Mary Jane LaVigne

Eisenia fetida is having a fine winter in the University of Saint Thomas greenhouse. The worms, commonly called red wigglers, are housed in bins, on beds of coffee grounds. It’s part of a food-waste recycling demonstration overseen by biology professor, Dr. Chester Wilson.

The teenager would not get out of Gada Roba’s car. He had seen the people drinking as they waited outside the homeless shelter. The youth was Muslim and had never been around people who were drinking. Threatened at home, the immigrant student had approached his teacher, Roba for help. But he was too frightened to stay at the shelter and insisted Roba drop him off on Lake Street. “It was near a mosque where they often let people stay the night,” Roba explains. “I went home. But I couldn’t sleep. I had just left a child on the street.”

It’s going to be a short move for Noya Woodrich on July 3, just down the hall to her new corner office. That’s the day she’ll take over as President and CEO of the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches (GMCC) from Rev. Gary Reierson who retires after 23 years at the post. She’ll be both the first woman and the first American Indian to head the 107-year-old organization; even so, the change is more evolution than revolution.

Anton Treuer had paid the repair bill and was headed to the lot to pick up his car when the mechanic called after him, “Miigwech!” For Dr.