Convocation

Thursday, August 31, 2023 

New Student Convocation is the University of Minnesota’s official welcome to the Class of 2027! A university tradition, this event is a celebration of the U of M community, school pride, and its spirit of academic excellence. You will hear from Interim President Jeff Ettinger, a renowned faculty speaker, the Undergraduate Student Government President, and experience the University of Minnesota Marching Band!

This year Convocation will be held in Northrop Auditorium. Due to smaller capacity, Convocation will be held twice on the same day, with colleges assigned to either 9 a.m.  or 12:15 p.m. 

Both Convocations will also be streamed live which you can watch by clicking the time below.

9 a.m. 

• College of Biological Sciences

• College of Design

• College of Education and Human Development

• College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource Science

• College of Science and Engineering

12:15 p.m. 

• Carlson School of Management

• College of Liberal Arts

• School of Nursing

SPEAKER BIOS

Jeff Ettinger, Interim President 

Jeff Ettinger became the interim president of the University of Minnesota on June 10, 2023.

Previously, he was CEO of the Hormel Foods Corporation in Austin, Minnesota, from 2005 to 2016, where he was responsible for a $9 billion annual budget and 20,000 team members. While there, he was named by the Harvard Business Review as a  “Best-Performing CEOs in the World” in 2016. He went on to serve as chair of the Hormel Foundation from 2017 to 2023.

Ettinger has been an executive fellow at the U of M’s Carlson School of Management, where he created and co-taught an agribusiness course with Professor Mark Bergen. He has been a guest lecturer at Dartmouth, UCLA, Iowa State, Michigan, Kansas State, and St. Cloud State on topics related to business management, leadership, and law. He holds a bachelor’s degree and a law degree from UCLA.

Brad Holschuh, Faculty Speaker

Dr. Brad Holschuh is an Associate Professor of Apparel Design at the University of Minnesota, where he serves as Co-Director of the Wearable Technology Laboratory (WTL) and as Director of Graduate Studies for the Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) program. Since 2022, he also holds the title of Distinguished University Teaching Professor.

Dr. Holschuh earned his BS ('07), dual MS ('10), and PhD ('14) degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he worked with NASA to develop next generation space suit technologies. Dr. Holschuh’s research focuses on the use of wearable technology to improve human performance both in space and on Earth, with a specific focus on integrating active materials technology into wearable systems. His work encompasses wearable technology, soft robotics, human factors design, textile engineering, aerospace engineering and bioastronautics, and materials science.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, Faculty Speaker 

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field is an associate professor in the department of Sociology and the Minnesota Population Center. She studies deaths in the historical and contemporary United States, and specializes in finding comparisons and metrics that illuminate the human meaning of statistics about death rates. She has extensively researched the Covid-19 pandemic in Minnesota, and she says the pandemic activity she is proudest of is co-founding an award-winning community vaccination organization (the Seward Vaccine Equity Project). She recently won a Horace T. Morse – University of Minnesota Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education, and has won research awards from national and international organizations in three research fields: sociology, demography, and population health.

Betsy McCann, Marching Band 

Elizabeth (Betsy) Kerns McCann is the Assistant Director of Bands/Director of Marching and Athletic Bands at the University of Minnesota. McCann is the first female head director of a marching band in the Big Ten Conference. McCann started with the U of M Marching Band in 2013 as Assistant Director. She previously directed bands at Watertown-Mayer High School (Watertown, MN), Waubonsie Valley High School (Aurora, Illinois) and Burnsville Senior High School (Burnsville, Minnesota). She holds a Bachelor of Music (flute performance and music education) from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Music (conducting) from Northwestern University.

Shashank Murali, Undergraduate Student Government President 

Shashank Murali is a rising fourth-year student studying Supply Chain & Operations Management and Marketing at the Carlson School of Management. He is currently serving as the Student Body President at the University of Minnesota, representing over 35,000 undergraduate students, and has been part of the Undergraduate Student Government since his first year. He is also an active member of the Alpha Epsilon chapter of Delta Sigma Pi, a professional business fraternity on campus. During his free time, Shashank enjoys spending time with his friends and family and traveling as often as possible.

Here's what students have to say about New Student Convocation

“I think my two favorite parts were seeing the marching band and feeling their energy because it was contagious, and I also enjoyed when the leaders did the little chants. I know that looking back, a lot of my friends and I crack up about it.” -Namitha Binu, Class of 2023

“It was cool seeing the entire first-year class. It made me excited to start school and meet new people.” -Stephen Martin, Class of 2021

“I remember it being really exciting because we got to sit by college and everyone was wearing their own specific t-shirt and doing some cheers so we got a sense of college pride! And it was really cool to see the Pride of Minnesota for the first time, they got everyone excited when they came out playing. Besides that, I also remember thinking the speakers did a great job and it was really cool that we got our graduation tassels on our first day, I still have mine hanging about my desk and look forward to using it this May!” -Tyler Cinq-Mars, Class of 2021