“Over these past months you've learned a lot about St. Thomas: our programs, our majors and minors, our campus, our employment outcomes, you may know something about our history and traditions, but there's something important about St. Thomas," President Rob Vischer said at the opening ceremony. "It's shaped by what you bring.

"Our culture is built year after year by our faculty, staff and students who pass through those arches. That's why we spent time at the opening of every school year talking about these convictions, values and commitments. That's why we're here. They're foundational to the community that we're becoming."

The new incoming class is the 142nd at St. Thomas and includes over 2,000 undergraduates. The new first-year students alone represent 30 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and 42 nations. About one of every three first-year students are representing their families as a first-generation college scholar.

"You will walk across the historic threshold together, leaving behind the separate paths that brought you here and stepping forward into a shared journey," said Paul Mueller, the VP of strategic enrollment management. "Every single one of you has a distinct purpose to uncover, but none of you have to do it alone. We are all in this together. You belong to this community, and our mission is richer because of you."

St. Thomas welcomed its incoming class with a week of activities during Welcome Days, Sept. 1-8. New Tommies got to know one another through icebreakers on the field at O’Shaughnessy Stadium, met their deans during Academic College Day, explored extracurricular opportunities at the Student Engagement Fair and showed their school spirit at Tommie Athletics' events such as the pep rally.

From the article:
Ms. Clancy’s trial, in which she pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, ended on Friday in a mistrial after jurors were unable to come to a unanimous decision. Two legal experts agreed in interviews that Mr. Trump cannot pardon Ms. Clancy on the first-degree murder charges she still faces in Massachusetts.

“It’s not a federal case, and the pardon power only covers federal cases, and that’s very clearly established,” said Mark Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis who specializes in clemency issues. ...

Ms. Oyer and Professor Osler speculated that Mr. Reddington might be trying to seek a similarly symbolic pardon from Mr. Trump in order to ramp up pressure on prosecutors and the governor. “It could be that if Trump can do the same type of signaling at a federal level, then the governor of Massachusetts will follow,” Professor Osler said.

From the article:
In late August, a 50% tariff on many popular Canadian goods, including hockey equipment, went into effect after trade talks between the countries stalled. Since then, Canada has vowed to enact retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods as part of a pointed trade war that started after President Donald Trump began his second term in 2025.

Changes on campus

The men’s hockey program at the University of St. Thomas works exclusively with equipment manufacturer CCM, which is headquartered in Montreal and was founded in 1899 as Canada Cycle and Motor. With each member of the Tommies’ roster using between 12 and 24 sticks each season, Adam Krinsky – the school’s assistant athletics director for equipment operations – buys in bulk.

That provides a bit of a break from retail prices, but Krinsky acknowledged he has been hearing from CCM reps more than usual as the U.S. and Canada escalate their war of words.

“I got an email this morning. I got an email two days ago,” Krinsky said last week. “It’s very much on everyone’s radar right now, and we’re just trying to figure it all out.”

The Tommies’ equipment budget for the 2026-27 season was drafted last January, and many of the orders for gear such as sticks, helmets, gloves, pants and elbow pads were placed in July. Since then, the White House announced its new tariffs, and specifically mentioned hockey sticks in its announcement.

“Things change so much, so you have to have a Plan A, a Plan B and a Plan C,” Krinsky said. “Moving forward, I think that’s what everybody is doing right now. We’re having to adjust on the fly.”

The 2026 index found that State Fair prices rose about 3.1%, a significant slowdown from the previous year and more closely aligned with overall inflation. While many fair staples held steady in price, some food items saw increases, including the Turkey-to-Go turkey leg.

Schipper and the On a Stick Index were featured by:

NPR:
Joel Rose: OK. But we promised the on-a-stick index here. So what is happening with corn dogs?

Scott Horsley: This is very interesting. Schipper’s price index makes a distinction between Minnesota’s brand-name sausage-on-a-stick, Pronto Pups, and the more generic corn dogs.

Schipper: Pronto Pups are much more associated with being a Minnesota State Fair staple. Hence, it gets its own item in our index. But people get hungry, and there are lots more corn dog openings, and so we wanted to include corn dogs in the index as well.

Horsley: And the prices have diverged. Corn dog prices were actually down a bit this year, but the price of Pronto Pups was up about 7%. So unlike what we’re seeing in supermarkets around the country, people don’t seem to be trading down from the brand name to generics when it comes to corn dogs. Now, I will say Pronto Pup prices had not changed at all for the last couple of years, so there may be a little catch-up going on there.

Rose: Well, take us up to the top of the Ferris wheel and give us the big picture. What is happening with fair prices overall?

Horsley: The price for a ride on the Ferris wheel actually hasn’t changed since 2023. It’s just kind of circling in place. But the overall cost of living on a stick was up 3.1% this year. That’s a smaller price hike than the last couple of years at the fairground. So inflation at the fair is cooling a bit, just as it is with the cost of living overall. 

Axios:
By the numbers: The University of St. Thomas’ “On-A-Stick” fair inflation index was up 3.1% this year, much milder than last year’s 7.4% jump.

