As we go about our daily lives, it can be easy to forget how massive an institution the University of Minnesota truly is.

The University’s Board of Regents directly administered more than 29,000 acres of property across the state as of June, not including areas controlled by the state-owned University trust or the mineral rights owned by the University.

This wide base of property largely stems from the University’s history as a land-grant institution that received more than 200,000 acres of land from Congress by 1873, almost entirely stolen from Native Americans.

While it may not have as much land today, the University still retains a fair amount of property throughout Minnesota and retains the ability to use or make deals with this land as its administration sees fit.

However, a few recent property deals have been controversial, and the University’s attempts to reduce controversy have raised questions about transparency that must be answered.

The first of these deals involved the sale of parts of UMore Park, a parcel of more than 4,700 acres in Rosemount and Empire Township, just south of the Twin Cities. 

In May, the University’s Board of Regents finalized plans for the sale of 60 acres to North Wind, a technology company that describes itself as helping with the development and deployment of mission-critical systems.

This plan drew a fair amount of criticism and protest from students due to North Wind’s contracts with the Department of Defense for the development of hypersonic military technology. These objections escalated quickly, leading to the vandalizing of several regents’ homes across the state this summer.

While home vandalism is not justifiable by any means, the need for greater transparency over the University’s partnership with North Wind still rings true. 

University third-year student and Students for a Democratic Society activist Keegan Smith said while the regents’ meetings are public, much of the information about the University’s property management and work with companies like North Wind is inaccessible to everyday people.

“A lot of these really important things are hidden under the process of bureaucracy,” Smith said.

Hiding or attempting to reframe information will only make a particular issue more controversial in the long run. If community members had been consulted on the North Wind deal earlier in the process, the backlash may not have been as strong.

Smith said one major problem with the University’s current approach to property management is the fact that information is exclusively one-directional, leaving out valuable input from students, faculty and even the citizens of areas like Rosemount who will be directly impacted by property deals.

“They don’t have to listen to us,” Smith said. “They can just ignore us.”

Additional transparency concerns arose after members of the University administration attempted to play down North Wind’s connection with the military, despite the dean of the College of Science and Engineering acknowledging there isn’t much civilian use for hypersonic technology.

University Public Relations deferred to North Wind about their work and emphasized the University’s partnership with the company is academic, according to a statement emailed to the Minnesota Daily.

“As one of America’s leading research universities, the University of Minnesota is at the forefront of the research and development of next-generation simulation methods to advance the field of hypersonic flight,” the statement read. “The University of Minnesota’s basic science role in the Minnesota Aerospace Complex is academic and research-driven.”

Still, concerns about property deal transparency don’t stop with the North Wind sale. The recent sale of UMore Park land to Meta for the construction of a data center brought environmental transparency and sustainability into question. Additionally, both current and former regents objected to the October decision to transfer the Eastcliff Mansion to the University of Minnesota Foundation.

Despite these examples, not all University property deals are contentious topics. For example, 75.6 acres of UMore Park were sold to the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan School District last year for the district to build a new middle school.

The University is also in the process of returning 3,400 acres of land in its Cloquet Forestry Center to the Fond du Lac Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa, attempting to make amends for its early history.

While it’s impossible to please everyone, especially at a large academic institution with thousands of students and employees, being upfront and honest with students and staff about all property deals and corporate partnerships is essential.

“There needs to be a way to operate and actually work with the people, because we are seeing a serious case of anti-intellectualism,” Smith said.

Allowing members of the community to share their concerns and addressing those concerns directly will not only improve the public’s trust in the University but also ease future public relations headaches.

Land has been crucial for the University since its inception, and everyone in the community deserves to have their ideas about the use of that land heard.