Rebecca Cunningham. (Courtesy of the University of Minnesota)

The University of Minnesota’s next president is a top research administrator at a Midwestern Big Ten school who has a background in medicine.

After hours of public interviews with the final three candidates on Monday, the UMN Board of Regents named Rebecca Cunningham, a research administrator and physician from the University of Michigan, as the university system’s president-designate

Interim University president Joe Ettinger will remain in his role until Cunningham takes over on July 1. The position has been open since former U president Joan Gable left last spring.

Cunningham will be the 18th president of the University of Minnesota system and will lead five campuses with more than 68,000 students and nearly 27,000 employees. Cunningham and regents aren’t yet discussing specifics of pay, but before she left Gabel had a contract that with benefits brought her total compensation to more than $1 million.

Cunningham said she brings experience in academic medicine as well as the hands-on side from her time as an emergency room physician — though she noted her most recent work has focused on the big picture of running a school.

“I also bring to you experience as a senior leader in higher ed administration,” she continued. “And so the combination of those two roles I think can help guide the university forward.”

Right now, Cunningham is vice president for research and innovation at the University of Michigan, where she guides the university’s research mission across three campuses.

Before that, she served as the associate vice president for research-health sciences, where she oversaw research faculty and worked across disciplines to advance the university’s research agenda.

She has been a faculty member at the University of Michigan Schools of Public Health and Medicine since 1999.

National search

A months-long national search by the U’s Presidential Search Advisory Committee identified 46 candidates and Cunningham was one of the three named finalists for the job. Search consultants began compiling a pool of candidates in November.

The search started after Gabel resigned last year to become president of the University of Pittsburgh.

During her tenure, she oversaw growth in research and graduation rates but also faced criticism for perceived conflicts of interest. Gabel said the controversies had nothing to do with her departure.

Ettinger, a Former Hormel Foods CEO, stepped in as interim president on June 10.

Cunningham and two other finalists, Laura Bloomberg and James Holloway, spent the last few weeks touring the UMN’s campuses in Crookston, Duluth, Morris, Rochester and the Twin Cities to meet with students, faculty and staff.

Bloomberg is president of Cleveland State University and former dean of the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and Holloway, is the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of New Mexico.

The three then sat on Monday for public interviews before a special meeting of the Board of Regents.

Initially, seven regents favored Cunningham and five favored Bloomberg. But ultimately all 12 backed a motion to name Cunningham President-designate.

One concern during the regents’ discussions was that another candidate might be better rounded with expertise outside medicine.

Cunningham pushed back at the idea that she would potentially be too medically focused, noting she has years of higher education leadership experience at a Midwestern Big Ten University, which she called “familiar territory.”

“I fully am immersed and have years of experience in higher ed leadership,” she said. “We will all, as we talked about before, have things that I will need to learn about your particular institution and the particular issues of the state and the people, and I look forward to doing that.”

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A few Minnesota United players were winded on Saturday, and Cameron Knowles provided a breath of fresh air.

The Loons were holding on to a 1-0 lead in the season opener at Austin FC when the interim head coach not only used all five available substitutes but brought in four players under 24 years old.

“We’ve got to trust them,” Knowles said after the Loons’ 2-1 victory. “I think they’ve earned a lot of trust (Saturday) with the way they came into the game. … To come into a game that young but fearless in the way they played, it’s really exciting and sort of bodes well for the future.”

It’s also a stark contrast from former manager Adrian Heath’s nearly seven-year tenure.

Across Heath’s four seasons with five subs possible, he never averaged more than 3.4 per game. The last two years MNUFC set league lows for substitutions. And when Heath did call on subs, veterans were often his picks.

Some of the subs used Saturday were based on circumstance: Three first-team players were unavailable to play — Emanuel Reynoso, Bongi Hlongwane and Kervin Arriaga.

But part of the abundance of youth on Saturday comes via a directive from new Chief Soccer Officer Khaled El-Ahmad. He wants to see young players regularly in the mix.

El-Ahmad believes if a team struggles with one young player in its lineup, that’s a reflection of a deeper problem than just that one player’s adolescence.

On Saturday, Knowles also knew the available players and the stage of the season. He told the team Friday night in Texas about the need he saw for subs in the first match.

“It’s still early season: very few people are going to be really 90-minutes match fit, and the substitutions are going to be really important,” Knowles told reporters post game about his message to players.

In the 68th minute, Knowles gave Costa Rican midfielder Alejandro Bran, 22, his MLS debut and also brought in forward Tani Oluawseyi, 23.

In the 77th, a pair of Minnesotans entered the match: wingers Loic Mesanvi of Lakeville and Caden Clark of Medina. Both are only 20 years old.

Minnesota United midfielder Loic Mesanvi, center, watches as teammate Caden Clark (37), right, goes for the ball against Austin FC in the Loons’ 2-1 win on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024 in Austin, Texas. Mesanvi, of Lakeville, and Clark, of Medina, were two young players to sub into the match and help the Loons win. (Courtesy of Minnesota United)

Clark joined his home-state team after a stint at RB Leipzig in the German Bundesliga.

Mesanvi is a MNUFC2 player brought up on a short-term loan to play in MLS. Players from the club’s developmental team have four loan spells to use each season. Mesanvi now has three left.

In the 91st minute, Clark and Oluwaseyi contributed to Bran’s goal. It was an insurance goal that became a buffer as Austin scored in the 94th minute.

Clark made a long-distance dribble down the right sideline and split the Verde defense to find Olusaweyi inside the 18-yard box. Instead of shooting, Oluwaseyi made the extra pass for Bran to score more easily.

The goal came from a fountain of youth.

