October 30, 2003

1. Strike at the U
2. One-stop site for traveling Gopher football fans
3. Ginger as an anti-cancer agent
4. Saving millions for small towns
5. Eating with class
6. U center offers vocational assessment
7. Medical students treat fictional patients at virtual clinic
8. U of M Happenings
9. Links

U NEWS

Strike at the U
On Monday, Oct. 20, negotiations with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) clerical units--representing 1,900 of the University of Minnesota’s 18,000 employees on all campuses--broke off and AFSCME announced its decision to go on strike.

“We were very disappointed that we couldn’t come to a negotiated settlement,” says Carol Carrier, vice president for human resources. “Our proposal is consistent with the market, it is equitable and it reflects the deep budget reductions the University of Minnesota must manage over the next two years.”

Last May, the state Legislature reduced the University’s budget by 15 percent, or $185 million over two years. To manage the reduction and maintain academic excellence, the University increased tuition by nearly 15 percent, reduced operating costs, and asked employees to take a one-year wage freeze and pay additional costs for health care coverage.

The University’s offer to the AFSCME clerical units is consistent with the contracts successfully negotiated with the two other largest bargaining units.

Specifically, the University proposed to the AFSCME clerical units a salary freeze in year one of the contract, a 2.5 percent salary increase in year two, and an increase in the employee share of the health premium cost totaling approximately $15 a paycheck for single coverage in the base plan. To offset the increased health care cost, the University offered a $200 one-time payment to cover the increased premium cost for the six months in which there would be no wage increase.

Carrier said AFSCME clerical unit salaries, which average $32,000 annually, are competitive with both the public and private sector markets in Minnesota and nationally.

“As evidenced by our low turnover rates and high demand for open positions, the University is a very good place to work,” says Carrier. “In addition to competitive wages and health benefits, University employees have many professional opportunities, the ability to take classes for credit at no cost and a good deal of job security.”

On the first day of the strike, 55 percent of AFSCME clerical unit members were at work, according to University officials. As of Wednesday, October 29, that figure had grown to 64 percent.
Faculty members were encouraged to hold classes at regularly scheduled times and at on-campus locations, and the vast majority did.

“Everyone is pitching in, and we’re getting the work done,” says Carrier, noting that in most units, work was being spread out among non-striking employees. “We have a responsibility to students, faculty, and the people of Minnesota to advance the work of the University, and we’re committed to delivering on that promise.”
This is the first strike at the University in more than 50 years.

For more information on the strike, see http://www.umn.edu/ohr/er/strike.htm.

--University of Minnesota News Service

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One-stop site for traveling Gopher football fans
What does it take to hit the road and support maroon and gold in enemy territory? Find out on the new University of Minnesota Gopher football fan Web site created by the University of Minnesota Alumni Association (UMAA) and the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics.

The Web site, at http://ww.alumni.umn.edu/fan, complements the sports news and statistics currently available on Gophersports.com by providing specific information for the Gopher football supporter who wants to go to away games.

The Web site, at http://www.alumni.umn.edu/fan, complements the sports news and statistics currently available on Gophersports.com by providing specific information for the Gopher football supporter who wants to go to away games, says U athletic director Joel Maturi. “We have great fans, and we want to make it as easy as possible for them to travel with the Gophers,” he says.

In addition to tips such as where to stay or how to buy game tickets, this Web site gives the Gopher fan details about special pregame events and a chance to share photos or memories from a past roadtrip or bowl game in an online scrapbook. The site will also feature personal player profiles and fan bios and follow the progress of Gopher football prospects for postseason play.

“Supporting University athletics is one way alumni reconnect with their alma mater,” said Jerry Noyce, UMAA volunteer president.

“This new Web site will be a valuable resource to fans and will support the team by bringing more enthusiastic supporters to the away games.”

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Ginger as an anti-cancer agent
The substance that gives ginger its distinctive flavor appears to inhibit the growth of human colorectal cancer cells, according to research at the University of Minnesota’s Hormel Institute in Austin, Minn.

Plants of the ginger family have been credited with therapeutic and preventive powers and have been reported to have anti-cancer activity.

Research associate professor Ann Bode and her colleagues fed 20 mice a half-milligram of [6]-gingerol, the main active component of ginger, three times a week before and after injecting them with human colorectal tumor cells. The mice consuming the [6]-gingerol lagged behind the mice that were not fed the substance (the control group) in both the number of animals with measurable tumors and the average size of the tumors.

