By: Alexi Gusso

The Minnesota Daily sat down with University of Minnesota president Eric Kaler Tuesday.

Kaler, who is nearing the end of his second term, discussed his support for the DREAM Act, why he supports a smoke-free campus and publicizing class evaluation forms. 

A version of the DREAM Act passed the Senate last week. You’ve indicated that you’d support implementing the policy at the University. Do you foresee any possible opposition?

I haven’t heard anything from the [Board of Regents] on this. I imagine I’ll hear some opposition from some corners. It seems to me that it’s easy to find someone who’s opposed to almost everything. But I believe it’s the right thing to do, to provide in-state benefits for undocumented students, and I would advance that for the University.

At Friday’s Board of Regents meeting the student representatives are presenting their annual report. They’re recommending that the University becomes smoke free and you’ve indicated that you support this.  Why do you think the U should be smoke free?

I’ve always supported this despite what I read in your paper the other day. What I was eager to do when this came around the first time was hold a line around being sure that we did a broad buy-in across the entire University population and we have that now. It’s come up through governance and I think we have the momentum behind it to make it stick. 

At the end of the day it’s the people at the University and the community that needs to want to do this, it’s not me or the police force running around giving people demerits for smoking. It really needs to be a community decision and I’m glad to support that, I’m glad that’s where we are now and I’m eager to see it in place.

The student reps are also presenting ways to increase transparency of the University-wide instructor evaluation forms students fill out for each of their courses. What do you think about this idea?

I think student evaluations should be more transparent. The information about the class structure and what and how it’s taught is information that’s useful to know as they make decisions about what classes to fit into schedules.

However, it is clear from the lawyers that the personal information about the teachers’ performance does belong to the faculty member, and so my understanding is that they have to release that voluntarily, but I think some information should be more easily available to students

For the full interview, check out tomorrow's Daily.