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Biography

Areas of Expertise
Higher education policy and leadership; transformational leadership of complex organizations; strategies to develop human capital and innovation; disability policy and research; developmental assessment; P-20 educational policy and collaboration

Biography
Robert H. Bruininks is president and professor emeritus of the University of Minnesota, where he held the Elmer L. Andersen Chair in Civic Leadership and was the Emma M. Birkmaier Professor in Educational Leadership in the College of Education and Human Development. For 45 years he served the University as assistant professor, professor, department head, dean, executive vice president and provost, and president. He also served as founder and director of the Institute on Community Integration, a national center of excellence promoting development and opportunity for people with disabilities through interdisciplinary education, research, and public engagement. In July of 2011, he left the presidency to resume his academic career, focusing on public and civic leadership; the development of human capital from early childhood through post-secondary education; developmental assessment; and leadership, policy, and change in higher education. He retired from the University in September 2013.

Bruininks’s academic career at the University of Minnesota began in 1968 and centered on child and adolescent development and policy research, and strategic improvement in the fields of pre-kindergarten to grade 12 and higher education. His significant scholarly and policy work on behalf of people with developmental disabilities improved understanding, assessment, treatment, and care for countless individuals and their families locally, nationally, and internationally. In recognition of this work, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) in 2014.

Much of his early research, teaching, and community engagement focused upon the learning and development of children and youth with disabilities. An additional emphasis of his early work was the development and promotion of effective policies and community-based education services and supports on behalf of people with special needs. He served on several national task forces to improve the assessment of adaptive and social behaviors, and the expansion of community-based policies and educational and work opportunities of people with disabilities. He also designed and published the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, a widely used developmental measure in the U.S. and many other countries, and the Scales of Independent Behavior and the Inventory of Client and Agency Planning.

From 1974 to 1976, Bruininks took a leave of absence from the University to serve as the director of the Office of Developmental Disabilities in the Minnesota State Planning Agency. This position carried responsibility for planning, expanding, and evaluating services for families and children with developmental disabilities. Some of the major responsibilities included the development of legal advocacy and protection services and the management of the statewide Community Alternatives and Institutional Reform (CAIR) initiative. The CAIR initiative created a comprehensive plan to eliminate large, long-term institutional care facilities in favor of family support and smaller community-centered living alternatives, and to develop educational and related services in normal community settings. During the next 25 years, the CAIR initiative supported transformational policy changes and expanded community services and supports, including changes in guardianship laws, housing policies, and investment, and greatly expanded community-centered educational and human service programs for people with disabilities.

Bruininks returned to the University in the fall of 1976, accepting an appointment as professor and coordinator of special education programs. From 1978 to 1985, he served as department chair of Psychoeducational Studies and later, chair of Educational Psychology, one of the larger graduate departments of the University formed by combining units from two academic departments. During this period, most department initatives were ranked in the top 10 of public research universities; at the same time, Bruininks was awarded a three-year Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship, a national Mary E. Switzer Rehabilitation Fellowship, and several major competitive federal grants to support research and graduate education programs. One of these grant awards has provided millions of dollars in federal support for designing and maintaining national census and policy data on long-term care services for people with developmental disabilities during the past 40 years. 

Bruininks's work during this period led to the establishment of the Institute on Community Integration, which he founded in 1985 and directed until 1991. The institute is an umbrella organization for several federally competitive, designated University research centers (e.g., the National Center on Educational Outcomes and the Research and Training Center on Community Living, both with more than 35 years of competitive research support) and is now a National Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities. The institute will soon celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2025 and continues to promote interdisciplinary education, research, and outreach programs, with annual budgets in outside funding of $25 million or more per year. In a Star Tribune report of an internal University study of centers, the institute was cited as an exemplar that generates about 98 percent of its funding from sources outside of state and University sources. During this period, he was also elected Vice President and President of the now American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. 