All the mice in the control group had measurable tumors by day 28. But it wasn’t until day 38 that the [6]-gingerol group reached that milestone--and even then, one mouse still had no measurable tumors. On the 49th day following the tumor cell injection, all the control mice had tumors the size of one cubic centimeter or 0.06 cubic inches. In contrast, 12 of the 20 mice given the ginger had an average tumor size of 0.5 cubic centimeter or half the size of the tumors in the control group.

The Hormel Institute

“Plants of the ginger family have been credited with therapeutic and preventive powers and have been reported to have anti-cancer activity,” says Bode. “These results strongly suggest that ginger compounds may be effective chemopreventive or chemotherapeutic agents for colorectal carcinomas.”

Preliminary results also suggested that tumors in the control mice had spread (metastasized) more than the tumors in the [6]-gingerol-treated mice, but whether a significant difference actually exists remains to be verified, says Bode.

In their next round of experiments, the researchers plan to feed ginger to mice only after they have grown tumors to a certain size.

“The new experiments should be more clinically relevant,” explains Bode. “They will get at the question of whether a patient could eat ginger to slow the metastasis of a nonoperable tumor.”

The University of Minnesota has applied for a patent on the use of [6]-gingerol as an anti-cancer agent, and the technology has been licensed to Pediatric Pharmaceuticals in New Jersey.

To learn more about anti-cancer research conducted at the Hormel Institute, see http://www.hi.umn.edu/zd_lab.html.

--University of Minnesota News Service

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Saving millions for small towns
Local municipalities can spend more than $1 million to build a treatment facility to reduce the levels of arsenic in its water supply to meet federal regulations. But University of Minnesota student Mindy Erickson has found a cheaper, long-term solution for some small towns.

University of Minnesota graduate student Mindy Erickson in Clay County, Minn., collecting sediment core samples for geochemical analysis.

Erickson, a doctoral candidate in the U’s water resources science program, developed a “site investigation procedure” to look for low-arsenic aquifers.

“This is an innovative idea because a ‘site investigation’ procedure has typically been used to find out where contamination is, say around a hazardous waste site, not where it isn’t,” she explains.

“Implementing a site investigation is relatively easy because Minnesota has an excellent public database of well records. It takes a couple days of one person’s time to identify and sample wells and a couple hundred dollars to analyze a dozen water samples.” The method increases the viability of drilling new wells with low-arsenic levels.

“In Minnesota alone, thousands of public and private wells fail to meet the new arsenic maximum contaminant level,” she says. “Most arsenic in Minnesota ground water is not connected to a specific source, such as mining waste, hazardous waste sites, pesticide use, or geothermal features. Rather, arsenic contamination in Minnesota ground water is a widespread, naturally occurring phenomenon.” According to the Minnesota Department of Health, the health risks from arsenic at the levels typically found in Minnesota are from long-term exposure.

Erickson giving several Clay County high school students an overview of the arsenic research that is taking place in their community.

Neilsville is one Minnesota community that has already benefited from Erickson’s research. Next spring, it will drill a new, low-arsenic well that will meet the new federal regulation at one-tenth the cost of building a treatment plant. Erickson has also worked with other communities in Minnesota such as Cosmos, Climax, Frost, Ulen, and Elizabeth.

To learn more about the project titled “Arsenic in Minnesota’s Groundwater”, see http://www.cura.umn.edu/programs/FIRP.html or e-mail Erickson at eric0984@umn.edu. For a map of arsenic concentrations in public water supplies in the Upper Midwest, see http://www.umn.edu/urelate/newsservice/erickson-map.html.

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Eating with class
At a recent Etiquette and Image Dinner hosted by the University of Minnesota Alumni Association, more than 400 University students learned the following formal dining tips.

Corporate etiquette consultant Darcy Matz led the students through a three-course meal and spoke about topics such as professional behavior and table manners, and representatives from Nordstrom gave tips on dressing for an interview and building a career wardrobe. The annual event, designed for graduating seniors, was cosponsored by the Alumni Association, the U’s Career Development Network, Ingersoll Rand, and Nordstrom.

--University of Minnesota Alumni Association

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U center offers vocational assessment
What do you want to be now that you’re grown up? That’s the question the University of Minnesota’s Vocational Assessment Clinic has helped individuals answer for the past three decades.

A team of Vocational Assessment Clinic counselors during a consultation meeting.

Since its inception in 1974, the clinic in Elliott Hall on the Twin Cities campus has been a place for the public and people within the University to seek career advice, or more specifically, to identify a career that fits his or her interests, personality, abilities, needs, and values.

“Individuals may find our services especially useful if they are experiencing dissatisfaction in their current job, re-entering the workforce, considering returning to school for additional training, or needing some guidance to enhance their current position or evaluate career alternatives,” says Jo-Ida Hansen, University psychology professor and center director. The clinic is part of the U’s counseling psychology doctoral program.