Loons midfielder Hassani Dotson played all 90 minutes Saturday, but was in a similar spot to those young bucks in 2019. In that season debut against Vancouver, he came off the bench to play a paltry minute but became a regular later on that season.

“When you are young and you get subbed in and try to close out a game, it’s a big opportunity,” Dotson said Saturday. “Your job is to follow instruction and do the best you can. … We have a pretty young team this year and they all had a good preseason. I couldn’t be happier, especially having had that type of opportunity my first year.”

Stay seated

Minnesota United’s substitutions since joining MLS:

Year — Average subs per game (league rank)

2023 — 3.4 (29th of 29)

2022 — 3.1 (28th of 28)

2021 — 3.2 (26th of 27)

2020 * — 3.2 (25th of 26)

2019 — 2.7 (14th of 24)

2018 — 2.7 (18th of 23)

2017 — 2.5 (19th of 22)

* First year MLS went from three to five subs per game

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MOBILE, Ala. — Kerry Joseph doesn’t have any thoughts yet on the Chicago Bears’ biggest offseason decision, the one that holds the key to the NFL draft.

The team’s new quarterbacks coach, hired Friday, doesn’t even know where his office is at Halas Hall. He has been on a whirlwind tour since the season ended, free to seek a new job after the Seattle Seahawks forced out coach Pete Carroll.

Joseph, the assistant quarterbacks coach for the Seahawks the last two seasons, spent one day in Lake Forest interviewing for the Bears job. In between, he was scrambling to get to Mobile, where he’s serving as quarterbacks coach of the American team in the Senior Bowl.

Somehow along the way, Joseph got hooked up with Bears gear and was wearing a team-issued navy hat, navy shorts and gray sweatshirt at practice Tuesday at Hancock Whitney Stadium on the South Alabama campus.

He doesn’t have preliminary thoughts on Justin Fields. Joseph was the assistant wide receivers coach in Seattle in 2021, when the Bears drafted Fields. He has yet to dig in on this year’s draft, in which the Bears hold the first and ninth picks and are in position to select a new quarterback.

“I was getting transitioned to coming out here,” the 50-year-old Joseph said.

It’s the first time he has been an NFL position coach — above the assistant position coach level. The connection is easy to make. He worked with new Bears offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, who came from the Seahawks. The Bears also interviewed Seahawks quarterbacks coach Greg Olson for the offensive coordinator job.

The last first-time quarterbacks coach the Bears hired was Shane Day in 2010 based on his experience working with then-offensive coordinator Mike Martz in San Francisco. Since Day, the Bears have rolled through Jeremy Bates, Matt Cavanaugh, Dowell Loggains, Dave Ragone, John DeFilippo and most recently Andrew Janocko.

It would be overly dramatic to say this is the most important offseason for a Bears quarterbacks coach. There has been urgency to get the position right for the longest time. It just so happens they own the No. 1 draft pick as they prepare to thoroughly examine a talented group of passers, including USC’s Caleb Williams, North Carolina’s Drake Maye (who was a spectator at practice Tuesday), LSU’s Jayden Daniels and Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy.

Joseph, who was responsible for red-zone preparation with the Seahawks, had a hand in helping revive Geno Smith’s career in Seattle as Smith threw for 4,282 yards and 30 touchdowns in 2022. Joseph’s knowledge of Waldron’s system will be critical whether the Bears draft a quarterback or not.

“When you think about Shane and what we were able to do with the (Seahawks) offense, I think quarterback play is about having confidence,” Joseph said. “Quarterback play is just about being competitive. It’s about being smart, being dependable, having a good IQ of the game, being passionate.

“When you think about traits, when you talk about quarterback play and when you talk about Shane’s mentality, it’s just about being connected to the play caller, being connected to the offense. There are some things you’ve got to have and you’ve got to bring to it.”

Joseph was a quarterback at McNeese State and had a 42-11 record as a four-year starter, helping the Cowboys to two Southland Conference titles. He spent time with the Cincinnati Bengals in 1996 as an undrafted free agent before playing in NFL Europe. He tried to make the Washington Redskins as a slot back and then played safety for the Seahawks from 1998 to 2001, appearing in 56 games with 14 starts.

He returned to quarterback in the Canadian Football League in 2003, winning a Grey Cup with the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 2007, when he was named the league’s most outstanding player. After retiring following the 2014 season, he got into coaching at the college level with stops at his alma mater and Southeastern Louisiana before joining the Seahawks as an offensive assistant in 2020.

The diverse background — having played defense in the NFL — gives him a different perspective to teach offensive football.

“It helps me tremendously,” Joseph said, “because playing the safety position, playing that dime (position), playing down in the box helped me understand how defenses attack the offense, how guys fit. So now that I’ve gone back to quarterback, I see it from a defensive mentality.

“Being able to help guys to understand the game, not just from the offensive side but from the defensive side, kind of helped (with) where to put their eyes. That’s what it did for me as a player, and I try to teach it that way with a defensive mentality.”

Joseph will learn where his office is soon, and then he can hit the ground running as the Bears prepare for the draft and install a new offense — quite possibly with a new quarterback. As far as his philosophy on developing a young quarterback, he leaned into some basic tenets.

“I use three things: accountability, responsibility, communication,” Joseph said. “It’s about trust, believing and having confidence in each other. A quarterbacks coach and a quarterback, you’ve got to have those three things.

“Then, hey, it’s about the fundamentals. It’s about developing the fundamentals, developing the mentality to be a good leader. To be a winner. Just willing to compete. There are so many things that I have in my philosophy as a person that I take into the coaching world and into the quarterback room to help develop a group of guys.”

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