In 1991, Bruininks was appointed dean of the College of Education. He led a major college-wide strategic planning process that led to a change in the college mission and name (to the College of Education and Human Development) to better leverage its range of academic fields and the central foundation of an integrated, lifespan focus on learning and healthy development.  His agenda included:
  • personal leadership in designing and promoting stronger standards in Minnesota’s K-12 educational accountability system;
  • coordinated the Common Ground Consortium involving the University of Minnesota and nine Historically Black Colleges and Universities, under an eight-year Bush Foundation grant, to expand graduate education and professional leadership opportunities;
  • implementation of a regular educational policy discussion series;
  • a policy fellow continuing education series for educational leaders; and 
  • a new Office of Educational Accountability to produce analyses and reports to improve pre-K-12 education.  

This period involved substantial increases of about 20 percent in the college’s productivity through external grants, private support and enhanced enrollment during substantial state budget reductions. 


At the University, he helped co-found the Dean’s Advisory Council and served on task forces to decentralize accountability for financial resources, continuous improvement, and productivity.  During this period, the college was consistently rated as one of the nation's most productive academic centers for research and education.

Bruininks was appointed in 1997 as executive vice president and provost by President Mark Yudof and served in this role for five years. This appointment included statewide academic responsibility for all campuses of the University of Minnesota system, including oversight of statewide centers and extension offices. His agenda included:
  • design and implementation of the President’s Compact Planning and Annual Accountability system (including the design and implementation of the U’s Accountability Reports, with comparative measures for the Regents, the University community, state policymakers, etc.);
  • initiated a systemwide Technology Enhanced Learning initiative;
  • improved awards and recognition for excellence in teaching;
  • conversion of the academic calendar from quarters to semesters;
  • an extensive initiative to promote writing across the curriculum;
  • a new Outstanding Community Service Award to recognize extraordinary service contributions to local communities;
  • the development of the Council on Public Engagement to promote and celebrate the University’s historic public land grant responsibilities; and 
  • the design and improvement of a University system-wide strategy to improve and internationalize student learning through a three-year Bush Foundation grant. 
Bruininks was appointed as interim president, then as the 15th president of the University of Minnesota on November 8, 2002. His inaugural address emphasized the University’s public mission and unique role as Minnesota’s only comprehensive research university and its only land-grant university—two essential aspects of the University that he never lost sight of, despite multiple deep state budget reductions during his administration. 

In 2003, he and his leadership team undertook the University's first comprehensive, systemwide strategic planning and positioning effort to improve the University’s academic profile, service to students and the community, and stewardship of resources. This planning initiative included all campuses and University resources throughout Minnesota. As part of this effort, President Bruininks and his leadership team proposed ambitious goals for academic capacity and improvement, many of which were achieved during his tenure or in the years immediately following, including benchmarks for undergraduate student retention proposed and adopted by the Board of Regents.

The University's ambitious systemwide strategic plan, Transforming the University, engaged a broadly-based steering committee and many focused task forces involving a large number of internal and external stakeholders on all campuses. The plan included:
  • major improvements in undergraduate, graduate, and professional education systemwide, ; 
  • new resources and scholarships to improve student access and affordability at all campuses; 
  • significant increases in capital investments across the state; 
  • expansions of interdisciplinary research and education to address major societal challenges; 
  • major initiatives to enhance the University’s public engagement and contributions; 
  • enhancement of the University's national and international education and research position;
  • expansion of external research support and private resources beyond state support; and 
  • important initiatives to reduce internal costs and increase productivity.
Priorities of his administration included improvements in academic quality, learning, and student experience, such as expanded undergraduate research and study abroad opportunities; enhanced learning technologies and new learning environments; consolidated classroom management; a new all-university Honors Program for the Twin Cities campus; increased teaching mentorships for graduate and professional students through a Future Faculty Program; and greatly expanded graduate fellowships and assistantships. These Board-adopted initiatives and investments, along with specific and measurable goals, helped to fuel high student satisfaction rates, increase applications and enrollment, and significantly improve learning outcomes, retention rates, and graduation rates.

