What's New

by Somayeh Nikkoonaari and Mike Greco

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the University of Minnesota received more than 94,000 acres of Native American land in Minnesota, which it sold for roughly $18.4 million in today’s dollars to fund its endowment. Across the country, a total of 10.7 million acres of Native land was transferred to 57 universities through direct land grants or land scrip certificates. 

When Angela Kohrt bought a house in downtown Chaska a few years ago, she didn’t know it held a century-old secret. Thanks to a Resilient Communities Project (RCP) partnership with the City of Chaska, she discovered her house was built from salvaged brewery materials and may have hosted a prohibition-era speakeasy in its basement.

On September 16, the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) hosted a Summer 2025 Graduate Research poster session to showcase the exceptional work of our graduate students. The gathering brought together community and local government partners to celebrate student research, which is essential to our university-community partnership model.

This summer, RCP graduate students worked on 6 projects, including partnerships with Hennepin County, the City of Chaska, and New Brighton. 

For the past year, RCP and colleagues from the University’s Minnesota Design Center have been collaborating with staff, residents, and stakeholders in the Chisago County communities of Harris, Lindstrom, and Center City as part of the University’s Empowering Small Minnesota Communities (ESMC) program. 

Each summer, RCP selects several graduate students as RCP Summer Scholars and hires them for a 25–50% graduate research assistantship appointment over the summer (May–August) to collaborate with local government staff and community leaders on a high-priority research project.

RCP students create a new property scoring metric for the City of Duluth, showcasing their final project to stakeholders.

Aging buildings left in disrepair while affordable homes remain scarce. 

This is a familiar situation for many cities as they try to attract and support a growing population. It’s a particular challenge for the City of Duluth, where nearly 75 percent of housing units are more than 46 years old and nearly 44% are more than 76 years old. 

Graduate student Ashley Petel developed a site assessment tool that helps local governments determine land resilience and restore ecological health.