A counseling session at the Vocational Assesment Clinic.

The clinic offers a five-session package at $400 (University of Minnesota alumni receive a 15 percent discount), which includes a one-hour orientation, four hours of vocational testing, three hour-long sessions to review test results, and a written summary of the test results. Sessions with a counselor focus on exploring and understanding a client’s assessment information.

To lean more about the Vocational Assessment Clinic, see http://www.psych.umn.edu/psylabs/vac or call 612-625-1519.

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Medical students treat fictional patients at virtual clinic
Almost every Wednesday, University of Minnesota medical students log on to a Web site to see the medical records of “patients” waiting for treatment in a primary care clinic. Fictional characters range from newborn babies to 90-year-old grandmothers, and health concerns are related to courses the students are taking.

The Minnesota Virtual Clinic debuted a year ago to medical students in the class of 2006, and it was created to provide clinical context for the basic science courses taught at the U’s Medical School.

The Minnesota Virtual Clinic debuted a year ago to medical students in the class of 2006, and it was created to provide clinical context for the basic science courses taught at the U’s Medical School. For example, a patient with a foot laceration would appear when the students are studying muscles of the feet and leg in anatomy. Doctors who teach at the Medical School create the patients and the details--health history, laboratory results, and medications--that go with each medical case. Students follow the patients through each course that they take during their undergraduate education.

According to program director Catherine Niewoehner, the cases are intended to illustrate interaction with patients, major medical conditions, and the principles of medicine. In essence, the students are preparing for their future roles as doctors. They are learning how patients tell their stories and how doctors obtain, evaluate, describe, and act upon those stories, she says.

“One of the major stumbling blocks for medical education in the past has been a lack of connection between courses in a given year and courses in the preceding years,” says Niewoehner. “The virtual clinic provides ongoing communication between different subjects and medical specialties.”

The U’s virtual clinic is one of only a few such programs in the United States or the world. It was featured as an academic innovation in the Oct.1 Journal of the American Medical Association.

--Academic Health Center

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U OF M HAPPENINGS

Oddities at the Bell
Come one, come all! Costumed interpreters will turn the Bell Museum of Natural History on the Twin Cities campus in Minneapolis into a circus sideshow of the bizarre and mysterious on Saturday, Nov. 1, 10-4 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 2, noon-4 p.m. Among the attractions are a 40-foot human tapeworm, a six-legged pig, a three-bodied pig, and a goose egg with a golf ball inside. Admissions is $2. For general information, see http://www.bellmuseum.org/.

Birthday bash by the river
The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum on the Twin Cities campus will celebrate its 10th anniversary with an “Off the Wall” after-hours party on Saturday, Nov. 1, 10 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Part of the museum will be transformed into the WAM! Nightclub with costumed models as live sculptures. Tickets are $25. To reserve your ticket, call 612-626-4747. For general information, see http://hudson.acad.umn.edu.

Speaking up for the public good
Winona LaDuke, founder of the Indigenous Women’s Network and former Green Party vice presidential candidate, will present “Voice and the Public Good” on Wednesday, Nov. 5, at 8 p.m. in Kiehle Auditorium on the Crookston campus. Admission is $2. Following her presentation, LaDuke will sign copies of her books at a reception in the rotunda. She is author of Last Standing Woman and All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. For more information, call Pam at 218-281-8505.

Dickens in Morris
“The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” a musical adaptation by Rupert Holmes of Charles Dickens’s final novel, will open the 2003-04 theater season at the University of Minnesota, Morris. The comic murder mystery will run Nov. 5-8 at 7:30 p.m. (with a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday) in the Proscenium Theatre of Humanities Fine Arts on the Morris campus. For tickets or more information, call 320-589-6249.

Starr on political spending
Kenneth Starr, former federal judge and independent counsel, will speak about “Political Liberty: Campaign Finance and the Freedoms of Speech and Association” at the U’s Silha Lecture on Thursday, Nov. 6, in Ted Mann Concert Hall on the Twin Cities campus in Minneapolis. His presentation will focus on the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which restricts political contributions by individuals and groups. Starr will sign copies of his book First Among Equals following the lecture. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, see http://www.silha.umn.edu.

Remembering the dead
Several “ofrendas” or altars commemorating “Dia de los Muertos” or Day of the Dead, a Mexican tradition based on the belief that souls of the dead return to the world of the living, are on display through Sunday, Nov. 9, at the Tweed Museum of Art on the Duluth campus. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, Nov. 1, 1–3 p.m. For general information, see http://www.d.umn.edu/tma/generalinfo.htm.

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