Affordability for students on the University’s five campuses was another concern for the Bruininks administration. As a result, he made student scholarships the University’s top private fundraising priority and established a new framework to significantly improve affordability for low- and middle-income families. The Promise for Tomorrow scholarship drive raised more than $340 million in private support over five years, increasing giving for student support seven to 10 times the annual rate during the previous decade. Several transformative, long-term endowments were established by major donors that provided significant annual and multi-year support for hundreds of students (e.g., Bentsen and Larson scholarships). As part of the Stadium Campaign (see below), the Shakopee Mdewakaton Souix Community provided funding to establish a significant scholarship endowment (initially $10 million with a University matching contribution) for Native American students from any State to attend any of the five campuses in the University of Minnesota system. This impact was achieved even as the University garnered historic gifts; federal, state, and private grants; and internal appropriations to support its facilities and research mission. In 2009, Bruininks announced the expansion of the University’s need-based aid strategy to include guaranteed aid for all Minnesota students from low- and middle-income families (with incomes up to $100,000 per year) attending all University of Minnesota campuses through the University of Minnesota Promise Scholarship program. As a result of these efforts, the Twin Cities campus produced the lowest net tuition cost for four-year colleges in Minnesota for families with incomes up to $65,000 a year, according to a study of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.

Recognizing that many of the greatest challenges facing humanity today transcend traditional academic disciplines, under President Bruininks the University also identified a number of interdisciplinary areas to target for investment. Together, these early priorities provided a framework for advancing interdisciplinary scholarship at the University, leading to the University-Community Interdisciplinary Conference Series, Graduate School grants to support interdisciplinary education programs, and the establishment of the University's Medical Device Center and international Design of Medical Devices Conferences, among other endeavors. Numerous all-University centers and institutes were created or substantially strengthened in this time period, including the Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment, and the Life Sciences; the Institute for Advanced Study; the Institute for Translational Neuroscience; the Institute on the Environment; the Minnesota Population Center; the Center for Transportation Studies; the Healthy Foods, Healthy Lives Institute; the Obesity Prevention Center; and the Center for Bioethics. By 2011, the University was home to more than 200 such institutes and centers and more than 50 interdisciplinary graduate degree programs. Additionally, under the leadership of the provost, in 2009 the University created the Imagine Fund, a $1.3 million systemwide initiative specifically to support scholarly work across the humanities, arts, and design.

Throughout his career, Bruininks has worked to advance the public mission, responsibilities, and accountability of the University of Minnesota and its peer institutions. He was a leading advocate for reform in preK-12 and higher education. At the University of Minnesota, this commitment was manifested in the first strategic reorganization and consolidation of 91 Extension offices statewide into 16 regional centers and of six Twin Cities colleges into three new and broader interdisciplinary colleges: the College of Design, the College of Education and Human Development; and the College Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences.  Both of these reorganizations saved millions of dollars in overhead, resulting in a more responsive University that better served the state, its citizens, and students. 

Bruininks created new leadership positions to reflect emerging challenges and opportunities in public higher education. He created three new senior leadership positions without increasing the overall number of senior administrators: the senior vice president for System Academic Administration to oversee the University's statewide system of campuses and centers and strengthen statewide  impact; the vice president for Research to strengthen research competitiveness, infrastructure, regulatory compliance, research investment, and technology transfer; and the vice-president for Equity and Diversity (upgraded from associate vice president) to better emphasize the importance of core University values and responsibilities to serve and support its more diverse international academic community of faculty, staff and students.  Bruininks also worked to establish new University Research and Outreach Centers: the Mid-Central Research and Outreach Center in Wilmar, to undertake essential research to protect Minnesota’s leading position in the poultry and animal agricultural industries, and the recently named Robert J. Jones Urban Research and Outreach Center in North Minneapolis, to leverage University research and other resources to advance economic development and opportunity in underserved urban communities.

Throughout his career, Bruininks sought to advance the development and support of children, youth, and families. Earlier, he worked with colleagues to create and support the University’s All-University Children, Youth and Family Consortium, now in the University of Minnesota Extension Service. During his presidency, he sponsored three University-Community Summits on the Futures of Children with Richard Weinberg, Marti Erickson, and Andrew Collins; a Summit on Out of School Time with Dale Blythe and chaired by community leaders, Carol Truesdale and Don Shelby; the College Readiness Consortium, an effort of University to support local public and private schools to enhance the preparation of students for postsecondary technical and educational careers (still operating in schools throughout Minnesota); and the Principal’s Academy, an executive leadership program for school leadership. 


