When Marion Rarick saw who Gov. Tim Walz picked to join the University of Minnesota Board of Regents, she did not recognize two of the four names.
“It was nobody we ever saw who came through the process,” said Rarick, R-Maple Lake, and co-chair of the House Higher Education and Finance Policy Committee.
The process Rarick refers to is the state legislature’s duty to pick who is on the 12-person U of M Board, a body that’s responsible for everything from the school’s multibillion dollar annual budget to policing campus speech and determining the institution’s level of cooperation with the Donald Trump administration.
But a historically divided state legislature adjourned this year without naming four new board members.
That left the job to Walz to name four interim members. Here is who got named, and what might happen next.
Who did Walz appoint?
Exactly one day after the Legislature adjourned for 2025 (following a 17-hour-long pass-budget-bills-til-you-drop special session), Walz announced that the application process had begun for four board spots, with applications due July 2.
Tuesday, Walz named Joel Bergstrom, Samuel Heins, Ellen Lugar and Kowsar Mohamed to the board.
Walz’s press release describes Bergstrom as a “principal at Orion Search Group, where he leads executive searches for clients across the nonprofit, public and private sectors.”
Bergstrom did not come before the Joint Higher Education Finance and Policy Committee when they met in March to select regents candidates.
Nor did Samuel Heins, whose last listed position was the U.S. ambassador to Norway for a one-year stint at the end of the Barack Obama administration. Heins earned his bachelor’s degree from the U of M in 1968 and went on to have a storied career in human rights work, including co-founding the Center for Victims of Torture.
Ellen Luger also did not appear before the committee. But her name was familiar to Rarick because Luger’s husband, Andy Luger, recently stepped down as U.S. Attorney for Minnesota.
Ellen Luger’s last listed role was minister counselor for agriculture at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations food agencies. Luger was stationed in Rome, Italy for this job.
The candidate who did appear before the Higher Ed joint committee is Kowsar Mohamed, who will serve as the student representative on the Board. Mohamed is a doctoral student in Natural Resources Science and Management at the U of M.
In a March hearing, Mohamed was the choice of Sen. Omar Fateh, chair of the Senate Higher Education and Policy Committee (and Minneapolis mayoral candidate).
Related: University of Minnesota: Cuts, halted grant reviews could be ‘absolutely crippling’ to research
A message left with Walz about why he named these candidates was not returned by Tuesday afternoon. The press release generally referred to the candidates as accomplished and deeply committed to the U of M.
What happens now?
These members will now replace the regents whose terms expire this year.
When the Legislature reconvenes in February, they can vote to make these four interim members permanent, which means they serve a six-year term.
Alternatively, they can agree on new candidates and boot these temporary members off.
Or they can do nothing again.
Rarick and other Republicans have charged DFL lawmakers with doing nothing so as to let a DFL governor pick the members.
Rarick has also claimed that Fateh and Dan Wolgamott, DFL-St. Cloud, and co-chair of the House Higher Ed Committee sent a “secret letter” to Walz back in March about their board choices and plans to stall out the selection process.
Fateh and Wolgamott have not returned calls on my Regents questions, and they were not successfully reached Tuesday.
Other DFLers have said there were not nefarious motives in failing to make appointments, just more urgent matters.
“Finishing and passing the budget was always going to take priority over regents appointments,” said Nathan Coulter, DFL-Bloomington, and co-vice chair of the House Higher Education Committee, back in June at the end of the legislative session.
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