How it works: St. Thomas economics professor Tyler Schipper and his team of students calculate the index by tracking prices for admission, transportation, parking and rides.

Between the lines: Unlike last year – which saw price hikes of $2 per ticket and $5 for parking – the cost of most other items held more or less steady this year.

KSTP:
“What drew me into this project was the opportunity to connect classroom learning to real life, and especially a Minnesotan tradition like the State Fair,” Hidanshi, a University of St. Thomas student, said.

Another St. Thomas student, Vuyo, added: “It was so fun to have concepts from school and applying them to actual real-life situations, like calculating inflation at the State Fair and being able to publish some of that data and helping everyday individuals understand economics, understand what’s happening in their country, in their state and just able to be conscious about their spending at the State Fair and how that changes every year.”

WCCO Radio:
Jason DeRusha: Well, there are so many things. There are more than 2,000 things you can buy from vendors at the State Fair. So, are you tracking beer price?

Schipper: Yes. One beer price.

DeRusha: One beer price.

Schipper: There’s a mini-donut beer in there because when we had to decide on what to put in this index, that was always going to be controversial. That gave me nightmares ahead of time. How are we not going to offend Minnesotans by not including their thing in here?

So we did a survey. We asked people what’s the quintessential Minnesota State Fair thing, and I’m not a big beer drinker, but we had several people who filled out the survey say, “I always go for the mini-donut beer,” and we’re like, well, that’s a fun beer item to put in the index.

DeRusha: Makes sense.

Schipper: Hopefully, it moves overall with other beer prices, so that we’re not too far off. But you’re absolutely right that choosing what goes in here, how to deal with new products coming out, how to deal with people changing their behavior over time. Those are actually all the teachable moments that I get to have with the students each year. That we’re going to be talking about how to change these things over time.

So, right before we went on, one of the things we’re talking about is that if you’re like me and I’ve noticed what size lemonades everybody has, last year at the fair it was all 16-ounce lemonades. This year, everybody’s upgraded to 32-ounce lemonades.

So, we got to start figuring out how to shift over to measuring those 32-ounce lemonades instead of the 16-ounce, but also make sure that doesn’t lead to a one-time jump in the index. So next year we’ll start gathering the data. The year after that we’ll include an index and kind of keep going from there.

FOX 9:
This year, the report found that fair inflation rose 3% – a much milder increase compared to last year’s 7% jump. Admission and parking costs both remained the same from last year.

Researchers also tracked 18 food and beverage staples, and several of the most beloved options held their prices steady.

Sweet Martha’s Cookies, roasted corn and Dairy Barn Malts were all unchanged this year.

The one item that stung

Not everything stayed flat, however.

The turkey leg from Turkey to Go is up to $20 this year – one of the more noticeable price hikes at the fair. In 2025, it was $18.

KARE 11:
“The reason we saw such a high price increase in that category is because those prices might stay the same for several years and then they go from $6 to $7 in a year and that shows up as a 16% increase for that ride, but when you zoom out and average it out over several years the increase is more modest,” Schipper said. 

He added that admission prices and parking rates are also affected by sudden price increases of a dollar or more at a time, and those larger increases can greatly affect the numbers. 

This year the “On a Stick Index” project has expanded into other research projects that are led by students like sophomore Hitanshi Gaudani and senior Kaylee Cantelon.

“I’m looking into what makes a vendor price their product. We are also looking at Pronto Pups and how there are eight locations where you can purchase them at the fair, but we are seeing which stand is truly the most affordable when you consider how much time you have to wait in line to get them, because time is money, even though the actual price is the same across each stand,” Cantelon said.

From the article:
In July, private equity giant KKR announced it was acquiring Integer for $5.7 billion – turning the company’s ownership structure private. The sale offers a glimpse into the increasingly valuable manufacturing infrastructure behind Minnesota’s medical-device industry. The company has a large Minnesota presence, so any disruptions or changes pushed by the new owners could have an outsized impact on their local facilities and employees. ...

Since then, Integer has made “horizontal consolidation” moves in the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) space, rather than big, sweeping moves, according to Muer Yang, a professor in the Department of Operations and Supply Chain Management at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business.

“They do this for economies of scale, [to] make things cheaper,” he says. “It’s more for adding complementary technologies to become broader and not just bigger.”

From the conversation:
Susie Jones: What do you think of higher education right now and the cost? I know when I went to the University of Minnesota in 1870. My mom wrote a check and I would stand in line at the registrar at the University of Minnesota. It can be prohibitive.

Vischer: Certainly, we keep an eye on the cost. We raise a lot of money for scholarships. We try to keep things affordable. I’ll run through some numbers because I think there are some misperceptions about the value proposition of St. Thomas today.

So at St. Thomas, the Class of 2025, which is the last class we have all the numbers in for, 98% had positive career outcomes, 86% had a job related to their major, 90% started in full-time positions, and the median starting salary was just over $70,000 a year.

