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The University of Minnesota has picked its next vice president for research -- Brian Herman, of the University of Texas.  

Herman, a cellular and structural biology professor, is special assistant to the president at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the chancellor’s health fellow in collaboration for the UT System.

The University of Minnesota called him "an accomplished scientist, researcher, and academic administrator." Read his curriculum vitae here.

As vice president, Herman will oversee research on the U's five campuses, a portfolio that includes $786 million in research and development spending.

He starts Jan. 1, pending approval by the Board of Regents.

He beat out two other finalists for the post: Meredith Hay, a physiology professor at the University of Arizona, where she was provost from 2008 to 2011, and Mark Banaszak Holl, a chemistry professor at the University of Michigan and former associate vice president for research.

The job is now held by Tim Mulcahy, who joined the U in 2005 and will retire in December.

In a recent Business story about Mulcahy's years at the university, reporter Thomas Lee wrote:

Mulcahy walks away from the job confident the university has pumped a steady flow of jobs and innovation into Minnesota's economy. Once an intractable sinkhole for intellectual property, the university has emerged as a credible place to launch startups and develop new technologies.

The University of Minnesota has given an enthusiastic OK for a $1.18 billion biennial request to the Legislature that would trade increased funding for an undergraduate tuition freeze.

At a meeting Friday morning, the Board of Regents unanimously passed U President Eric Kaler's request, which also ties a small percentage of funding to the university meeting performance goals, such as increasing graduation rates.

"This budget reflects a new tone, a new commitment and a new conversation," said Regent Laura Brod. "And I think all three are welcome."

Unlike most requests, which are "about what we want, not about what you’re going to do," this promises specifics, she said.

In total, the U is asking for $91.6 million more, an 8.4 percent bump over the current biennium. A portion of that, a $14.2 million increase over each of the two years, would be linked to a tuition freeze for in-state undergraduates.

U officials say the proposed legislative request would bring state funding to its 2001 level, without adjusting for inflation.

Regent Clyde Allen said that the university is just asking for a small portion back of what's been cut in recent years. In exchange, it promises a tuition freeze.

"That is a bargain," he said.

The University of Minnesota is digging into what lessons it might learn from the investigation into the Pennsylvania State University child abuse scandal.

U President Eric Kaler told the Board of Regents on Thursday that he will appoint a committee to create a new policy on protecting children on the U's campuses.

But he stressed that while the university must be vigilant, no dramatic changes are needed. While the two universities have much in common, Kaler said, "I assure you we are in a very different place."

He said that  the university meets nearly all the recommendations given in the Freeh Report. For example, the University of Minnesota's athletics compliance director reports to the Office of the General Counsel, rather than athletics. That reporting structure was formed in 2000, after an academic fraud scandal enveloped the men's basketball program.

Kaler acknowledged that the University of Minnesota has dealt with its own "ethical lapses" over the years, including that academic cheating scandal. But it's been more than a decade since the university's last major NCAA infraction, he said.

The athletics department has "a thick file" with the NCAA, because it reports rule violations "no matter how apparently trivial they may be," Kaler said. He gave as an example a student athlete tweeting about two recruits on two consecutive days.

Other universities “report a suspiciously small number of violations," Kaler said.

The board discussed a report by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, released this week, which calls on governing boards to keep a closer eye on athletics. It says:

As spending on athletics by colleges and universities continues to rise, accompanied by mounting public ire about ethical and moral misconduct, it is critically important that governing boards monitor and oversee the impact of athletics on the academic missions of the institutions for which they have fiduciary responsibility.

Several regents said that while the U's structures seem to be strong, they must guard against complacency.

"It can happen anywhere. It can happen to us," Regent Richard Beeson said. "It has happened to us.

"So 'humble' is a good word as we dissect this very unfortunate situation at Penn State."

Each year, University of Minnesota officials present to the Board of Regents a hefty "accountability" report that delves into topics including enrollment, class sizes and dissertation fellowships.

It can get a little dry.

But this time, U leaders turned the draft report's 150 pages into 15 myths they then debunked, one by one. The first: "It takes forever to graduate from the U. No one graduates in four years."

"It's just not true," Provost Karen Hanson said at Friday's regents meeting.

The Twin Cities campus' four-year graduation rate hit 57.2 percent in 2012, the report shows -- up from 28.9 percent of the class that started in 1998. The university had set a goal of 60 percent by 2012.

The most recent six-year graduation rate is now 72.9 percent, according to the report. The goal is 80 percent by 2014.

Here are a few other myths, with the U's explanation of why they're not true:

Classes at the U are huge and mostly taught in large lecture halls.

About "38 percent of undergraduate classes on the Twin Cities campus have fewer than 20 students, and 13 percent have more than 100 students."

The U isn't diverse, just a bunch of Scandinavians.

"Across all campuses student enrollment is 15 percent students of color and another 9 percent are international students. For the Twin Cities campus, the in-state freshman class is 23 percent students of color."

The U is so hard to get into that it no longer represents Minnesota.

"The majority of our students are from Minnesota." The report shows that 69.1 percent of Twin Cities undergraduates are from Minnesota, compared to 71.7 percent in 2006.

In the tough world of community college graduation rates, Alexandria Technical and Community College wins.

The school has the highest three-year graduation rates of the state's public, two-year colleges: 51 percent of students completed their degree within 150 percent of the normal time, according to 2010 numbers published by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.

Officials at Alexandria acknowledge that number is partly due to the college's technical focus. Most students enroll in a very specific program with a very specific goal.

"We don’t put them through a year and a half of courses not related to what they want to do," said Jan Doebbert, vice president of academic and student affairs. "They start working in area of interest right out of the shoot as a first-year freshman."

But "there is also a sort of intangible," he said, "a culture of high expectations."

The word "community" was added to the college's name in 2010, to acknowledge its new two-year liberal arts degree, so that students might transfer to a four-year school. The college requires students working toward that degree to take a one-credit class in career planning, Doebbert said, "so they don't end up in the middle with just a bill."

As I reported in a story Monday, several colleges within the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system are trying similar "student success" courses. That story featured a three-credit course at Century College in White Bear Lake.

It's important to note that Alexandria Technical and Community College does not have the strongest numbers when three-year graduation is combined with its transfer rate -- and "examining both graduation and transfer rates more accurately reflects student outcomes," according to the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.

About 64 percent of Alexandria's students graduate or transfer within three years. But 75 percent of students at Rainy River Community College do.

University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler introduced himself Thursday morning to 5,500 first-year students with a black-and-white silent film.

It stars Kaler and his roommate, Goldy Gopher, experiencing the firsts of college life. Its music was composed by a U graduate student, Tiffany Skidmore.

Kaler then went on to congratulate the class of 2016 -- with its highest average ACT score in university history -- encourage them not to "do anything stupid," and stress that in four years, they ought to be graduating.

He also talked about his co-star: "Goldy is a trip. Just never stopped jumping around. Always doing push-ups. Constantly grooming his tail. Always flossing his tooth. And that spinning head is just over the top."

"Hopefully, your roommate experience will be a bit lower key," he said. "But maybe not."

Read the full text of his remarks here.