In a typical year around here, we get our first snow some time around Halloween, which will melt away, and then round about Thanksgiving we enter the deep freeze after which nothing thaws until March or April. It looks like a typical start of winter around here this morning.
The Washington Monthly has ranked UMM as a ‘standout school’.
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, MORRIS (MN)
Predicted grad rate: 60%
Actual grad rate: 60%
Net price: $9,255
Reason it made the cut: One of the only public liberal arts schools in the nation, UMM ranks just behind cash-rich Amherst and Williams for bang for the buck among schools of its type.
Morris students, a third of whom are first-generation college-goers, shoulder the lowest debt burden in the University of Minnesota system, and among the lowest in the Midwest. The public school price tag, in tandem with a low student-to-faculty ratio of 15 to 1 and other private/liberal arts school attributes, makes Morris a unique value proposition. And if a liberal arts degree may not seem like the most efficient ticket to social mobility in a depressed economy, consider this: 94 percent of recent Morris grads either went on to pursue advanced degrees or found employment within a year of leaving school, which they attribute to the resources, reputation, and connections that the campus enjoys as part of the University of Minnesota system. In addition to being able to choose from thirty-five different liberal arts majors, Morris’s 1,900 students can select from eight preprofessional programs like engineering and nursing, as well as an online learning program—reminders of that public school status and network despite the school’s small size and capacity.
I’m tempted to say, though, that you shouldn’t come here. We’re really, really good, but we’re also full up with students. All the faculty in biology are stretched thinly to keep up with everything — I don’t know that we could handle any more workload.
So unless you’re absolutely brilliant, ambitious, and enthusiastic about getting an amazingly good broad education in the liberal arts, you shouldn’t apply here. Maybe you can go to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities instead? It’s a perfectly nice second choice.
If you can’t get in here, I’m sure you’ve got some acceptable safety schools, like Harvard or something.
Oh, man, I can’t endorse this action by Lakota and Dakota women. I think people have a right to do as they please (as long as it doesn’t harm others) on their private property — that goes for worshipping Jesus or Thor, desecrating Bibles, or even flying Nazi flags. (All bets are off if the Nazi sympathizers in Leith, ND, who were trying to stage a takeover of the local government, were flying that flag as representative of the city.)
So I can’t support seizing the Nazi flag and burning it, if it were someone else’s private property. But I still look at this picture and think…whoa, but they are badass.
Lakota and Dakota grandmothers captured the Nazi flag hanging in Leith, ND and burned it. Warriors!
The Curse of Morris is no more. Last month, someone cut the wires to the cheesy carillon located in the cemetery just north of me, and the chimes no longer ring out every goddamn quarter hour. The obnoxious ass, Ted Storck, who is responsible for these horrible things wrote a letter to our local paper and also mailed me a note in which he accused me or my amoral atheist buddies of having done it.
Cutting cemetery chimes was a savage act
I hope the person(s) who used a hatchet to chop the wires going to the chimes at Summit Cemetery is happy with himself or herself. Those chimes brought comfort to many folks at burials, as well as those visiting the cemeteries at other times. The chimes are maintained by the veterans posts of Morris, and the repair cost will mean less money to assist those in need, both veterans and others. The chimes were placed there to honor those who served our nation. You dishonored their service by your savage act. You even cut the wires we use to turn off one speaker to the northeast when there are no burials in that area, so if we can’t afford to repair that wire, all four speakers will be left on even when there are no burials in that area, but burials in Calvary and areas to the south. When there are burials, as the hearse enters the cemetery, the bells toll and then after the service, hymns are played.
Be proud of yourself; I’m sure your mother and father would be proud of how they raised you.
The mortality rate in Morris must be tremendous, because those hymns were played every quarter hour, starting in the early hours of the morning, so there must have been 50 funerals a day. Maybe the reason they’ve gone silent is that everyone is dead now?
