winners left?
You may have just seen the infographic of where the Nobel Prize science winners have come from, and that this year’s two Nobel economics winners once worked at the University of Minnesota. Reed Carpenter of Bloomington makes this observation through our Public Insight Network: Over the past few years four Nobel prize winners in economics…
Infographic: Where the Nobel Prize science winners have worked
This is just a shot of the cool interactive graphic over at The Wall Street Journal. It’s just about the science winners from research institutions, but you can see what countries they’re from, and the institutions where they worked.
Stutterer Speaks Up in Class; His Professor Says Keep Quiet His classroom experience underlines a perennial complaint among stutterers, that society does not recognize the condition as a disability, and touches on an age-old pedagogical — and social — theme: the balance between the needs of an individual and the good of a group. (The New…
The Inver Hills class that ditches fancy learning methods
After reading repeated articles about the newest, most efficient high-tech ways to learn, it’s almost startling to hear Inver Hills music instructor Andrew Martin tell me: We don’t take notes. We don’t read music. We learn by rote memorization. I’m in his class, where students learn how to play Trinidadian steel drums. After just eight…