House, Senate hearing recommends candidates to serve as U of M regents

While the University of Minnesota athletic department is searching for a new men’s basketball coach, a joint meeting of the Senate Higher Education Committee and the House Higher Education Finance and Policy Committee went searching Tuesday for four new members of the university’s Board of Regents.

The search became difficult as the joint committee could not agree on a single candidate for the Student At-Large seat, the Fifth Congressional District seat or the two At-Large seats.

Because they couldn’t agree on a single candidate, candidates were recommended as a slate.

University of Minnesota

The Board of Regents’ 12 members include one from each of the state’s eight congressional districts and four at-large seats (including one student at-large). They serve staggered six-year terms without pay, and, in odd-numbered years, one-third of the board is up for election.

Concluding a multi-month process of candidate interviews and recommendations from the Regent Candidate Advisory Council, 12 finalists (one student candidate withdrew before the committee meeting and a Fifth Congressional District candidate was unable to make the joint committee meeting) appeared before the joint committee, made presentations and answered questions, voicing a variety of perspectives on what they would bring to governance of the university.

By the end of the evening, the joint committee had chosen to recommend these candidates to the full Legislature:

Student At-large seat: Flora Yang and Dylan Young

Fifth Congressional District: Kowsar Mohamed and Benjamin Kaplan; and

Two At-large seats: Jamal Adam, John Gibbs, Ann Sheldon and Dan Wolter.

Mohamed received zero votes during the student at-large selection process but was nominated for the Fifth Congressional District seat by Sen. Clare Oumou Verbeten (DFL-St. Paul) and will move on in the slate of candidates for the seat.

The next step is a joint convention of the Legislature at a yet-to-be-determined date. A candidate needs a majority vote of the 201-member House and Senate to be elected to a seat. Lawmakers are not bound to vote for only the finalists presented.