Liberal Arts Expertise around COVID-19

“The work we do is our strength. The questions we ask, the analytical tools we bring, the perspectives we raise from our various disciplines—that’s the heart of how the liberal arts advances our understanding of critical societal issues… . Our work is our strength. Nothing we are going through right now changes that in the least.” — John Coleman, dean
Here you’ll find the stories in which our faculty are bringing their insights and expertise to the benefit of us all during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Last updated 12/30/22)
Keith Mayes, associate professor
Expertise: 19th and 20th-century African American History, Kwanzaa and Black holidays, Civil Rights and Black Power Movement, Black history and educational policy, African American public history
- COVID-19 Is Disproportionately Impacting African Americans (Dialogue Minnesota)
Brenda Child, Northrop Professor
Expertise: American Indian history, multiculturalism, native culture, the jingle dress
- ‘Every step you take is prayer': As coronavirus spreads, women lead virtual dance for healing (MPR)
- Created during Spanish flu, jingle dress dance now helping First Nations people cope with COVID-19 (CBC)
- When Art Is Medicine (The New York Times)
- 'Nothing will ever replace the feeling of sitting in that arena': COVID-19 puts powwow season on pause — and online (MPR News)
- Jingle Dress Dancers in the Modern World: Ojibwe People & Pandemics (University of Minnesota)
Learn how our economists are helping with the pandemic response
As the novel coronavirus has evolved into a worldwide pandemic, the toll on economies has increased dramatically. Along with epidemiologists and public health experts, economists are using their expertise to offer insightful analysis and policy recommendations for mitigating the impact (in both health and financial terms) now and into the future. View a compilation of Department of Economics COVID-related news, research in progress, and other updates.
V. V. Chari, Paul Frenzel Land Grant Professor of Liberal Arts and an advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Expertise: Financial intermediation, fiscal and monetary policy, industrial organizations, macroeconomics, public economics
- Should Minnesota still be investing in fossil fuels? (City Pages)
- Minnesota economist: There is only one way to return to normal quickly (KSTP)
- Test the healthy and gather data we don't already have (Star Tribune)
- Job losses hitting nearly 20% of Minnesota workers (Star Tribune)
- Forced to make cruel choices (UMN Retirees Association)
- Economics professor V. V. Chari Comments on Loss of Small Businesses (KSTP)
- Keeping the Stock Slide in Perspective (UMN Alumni Association)
- Private schools, law firms among biggest PPP loan recipients in Minnesota (KSTP)
- KARE 11 Investigates: Big businesses, exclusive clubs get federal small business loans (KARE 11)
Timothy Kehoe, Distinguished McKnight Professor and an advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Expertise: Applied general equilibrium modeling, intertemporal general equilibrium theory, trade theory
- The Economic Fallout From COVID-19 (Dialogue Minnesota)
- Coronavirus' economic impact will be felt widely, but unevenly (MPR)
- The COVID-19 Pandemic's Economic Impact (Dialogue Minnesota)
Chris Phelan, Chair of the Department of Economics and an advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Expertise: Monetary economics, public economics, macroeconomic theory, incentives, inequality, game theory
- A month into mass quarantine — what now? (Star Tribune)
- Test the healthy and gather data we don't already have (Star Tribune)
- Economists and epidemiologists work to find a balance amid pandemic (Longer interview with Phelan) (Fox9)
- Coming Back From COVID (Center of the American Experiment) - webinar
Aldo Rustichini, professor
Expertise: Economic dynamics, game theory, mathematics for economists, microeconomic theory, models of bounded rationality, political economy
Katherine Scheil, professor
Expertise: Shakespeare, early modern literature, theatre history and performance studies, archival study, history of reading, women's studies/feminist criticism/history of women, 18th-century literature
- Celebrating Shakespeare in a Pandemic (University of Minnesota)
Professor Abdi Samatar, professor
Expertise: Development theory and the state, capitalist development, environment and development, political economy, agrarian change, ethnic politics, East and Southern Africa, Third World, Islamic world, Botswana, Somalia, Ethiopia
- SA and Covid-19: Is this an opportunity for transformation? (Sunday Times)
COVID through the Eyes of Historians
The coronavirus pandemic will live not only in our memories but also in our history books. How does COVID-19 compare to other infectious diseases? What other implications does it have for our societies? In this series, faculty experts reflect on what we can learn from past epidemics and how we might change in response to this one.
