Minneapolis College

As noted in my previous post on the University of Minnesota, I was in Minneapolis for a board meeting and had some time to look around the city thanks to an extremely early morning flight. It has been a while since I posted on a community college, so when I saw that the hotel in which I was staying in Minneapolis was just less than a mile’s walk from campus I made sure to visit. As I have mentioned in my posts on Arkansas State University Mid-south, Northwest Mississippi Community College, and Southwest Tennessee Community College, community colleges are often viewed as "less than" four-year colleges and universities. This is particularly case for many faculty at four-year institutions. The mission of two-year schools is, of course, different than that of four-year schools, but different does not necessarily less. Thus, I try to give attention to these colleges as often as I can.

What would become the college started life as a school for girls. It was founded by Elizabeth Fish in 1914. Ms. Fish was the first principal and namesake of the school. It was independent of the local school district and provided training mainly in domestic sciences. Boys would be admitted in 1921. It merged with the Minneapolis Public Schools and in 1932 it would acquire a new name, the Mary Miller Vocational High School. Mary Miller was a pioneer in the area and opened the first school in Minneapolis in 1852. Although the name was lost, Ms. Fish is remembered today with a scholarship at the college that bears her name, the Elizabeth Fish Memorial and Bertha Beret Endowed Scholarship. Sometime in the 1960’s the name would change to the Minneapolis Area Vocational Technical Institute. It would change again in 1965 to the Minneapolis Community College and was part of the Metropolitan State Junior College. That name did not last long either, as by 1974 it was changed to the Metropolitan Community College System. The Metropolitan Community College System was short lived, so the school changed its name again to Minneapolis Community College in 1979. Sometime in the early 1980’s the college moved to its current location on Hennepin Avenue, on a 9.59-acre site adjacent to Loring Park. In addition to acquiring a new site, it once again received a new name, the Minneapolis Technical Institute. That name was also short lived, and it was renamed the Minneapolis Technical College within a few short years. That name actually stayed around for a few years, although not a terribly long time. In 1995, the state created the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System. As part of that effort, the college was combined with the Minneapolis Community College and in 1996 the institution emerged with the name of Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC). The name changed to its current moniker in 2022. That is a significant number of changes in such a short time. So much so, in fact, that the college still has the Minneapolis Community and Technical College name on the side of the Technical Building (see below) and a variety of other things.  

The first photo is of the Ackerberg Science Center (foreground) and the Technical Building as I approached the campus from the east along Hennepin Avenue. Ackerberg got its name in honor of Sanders "Sandy" Ackerberg. Mr. Ackerberg was a former member and president of the college’s foundation board. Born in Minneapolis in 1923, Ackerberg was part of the Greatest Generation and as such fought in World War II. He was a B-24 pilot in the 7th Army Air Corps in the Pacific. After the war, he returned home to enroll in the University of Minnesota, from which he graduated with a degree in architecture (Class of 1949). He lived out his life as an architect and developer in the Twin Cities. Unfortunately, I was not able to find out much about the building which carries his name. Mr. Ackerberg passed away in December 2009. 

As you can see and as noted above, the Technical Building still carries the college’s previous name. I was a bit surprised by that, especially seeing as how it would be east enough to modify the sign. The college’s logo is still the same. The enclosed walkway you see extending from the building connects to the college's parking deck on the other side of Hennepin. An aside here on this point. Growing up, I always called such structures "parking garages". When I moved to Richmond, Virginia I found the locals there refer to them as "parking decks" when they are above ground, and "parking garages" when they are below ground. Still, regardless, many people there simply call them parking decks. This parking structure at Minneapolis College carries a fairly common Midwest moniker, a "parking ramp". To this day, I still use the Virginia style for decks and garages despite the fact that in Memphis where I live today everyone calls both versions a parking garage. Regional colloquialisms are interesting things and unfortunately thanks to the ease of information sharing in our technical age, less common. The Technical Building opened in either 1979 or 1980. I've seen both dates online and am unsure of which is correct. It opened with the name "T Building".  The last four photos show the Technical Building's west façade. The greenspace you see in these photos was completed in 2010. The enclosed walkway you see in the last photo connects the Technical Building with the Helland Center (see below).

