The University of Minnesota-Crookston is welcoming students and faculty back to campus following the summer break, as the fall semester begins on Tuesday, September 1.
Chancellor Mary Holz-Clause sat down with KROX ahead of the new school year to discuss summer activities, campus changes entering the 2026-27 academic year, and her retirement in December.
The UMC campus hosted several groups and activities this summer, including an annual Rotary event that brings people in from Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Manitoba, Canada; FFA groups, Science, Technology, Education, and Mathematics (STEM) labs for children; the annual Night to Unite event, and the Ox Cart Days ice cream social and golf ball drop. Holz-Clause loves to see the continued partnerships the university has with these groups, which show the community what the university has to offer students of all ages. “We are so happy to have that what we call town to gown relationship, where we all work together, and so obviously the university is an integral part of Crookston, and Crookston is an integral part of the university,” said Holz-Clause. “When we have students come, we always want to show them the community and make sure that they can be as involved as possible. So having the ice cream social and Night to Unite are just a wonderful way for us to show off our beautiful campus, especially this time of year as we’re getting ready now for our on-campus students.”
With students away from campus over the summer months, the university has the opportunity to implement changes and make improvements to the campus and its facilities, including a new track and field program. Another improvement is the ongoing infrastructure improvements, mostly focused on electrical, heating, and internet capacity, made possible by Higher Education Asset Preservation and Replacement (HEAPR) funds allocated from the State of Minnesota to colleges across the state. Holz-Clause understands the importance of these improvements, as some of the campus infrastructure was over 100 years old and in desperate need of revitalization to last for the next generation of UMC students. “We have spent a significant amount of money in replacing our 100-year-old infrastructure underground, and so all of the electrical, a lot of the heating and so forth has been upgraded over the last couple of years, so it’s been kind of a perpetual hole in the ground where they’ve been working underground to take those HEAPR funds and really provide us kind of that that next level of connectivity.”
For Holz-Clause, the fall semester will be one of reflection and emotion, as it was announced at the Board of Regents meeting in July that she will be retiring at the end of the year. Holz-Clause has been the chancellor at UMC since 2017 and has spent over 30 years in higher education, but she understands that everyone has to recognize when to walk away and let the next generation take the lead at UMC. “Everybody has to make a decision when it’s time in their lives for them to go on to the next chapter, and so for me, I’m old. I’m actually over 70, and so there comes a time where it’s like you know what? I think it’s time for me to maybe look at some other chapters and other areas of my life,” she said. “But it’s a really sad moment for me because obviously anybody who’s in higher education loves the impact that we have on students, and so if you think about when students come here and how they leave, oftentimes completely different individuals four or five years later, I think many of us can think back in our own college careers or how we started and how that experience was so helpful.”
As Holz-Clause prepares to enter the final chapter of her career, she hopes that the legacy she leaves for the students and faculty at UMC, and the city of Crookston as a whole, is one of collaboration, community, and providing the spark that ignites someone’s passion for education. “I hope it’s a legacy that education is something that can be very impactful and can make a difference in a person’s life,” said Holz-Clause. “It’s not only the return on investment or what you spend, but it’s the friendships, it’s the opportunities to be part of something, to be part of groups, to be part of athletics, to feel like you belong, and so I hope a legacy is that this campus, the University of Minnesota Crookston, is a place where all are welcome, and we want everyone to feel that they belong here, they have a place.”
Holz-Clause is excited to see students from across America, as well as 16 different countries, make their way to Crookston and take that step toward finding their place in the world and having the big college experience in a small-town setting.
