U-of-M Board of Regents vice-chair asks if ‘too much diversity’ leads to declining enrollment at Morris campus, KSTP, 10/16/22

During a University of Minnesota Board of Regents meeting last Thursday, Board of Regents Vice-Chair, Steve Sviggum, asked the interim-chancellor at the University of Minnesota-Morris if declining enrollment might be connected to “too much diversity” at the campus which is about two-and-a-half hours west of the metro area.

Sviggum asked Morris Interim Chancellor, Janet Schrunk Ericksen, “Is it possible that at Morris we’ve become too diverse? Is that at all possible from a marketing standpoint?”

Sviggum noted that enrollment at Morris had declined by more than 40 percent “over the past decade” and that was why he asked the question.

“I have received a couple letters, two actually, from friends whose children are not going to go to Morris, because it is too diverse of a campus. They just didn’t feel comfortable there,” said Sviggum. “Is it all possible, in the specifics of Morris, that we’ve become too diverse for a student to attend? Again, I am on thin ice. I understand that. At 71 or 72 years old I say things that I would never even thought when I was 52.”

https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/u-of-m-board-of-regents-vice-chair-asks-if-too-much-diversity-leads-to-declining-enrollment-at-morris-campus/

GOP looks for veto-proof majorities in Wisconsin Legislature, AP, 10/9/22

Wisconsin Republicans are hoping Tim Michels will defeat Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in November, but even if Evers prevails they could still reshape the battleground state by winning enough seats in the Legislature to override vetoes.

If Republicans can flip five seats in the Assembly and one in the Senate they'll have the two-thirds majority they need. They would be free to rework state politics at will, including the state budget and election administration.

Evers has blocked almost every piece of major GOP legislation over the last four years, including proposals that would have tightened restrictions on absentee voting and unemployment benefits, expanded the right to carry concealed weapons and curtailed the government's ability to respond to COVID-19.

The U.S. Supreme Court this spring upheld district lines Republicans redrew last year to reflect census changes, a major ruling that solidified their grip on both houses for the next decade.

MORE: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/10/09/gop-looks-for-vetoproof-majorities-in-wisconsin-legislature