Now, about half of our graduates graduate with some federal loans, and the average indebtedness is about $20,000. So when you look at those numbers, we’re actually a very strong proposition. We’ve got to get that story out. Our students do really well on the job market, and they’re not graduating with mountains and mountains of debt in most cases. So we still think we’re a great case.

From the article:
Parents like the safety that comes with living on campus, Baughman said, and it makes the university’s many resources more readily accessible to students. These include everything from academic tutoring to recreational facilities to St. Thomas’ Center for Well-Being with its coaches and counselors to aid students in taking care of themselves.

“When we look at the world of student affairs, my priorities include supporting student well-being and student connection, creating community and belonging,” she said. “We know all of those are tied to students graduating, finishing what they set out to do here.”

Another priority, Baughman said, is “increasing our support for first-generation students. We continue to see this population growing at St. Thomas. We continue to enroll more international students, and we’re paying attention to support them, too.

“I’m inspired daily by the students here,” Baughman said. “We have students who are working multiple jobs, supporting families and are so committed to their college education. I look at what our students are doing volunteering in the community. Last year, we had over 4,200 students volunteering, and we only have about 6,000 undergraduate students. They collectively invested over 151,000 hours into the community volunteering.”

From Minnesota Star Tribune:
Although social media companies try to restrict access to users 13 years and older, age gates remain easy to circumvent, said University of St. Thomas data science professor John Chandler. The result, he said, is that many kids experience the world in the same way all consumers do.

Besides the monetary award, Chandler said Meta is now showing a commitment to “putting in place things we know will help.” Some of those include interrupting the endless scroll, which prevents users from reaching a natural stopping point.

“I think that this is a landmark moment in our ability to change the balance of power between consumers and these large tech companies,” he said, calling the user restrictions “a big win.”

From FOX9:

Symone Woolridge: From what you have seen and also heard from a marketing perspective, why are teenagers such an important audience for Meta to focus on?

John Chandler: Teenagers are important for a couple reasons. A big one is teenagers basically define what’s cool in society, right? Every company, every brand is trying to attract more young people. They’re the tastemakers.

Also, the habits that we form when we’re young, and particularly in relationship to companies, can persist into adulthood. So somebody who’s using Instagram a lot as a teenager is likely to grow up to be somebody who uses Instagram a lot. And so these young users represent future adults that Meta can make money from across their whole lifetime with the platform.

Woolridge: If you think about it, $17.1 billion. We’re talking about a lot of money here within this settlement. When you think about the business model moving forward, what do you think could be done? What else could be done here, or is this at least a steppingstone?

Chandler: It’s a steppingstone. There are a number of other cases; I’m involved with legal cases related to school districts. So school districts have sued the social media platforms in an effort to recoup some of the costs they’ve spent working on teenage mental health.

With enrollment in the Susan S. Morrison School of Nursing doubling since 2020 to more than 500 students this fall, the school needed additional teaching space.

“This lab enables our students to have the opportunity to have a wonderful learning experience,” Morrison Family College of Health Dean Dr. MayKao Y. Hang said.

Members of the Morrison family and the St. Thomas community celebrated the new space at a ribbon-cutting Aug. 26.

From KARE 11:

University of St. Thomas Economics Professor Tyler Schipper is also worried about an escalating trade war and how it could affect long-term relationships with our neighbor to the north.

“Canada has been one of the countries that has been least likely to back down, which kind of raises the prospects that this gets worse rather than better,” Professor Schipper explained.

So again, the tariffs that went into effect over the weekend only affect about 5% of the goods the U.S. imports from Canada every year.

The question moving forward is: What happens next? Do both sides come back to negotiate, or is this just the beginning?

From WCCO-TV:

Tyler Schipper, an economics professor at the University of St. Thomas, said he doesn’t expect broad economic consequences in Minnesota.

“Nobody’s winning right now,” Schipper said.

He noted that some consumers could feel the impact if tariffs drive up prices on imported products.

“If you’re an individual consumer and you really like that Canadian whisky, this could hurt a lot,” Schipper said.

However, Schipper noted that any tariff-related price increases could be moderated by reduced demand, making the ultimate impact difficult to predict.

He does have one big worry.

“One of the places where this trade war could escalate, if it did, would be with petroleum exports,” Schipper said. “We get a lot of our crude oil here in Minnesota from Canada, and if that was something that the Canadians decided to use as a lever, as was actually suggested by the prime minister, that could really escalate the effect on people here in Minnesota.”

From WCCO Radio:

How much of a reality is the threat of cutting off electricity?

“Nationally, we import, call it 1% of total power from Canada, but here in Minnesota that percentage is probably more in the 5% to 10% range,” explains University of St. Thomas Economics Professor Tyler Schipper. “And that means that it’s likely power prices go up if there’s any kind of sustained delay in delivering electricity from Canada.”

Schipper said if this were to occur, there wouldn’t be instant blackouts. Instead, it is one more thing that would affect pocketbooks with it mostly being a cost issue.

“Hopefully there’s additional capacity from local power generations and elsewhere in the regional grid that you would be able to make up for this, but for the most part this is mostly a cost issue,” Schipper adds.