William P. Jones, professor, AFSCME's Jerry Wurf Memorial Fund Scholar-in-Residence, and president of the Labor and Working-Class History Association
Expertise: Labor, work, unions, race, civil rights, African Americans, 20th-century United States
- Front-line workers in the covid-19 fight need unions (The Washington Post)
Erika Lee, Regents Professor of History and Asian American Studies, Director of the Immigration History Research Center, and Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair in Immigration History
Expertise: Xenophobia, Migration, race, and ethnicity; Asian Americans; 20th-century United States; law and public policy
- When Xenophobia Spreads Like A Virus (NPR)
- Immigration Crackdowns Are Not Unusual In Trying Times (NPR)
- Xenophobia ‘takes its toll’ as Trump works to curb immigration (PRI)
- Prof. Erika Lee on the History of Public Health Crises and Xenophobia (University Relations)
- Asian American Discrimination And The Coronavirus Crisis (wbur)
- Immigrants in COVID America website (University of Minnesota)
Ryan Allen, associate professor
Expertise: Race and ethnicity, urban and regional planning, civic engagement and public participation, demography, housing policy and planning, immigration and refugee services and policy
- Immigrant Legal Status among Essential Frontline Workers in the U.S. during the COVID-19 Pandemic Era (University of Minnesota) - Zoom recording
Emily Vraga, associate professor, Don & Carole Larson Professorship in Health Communication
Expertise: Identifying and correcting misinformation, political communication, health communication, digital media effects
- How to Avoid Misinformation About COVID-19 (Smithsonian Magazine)
- Here's how to debunk coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories from friends and family (CNN)
- What to Expect When You’re Expecting—During a Pandemic (Mother Jones)
- Americans are fighting coronavirus misinformation on social media (The Washington Post)
- A Misinformation Pandemic (UMN School of Public Health)
- A med-school staffer dived into online groups to debunk coronavirus conspiracy theories. Would anyone listen? (The Washington Post)
- Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine Misconceptions (Minneapolis St Paul Magazine)
- COVID-19's misinformation wake-up call (Axios)
Alan Love, John M. Dolan Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science
Expertise: Philosophy of biology; philosophy of medicine; history of biology; science and religion
Valerie Tiberius, Paul W. Frenzel Chair in Liberal Arts, Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy
Expertise: Ethics, moral psychology, well-being
- Preparing for Happiness During the Pandemic (UMN Alumni Association)
Christopher Federico, professor and director of the Center for the Study of Political Psychology
Expertise: Political psychology, ideology and belief systems, political knowledge, race and politics, quantitative methods in the social sciences
- Will the coronavirus make conservatives love government spending? (Washington Post)
- Fox News viewers use fewer Covid-19 safety precautions than CNN viewers, study finds (CNN)
Timothy Johnson, professor
Expertise: Supreme Court Oral Arguments and Decision Making, The Evolution of the Norm of Respecting Precedent in U.S. Courts, Executive/Judiciary Relations, Judicial Politics, American politics
- Pandemic means a silent June at the Supreme Court (Associated Press)
-
U.S. Supreme Court Live Streams Oral Arguments (Dialogue Minnesota)
Howard Lavine, associate dean of the social sciences in the College of Liberal Arts, Arleen C. Carlson Professor of Political Science and Psychology
Expertise: Human rights, populism, partisan asymmetries, the intersection of race and political context on public opinion, and the psychological underpinnings of mass political behavior
- Will the coronavirus make conservatives love government spending? (Washington Post)
August Nimtz, professor
Expertise: African politics, comparative politics, ethnic politics, Marxism, political development, politics of the transition to socialism, political economy
- Politics in Practice: Capitalism and COVID-19 (Palgrave Macmillan)
-
It’s a big deal that the outrage expressed over George Floyd’s death was massive and multiracial (MinnPost)
Kathryn Pearson, associate chair, Department of Political Science
Expertise: American politics, US Congress, women and politics, Congressional elections and political behavior, US political parties
- It's Not Politics As Usual in the Era of COVID-19 (Dialogue Minnesota)
- As governors battle Trump over pandemic, Walz plays Minnesota nice (Star Tribune)
- Minnesota governor charts path to reopening as political pressure intensifies (CNN)
- Politics In The Age Of COVID-19 (Dialogue Minnesota)
Timely: Psychology Research During COVID-19
Psychologists are uniquely positioned to do good during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a series of short stories and social media posts, Department of Psychology researchers are exploring ways in which people, communities, and organizations are impacted by COVID-19, and how each can best manage and respond to stressors, transitions, and challenges that they are now confronting.
