U of M President Rebecca Cunningham
Twin Cities Business | Minneapolis, Minnesota
"An amazing ability to see around the corner." That's how a former colleague at Michigan describes Rebecca Cunningham.
Twin Cities Businesssent me to photograph her for the August/September issue, three years into her presidency at the University of Minnesota. She was an emergency physician before this, and she ran research at Michigan before she came here. Adam Platt's profile calls it her defining year, and the instincts she brought with her read differently from the academics who held the job before her: medtech, workforce, closer ties to the business community.
Her first two years went to a hospital negotiation. Platt treats the end of that fight as the real beginning of her presidency, which makes year three the one people will grade her on. The strategic plan she's pushing came out of a hundred town halls. The reception from the people around her runs positive, with real friction in it.
We had an hour with a hard out and four locations to hit, one assistant. That math only works if the hour belongs entirely to her, so we scouted and set everything ahead of time and kept the moves short: her office in Morrill Hall, the sidewalk near Northrop where the elms filter the morning light, the colonnade at Bruininks, a rooftop with downtown and the river greenway behind her. Everything built and every location ready before she was standing there. The only thing left to do once she arrived was work.
Somewhere on the walk, a cyclist rode past and told her off. She wished him a nice day, noted he was exercising his free speech rights, and kept going.
Photos published in the August/September edition of Twin Cities Business Magazine.