The college had moved to its present site in 1967 and there were four buildings on campus from a previous tenant. I am not sure what happened to those structures, but believe they were all razed to make way for the current buildings on campus.

​Next, we have two photos of the Management Education Center. The land on which it sits was once the location of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's Minneapolis location. I don't believe the existing building, at the least the part with the dark black glass, was part of that office but I may be mistaken. The older building was undergoing some kind of work to make it suitable for their new baccalaureate initiative. ​This sits behind the Ackerberg Science Center to the south.

The set below begins with a view of Wheelock Whitney Hall from Hennepin Avenue looking south. It is one of two buildings to carry the Wheelock name. It takes its name from Wheelock “Whee” Whitney, Jr. A classmate of future President George H.W. Bush at both Phillips Andover and Yale University, and like President Bush was in the Navy during World War II. Mr. Wheelock was a businessman who, among other roles, was CEO of the J.M. Dain & Company and was president of the Investment Bankers Association of America. His first wife, Irene, who passed away from cancer in 1986, struggled with alcoholism which led Wheelock to co-founded the Johnson Institute, an addiction treatment center. He was also the chair of the National Council on Alcoholism. He was active in all manner of health concerns in Minnesota where he helped to found the Minnesota Council on Health and served on the boards of the Minnesota Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the Minnesota Council on AIDS. ​The building was named in his honor in 2003 and houses the college's library. Mr. Wheelock died in 2016 at age 89.

The second photo shows an enclosed walkway connecting the Lee and Barbara Kopp Hall, which is more or less attached to Whitney, to the Technical Building. Enclosed walkways are, of course, a staple in Minneapolis and other locations in Minnesota, where they protect pedestrians from the intense winter cold. Kopp opened in 1978 as the C Building. Lee Kopp was a businessman who worked for the Dain Bosworth company for thirty years before he founded and led the Kopp Investment Advisors company in 1990. He and wife Barbara founded the Kopp Family Foundation which supports a variety of causes, but which largely supports college students via numerous scholarships. The Kopp's have donated more than $2.2 million to the college since 1995. The last three photos are of south side of Kopp Hall.

The set below begins with two photos of the Philip C. Helland Center. Construction began on the building in 1984. A renovation and addition was completed in 2012 which added 5,416 square feet to the building and connected to the Irene H. Whitney Fine Arts Center next door. The renovation and addition was the work of LHB Architects, a Minneapolis-based firm which has designed buildings at Carleton College and Lake Superior College among others. Philip Helland was the founding chancellor of the Minnesota Community College System, a position he held for twenty years until retiring in 1993. He graduated from Augsburg University (Class of 1942) and joined the Army Air Corps during World War II. He flew he flew 29 missions as a navigator. If you are keeping count, that was four more than he needed to get to go home to the state. For actions in the war, he was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross, four air medals, and four bronze stars. After the war he earned a master's in teaching from the University of Minnesota and later an Ed.D. from Teacher's College, Columbia. He and his wife donated funds to create the Philip and Ruth Helland Scholarship at Augsburg in memory of Judith Maria Helland. He passed away in 2012. The first two photos show another enclosed walkway, this one connecting the Technical Building with the Helland Center. The third is a close-up of the front (west façade) of the building. The columns and glasswork you see in that shot are part of the 2012 renovation/addition. The Helland Center is the college's student union. The fourth photo is the same enclosed walkway, this time viewed from the opposite looking westward. The last photo is the Irene H. Whitney Fine Arts Center. It is named in honor of Wheelock Whitney's late first wife Irene (née Hixon). It was built sometime in the 1980's and was renovated as part of the 2012 effort. It has a performance hall, exhibition space, classrooms, and offices. Mrs. Whitney passed away from cancer in 1986.

I will close with the Minneapolis College version of the ever-present campus lamppost sign. Today, Minneapolis College has 9,131 students and a lovely campus near downtown. The campus has some 1.2 million square feet of buildings and an operating budget over $53 million. In 2023, the college awarded 744 Associate degrees, 486 Certificates, and 107 Diplomas. It is an important component of higher education in Minneapolis and the rest of Minnesota.