Storck is such a dishonest fraud. No, I and the other residents of this neighborhood would have no objection at all if the chimes were played for funerals, or for the special ceremonies the local veterans have there; that would be entirely reasonable. The constant din is not. And for Storck, that arrogant carpet-bagging out-of-towner, to insist on subjecting others to a level of noise he can’t hear is unconscionable.
As for the claim that I’m responsible: no. I admit, I have fantasized about seeing them shut off, but usually those daydreams involve a squadron of A-10s howling overhead and turning them into a smoking, flaming crater with Hellfire missiles, not a few chops of an axe. And of course, I have two good reasons for not doing it: as a moral person with an opposition to vandalism, I’d prefer it were handled more ethically, and also as the village atheist of Morris, Minnesota, getting caught vandalizing a Catholic cemetery would have wider repercussions than the merely personal.
But then, Ted Storck can’t comprehend that, as his moral sense has apparently atrophied and replaced with religious dogma and a large dollop of sanctimony.
I’m just going to enjoy the peace and quiet before they repair the damage, after which, knowing Storck’s attitude, they’ll probably redouble the rate or volume of the curse he’s bestowed on this town.
I’m giving you plenty of advanced warning, because I know it’ll take you a bit to arrange air flights and all that. Our first Cafe Scientifique of the new school year will be on 24 September, at the Common Cup Coffeehouse in downtown Morris. Biologist Pete Wyckoff will be telling us about
The Impact of CLIMATE, DEER, EARTHWORMS, and the INVASIVE EUROPEAN BUCKTHORN TREE on the FORESTS of WESTERN MINNESOTA
Wait, what forests of Western Minnesota? I guess we’ll find out what happened to them.
As a special inducement, we have charismatic and cheerful students doing all the introductions — no more bearded old guy being boring. And also…door prizes! And a trivia contest! With prizes! Brush up on your tree lore before coming around, because you’ll be getting quizzed on trees and forests.
Wait, this is Western Minnesota. These will have to be really simple questions, like “what is a tree?” and “is it a plant or an animal?” and “what do you call a herd of trees?” Maybe Pete will show photographs of forests so the locals will learn to recognize them.
Now that the academic year is starting, the Star-Tribune puts out a short summary of success at Minnesota colleges. We’ll use it next year to recruit more students.
The University of Minnesota, Morris stands out among the state’s public four-year institutions for generating more grads than expected at a good price. UM-Morris Chancellor Jacquie Johnson attributes that result to a tight-knit, supportive campus culture that allows the nearly 1,800 students to build strong relationships with faculty. One of every three students at Morris is either minority or international in origin. The school’s success with that diverse student population warrants examination and imitation.
Yay, us!
Seven of these signs are going up around the state, which if they’re effective might ameliorate my Dakota Denialism (I know it’s there, I just read the news about their state politics and wish it weren’t).
Good work, South Dakota Coalition of Reason!
The fun and informative Minnesota Regional Atheists conference is over for another year, but there’s a little tiny bit more. After Atheist Talk radio this morning, Annie Laurie Gaylor and Greta Christina will be joining us for brunch at Q Cumbers — an open event. So if you weren’t able to make it to the conference, but you’d still like to meet some of the guest speakers, this is your chance.
And you know what that means. My mortgage payment is due? The skeeters are ferocious? It’s hot? Trivialities, all. It means…
Gay people can get married here!
And the courts have been marryin’ up a storm since midnight last night.
Salon has a nice review of our senator from Minnesota, Al Franken (quick, who’s the other one?*). He really has been doing well, working hard, mostly coming down on the side of goodness and reason, and he’s also a darn nice fella in person — he’s even visited our quiet rural backwater a few times.
We could use a few more like Franken in congress.
*No, it’s not Michele Bachmann. It’s Amy Klobuchar, the woman politician from Minnesota who always gets unfairly overshadowed by the kook from the 6th congressional district. We have two Democratic senators and a Democratic governor, I’ll have you know.
