EXCERPT: “A lifeguard shortage is hitting the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota, forcing some pools to close and beaches go unsupervised. St. Cloud is closing all seven of its wading pools for the entire summer. The city says COVID-19 restrictions were rolled back too late for it to budget for pool operations and salaries for ...

  The year 2020 was a stress test on all our systems, especially childcare. The childcare crisis in rural Minnesota was already serious before the pandemic. During the pandemic, it was no longer possible to ignore how important access to childcare is for the average family and how stressed our childcare system is—especially in rural ...

      Thursday, June 3rd: Examining Health Care Access Access to healthcare services is critical to good health, yet both rural and urban Minnesota residents face a variety of access barriers. When we talk about healthcare, cost is often the focus. But broader accessibility issues remain a challenge. Both rural and urban residents encounter ...

By Whitney Oachs, Elizabeth Gehlen, Josiah Moore & Ryan Redmer Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs graduate students For our full report including results, methodology, bibliography, and glossary of terms, download this PDF. While there has been a lot of talk about diversity in the last year, not much is known about BIPOC (Black, ...

EXCERPT: “May 31, 1921. In a period of less than 24 hours, white citizens burned much of Greenwood — Tulsa’s vibrant Black community — and murdered as many as 300 people. For Crookston native Tim Madigan, the journey began in the year 2000. He was writing feature stories for the Fort-Worth Star Telegram when his editor ...

EXCERPT: “According to Explore Minnesota, the state entity that tracks tourism, revenue from tourism went from $16 billion in 2019 to just over $8 billion in 2020 but experts expect a big comeback in the local travel business this summer. ‘We’re back up to numbers ahead of 2019,’ General Manager of Cragun’s Resort on Gull ...

EXCERPT: “State lawmakers plan to return to work for a special session in June. Executive Director of the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities’ (CGMC) Bradley Peterson says that while it’s good that leaders have an agreement on the budget… ‘We’re urging all of them and the legislature at large to remember that there are a ...

By Whitney Oachs, Research intern If you listened to our latest episode on our The Center of Everywhere podcast, you know that my classmates and I at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs completed a capstone thesis this spring on local government outreach among rural immigrant and refugee communities. In the study, we ...

EXCERPT: “An updated strategic plan for guiding future development of Greater Minnesota’s regional parks and trails, including ensuring those areas are inviting and accessible to underserved communities, is now available to the public from the Greater Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails Commission. Established in 2013, the commission identifies regionally significant parks and trails in Minnesota’s ...

On this episode, Marnie Werner, the Vice President of research at the Center for Rural Policy & Development is joined by graduate students from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. If you’re a regular listener to the Center of Everywhere, you’ll remember Whitney Oachs, who has been our research intern ...