University of Minnesota names Rebecca Cunningham, University of Michigan research head, as next president

Alex Derosier, Pioneer Press
Updated ·3 min read
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The University of Minnesota’s next president is a top research administrator at a Midwestern Big Ten school who has a background in medicine.

After hours of public interviews with the final three candidates on Monday, the UMN Board of Regents named Rebecca Cunningham, a research administrator and physician from the University of Michigan, as the university system’s president-designate.

Interim University president Jeff Ettinger will remain in his role until Cunningham takes over on July 1. The position has been open since former U president Joan Gabel left last spring.

Cunningham will be the 18th president of the University of Minnesota system and will lead five campuses with more than 68,000 students and nearly 27,000 employees. Cunningham and regents aren’t yet discussing specifics of pay, but before she left Gabel had a contract that with benefits brought her total compensation to more than $1 million.

Cunningham said she brings experience in academic medicine as well as the hands-on side from her time as an emergency room physician — though she noted her most recent work has focused on the big picture of running a school.

“I also bring to you experience as a senior leader in higher ed administration,” she said. “And so the combination of those two roles I think can help guide the university forward.”

Right now, Cunningham is vice president for research and innovation at the University of Michigan, where she guides the university’s research mission across three campuses.

Before that, she served as the associate vice president for research-health sciences, where she oversaw research faculty and worked across disciplines to advance the university’s research agenda.

She has been a faculty member at the University of Michigan Schools of Public Health and Medicine since 1999.

National search

A months-long national search by the U’s Presidential Search Advisory Committee identified 46 candidates and Cunningham was one of the three named finalists for the job. Search consultants began compiling a pool of candidates in November.

The search started after Gabel resigned last year to become chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh.

During her tenure, she oversaw growth in research and graduation rates but also faced criticism for perceived conflicts of interest. Gabel said the controversies had nothing to do with her departure.

Ettinger, a former Hormel Foods CEO, stepped in as interim president on June 10.

Cunningham and two other finalists, Laura Bloomberg and James Holloway, spent the last few weeks touring the UMN’s campuses in Crookston, Duluth, Morris, Rochester and the Twin Cities to meet with students, faculty and staff.

Bloomberg is president of Cleveland State University and former dean of the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and Holloway is the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of New Mexico.

The three then sat on Monday for public interviews before a special meeting of the Board of Regents.

Initially, seven regents favored Cunningham and five favored Bloomberg. But ultimately all 12 backed a motion to name Cunningham President-designate.

One concern during the regents’ discussions was that another candidate might be better rounded with expertise outside medicine.

Cunningham pushed back at the idea that she would potentially be too medically focused, noting she has years of higher education leadership experience at a Midwestern Big Ten University.

“I fully am immersed and have years of experience in higher ed leadership,” she said. “We will all, as we talked about before, have things that I will need to learn about your particular institution and the particular issues of the state and the people, and I look forward to doing that.”

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