Patricia Frazier, Distinguished McKnight University Professor
Expertise: Counseling and social, coping with traumatic life events; PTSD and post-traumatic growth; perceptions of control over traumatic events
Nathan Kuncel, professor
Expertise: Structure and prediction of academic and work performance, predictive validity of standardized tests and non-cognitive predictors
Richard M. Lee, Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Distinguished University Teaching Professor
Expertise: Racism, discrimination, xenophobia and implications for mental health and parenting in Asian American families; impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, well-being, and school/work performance; transracial and transnational adoption; culture-specific risk and protective factors on the development and well-being of families and youth of color
- Supporting Asian/Asian American Children and Youth during the COVID-19 Pandemic (Society for Research in Child Development) - webinar
- Xenophobia and COVID-19: Strategies to Support Asian American Communities (Center on Race and Social Problems) - webinar
- UMN launches study measuring University impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic (MN Daily)
- Tired? Lack of motivation? Pandemic brain fog might be to blame (The Star Tribune)
Shmuel Lissek, associate professor
Expertise: The neurobiology and psychophysiology of human anxiety, classical and operant conditioning markers of clinical anxiety, generalization of conditioned fear, the neural antecedents of avoidance and other fear-related decisions
- Why 'caution fatigue' is setting in with COVID-19 (Rochester Post-Bulletin)
Deniz S. Ones, Distinguished McKnight University Professor
Expertise: counterproductive work behaviors, employment integrity testing, hiring and retention of employees, meta-analysis procedures, personality assessment and research, personality measurement in I/O psychology, personnel selection and classification
- When—and How—to Talk About Mental Illness On The Job (The Healthy)
- Early Detection of COVID-19 using Unobtrusive, Wearable Sensor Data (UMN Office of Academic Clinical Affairs)
- Addressing Employee Mental Health During Covid-19 (Twin Cities Business)
Mark Snyder, McKnight Presidential Chair in Psychology and director of the Center for the Study of the Individual and Society
Expertise: Altruism, attitude change, interpersonal behavior, personality and social interaction, self-monitoring processes, social and psychological aspects of volunteerism and pro-social action, social influence, social perception, social power
- Minnesotans Step Up To Help Despite the Pandemic (Dialogue Minnesota)
- Is Life Better When We're Together? (New York Times)
Richard Landers, associate professor
Expertise: Innovating technologies in assessment, employee selection, adult learning, and research methods
- Heading back to the office after working from home during the pandemic? Here are some tips for adjusting (Grand Forks Herald)
Iris Vilares, associate professor
Douglas Hartmann, professor and sociology department chair
Expertise: Race, ethnicity, and Immigration; sociology of culture, sport studies, social movements, American society, field methods, contemporary theory, public engagement
- Sports Cancellations and Fitness Club Closures Leave A Void For Many (Dialogue Minnesota)
- The sports fan experience might never be the same (Star Tribune)
- Will the absence of sports impact mental health? I think it's more likely than not (Pioneer Press)
Ann Meier, professor
Expertise: Family and Life Course; Adolescent and Young Adult Development; Gender
Phyllis Moen, McKnight Endowed Presidential Chair in Sociology
Expertise: Work and retirement, family, subjective well-being, health, policy, gendered life course
- Could the Pandemic Wind Up Fixing What’s Broken About Work in America? (New York Times)
- Coronavirus may finally force businesses to adopt workplaces of the future (Fortune)
- COVID-19 Is Redefining Our Concept of Work (Dialogue Minnesota)
- How the Coronavirus Punishes Many Older Workers (Next Avenue)
- How to avoid the biggest pitfalls of working from home (Fox9)
- How Will Coronavirus Change Americans' Attitudes Toward Work? (Wisconsin Public Radio)
- Fallout from the pandemic has Minnesota baby boomers rethinking retirement (Star Tribune)
- Amid pandemic boredom, Minnesotans turn to DIY home projects (Star Tribune)
Joshua Page, Don A. Martindale Professor of Sociology, Beverly & Richard Fink Professor in CLA
Expertise: Crime, law, deviance, and punishment; labor and unionization; political sociology, qualitative research methods, social theory
- Amid coronavirus crisis, Minneapolis fields 173 social-distancing complaints (Star Tribune)
- Why We Choose to Comply With Or Ignore COVID-19 Guidelines (Dialogue Minnesota)
Michelle Phelps, associate professor
Expertise: Crime, law and deviance; inequality; mixed methods
- Community Supervision and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Why We Need to Build a More Integrated Health System (Robina Institute)
Steven Ruggles, professor, History & Founder of ISRDI & the MN Population Center
Expertise: U. S. census research; U. S. social history; historical demography; history of the family
- Demographers tackle Covid-19 (Knowable Magazine)
Rob Warren, professor and director of the Minnesota Population Center
Expertise: Social inequality, education, health disparities, demography
- KARE 11 Investigates: COVID becomes a leading cause of death in Minnesota (Kare11)
- The Unequal Impact of COVID-19 on Children's Economic Vulnerability (EconoFact)
Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, assistant professor
Expertise: Formal demography, social demography, race, health, inequality.
- From Black Death to fatal flu, past pandemics show why people on the margins suffer most (Science Magazine)
- What we know about Covid-19’s impact on black Minnesotans (Vox)
- Demographers tackle Covid-19 (Knowable Magazine)
- Geographically targeted COVID-19 vaccination is more equitable and averts more deaths than age-based thresholds alone (Science Advances)
- COVID kills Minnesota immigrants at higher rates, younger ages, survey says. (Sahan Journal)
- What We Can Learn from Racial Inequality in Two Pandemics: 1918 and COVID-19 (University of Minnesota) - Zoom recording
- In Minnesota, fewer white people are vaccinated for COVID-19 than most racial groups — but still less likely to die of COVID-19 (University of Minnesota)
- Fate of the Arts (Mpls.StPaul Magazine)