Gov. Tim Walz named Democratic activist and philanthropic executive Ellen Luger and former Ambassador Samuel Heins to the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents Tuesday afternoon. Luger and Heins were two of four appointees named. The decision fell to Walz after the legislature failed to vote on the appointments during the 2025 legislative session.
Luger was selected for the 5th Congressional District seat ahead of former Minnesota Hillel Executive Director Benjie Kaplan – who currently works for Hillel International – and Kowsar Mohammed, who works for the state as the enterprise director of inclusion and is a doctoral student in Natural Resources Science and Management at the University of Minnesota. Mohammed was selected for the student-at-large position. Kaplan was notified earlier in the process that he didn’t make the cut.
“I’m absolutely thrilled to serve, especially given the caliber of the group that applied,” Luger said Tuesday afternoon.
Luger has a career mixed with philanthropic and political work. She spent 18 years at General Mills, nine of which she served as vice president for global philanthropy and volunteerism. She also worked at the Minneapolis Foundation as the senior VP for philanthropic services.
In the political realm, she was a Hillary Clinton delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention, and served on the finance committees of Clinton’s campaign that year and Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. In 2022, President Biden appointed her to the USDA’s foreign service mission in Rome.
As the time in Rome was winding down, Luger began to look at what was next for her.
“As I thought about what I would be doing when I got home, I really wanted to continue in public service for our state,” she said. “The University of Minnesota is such an important asset for our state, and that really intrigued me.”
Luger said that among the challenging issues higher education faces, one of the big ones for the U is federal funding of research.
“Our U medical school and academic medicine is so important for the state,” she said. “Getting the right arrangement for strong academic medicine training is key.”
As part of the process, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas had been advocating for continued Jewish representation on the Board of Regents. Board Chair Janie Mayeron, who resigned when her term ended on July 1, 2025, had been the lone Jewish member of the board.
“More than 400 messages were sent to the governor’s office expressing support for continued Jewish representation on the Board of Regents,” said Ethan Roberts, the JCRC’s deputy executive director. “At this time where progress is being made but there are still significant challenges for Jewish students, faculty and staff at the University of Minnesota, such representation is more important than ever. “We thank the governor for selecting two highly qualified Jewish candidates to join the Board of Regents.”
Heins is a retired U.S. Ambassador to Norway under President Barack Obama and a longtime human rights advocate and attorney. Previously, he served as a senior partner at Heins Mills & Olson, where he led securities fraud and antitrust litigation. Heins founded The Advocates for Human Rights and co-founded the Center for Victims of Torture, both internationally active NGOs. He has served on election monitoring teams in Pakistan and Ukraine, and he has held board roles with the ACLU of Minnesota, Ploughshares Fund, PEN America, and Planned Parenthood North Central States.
Walz selecting the regents – Joel Bergstrom was the other at-large member named – isn’t unusual but it’s not generally left to the governor. It’s usually done in a joint legislative session after months of meetings, forums, and politicking. The joint legislative committee of Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate then meet to discuss and vote on which candidates were being recommended to the full chamber.
Kaplan, Luger and Robert Albright were initially the three candidates for the 5th District seat on the Board of Regents, which is made up of one person from each of Minnesota’s eight congressional districts, and four at-large seats – one of the at-large seats has been reserved for a student at the school.
At the March 18 joint meeting of the Senate Higher Education and House Higher Education Finance and Policy committees, things took an unexpected turn. Mohamed, who had been a candidate for the at-large student seat, got no votes of support from the committee, but Sen. Claire Oumou Verbeten, nominated Mohamed for the 5th District seat.
Albright and Luger did not get any votes when the committee made their votes. Mohamed won the votes among the House members 5-4, and she and Kaplan split the votes of the Senators 7-7. Both names were going to go to the full join session to be voted on, but the session ended before that could happen. Heins became one of the applicants for the at-large seats when the governor’s office started taking applications for the seats.
Sens. Omar Fateh (DFL-Minneapolis), Dan Wolgamott (DFL-St. Cloud) and Rep. Marion Rarick (R-Maple Lake) – the leadership of the joint committee – did not respond to messages seeking comment on the legislative process.