An important priority was the long-term development of UMore Park, a 12-square-mile, largely undeveloped property in Dakota County that was conveyed by the federal government to the University shortly after World War II. A comprehensive, mixed-use planning process and subsequent development was charged by Bruininks in 2004. The process resulted in a long-term plan to capitalize gravel mining to create earnings and save millions of dollars in public and private capital costs, as well as many relevant land-use and environmental impact analyses and approvals involved federal, state, and regional agencies. In May 2006, the legislature approved legislation for the football stadium and transfer of a 2,840-acre parcel of UMore Park to the state. The parcel, subsequently named Vermillion Highlands: A Research, Recreation, and Wildlife Management Area, is jointly managed by the University and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in conjunction with Dakota Country and Empire Township, through 2032, when the property will be managed by the state. It now supports continued agricultural research and public recreational options including cross country and horse trails for public usage. Vermillion Highlands is now complemented by the adjacent 456-acre Whitetail Woods, the Dakota County regional park that opened in 2014. The University also created the UMore Park Legacy Fund, a quasi-endowment, in October 2009 by the action of the University's Board of Regents. All net proceeds, revenues, and income earned from the development of UMore Park were to be deposited into the fund.  All assets from the fund were to be designated and used for long-term support of special academic research, education, and public engagement opportunities not otherwise adequately funded by state, federal, or tuition resources. Development at UMore Park is ongoing.

During his tenure, President Bruininks also oversaw approximately a billion dollars in capital investment in the University's campuses and centers across the state, including construction of new facilities and renewal of existing buildings. Highlights in this area include:
  • the development of the Biomedical Discovery District, comprising six coordinated, high-technology biomedical research and development buildings and laboratories, which leveraged approximately $500 million in state, matching, internal, and private investment; 
  • construction of the LEED-certified TCF Bank Stadium (now Huntington Bank Stadium; see next paragraph for details)
  • contruction of the Science Teaching and Student Services building (renamed Robert H. Bruininks Hall in 2015), designed as a model of cutting-edge active learning classrooms (see this 2018 article in AVTechnology) and highly efficient, one-stop student services; 
  • the expansion of the Weisman Art Museum, creation of the student and staff Recreation and Wellness Center, the addition of the College of Veterinary Medicine's Leatherdale Equine Center,  renovation of historic Folwell Hall, and funding for a new physics building;
  • the award-winning and extensive renovation of Northrop Hall at the head of the University’s historic mall, creating a concert hall including 2,700 seats, with expanded stage and greatly enhanced acoustics, re-purposed space for the All-University Undergraduate Honors Program, the Institute for Advanced Studies (devoted to interdisciplinary studies of critical issues to our society), a small concert and lecture hall, classrooms and large meeting spaces, and a significant increase in Campus study spaces for students;

  • support for the renewal of the Bell Museum, Minnesota’s natural history museum and a strong center of environmental and natural history research, and public and university education, including the merger of the Bell Museum and the Minnesota Planetarium (despite widespread legislative support, the proposal was vetoed by the governor twice, but passed shortly after he completed his term);

  • the establishment of the University of Minnesota Rochester campus and expanded facilities in Crookston, Duluth, and Morris.
Also during his term, Bruininks led the effort to build a new University of Minnesota football stadium on the Twin Cities campus. In the 1980s, the University entered into a joint venture for a football stadium with the Minnesota Vikings in downtown Minneapolis. The Minnesota legislature and governor supported a commission to consider development of a joint statium, but due to a number of factors, plans for a shared stadium did not materialize, and the state of Minnesota, the Vikings and the University decided separate stadiums would be the most feasible and cost-effective options. (This solution also enabled the Vikings to play in the University’s stadium for two years. The Vikings Stadium was built on the same site, saving about $500 million dollars of infrastructure costs.)

The return of the football stadium to the University’s Campus was a multi-year initiative, with an investment of $288 million dollars. It involved a significant private support campaign of nearly $100 million dollars, significant State support in return for the transfer of nearly 3,000 acres of land in Rosemount to establish a regional nature preserve and park, and significant internal support. The private fundraising campaign emphasized the additional need for University academic investments in the same campaign, leveraging more than $70 million dollars in addition to the stadium capital funds, most of which went to the support of students.

The stadium also included some unique features, such as the Tribal Nations Plaza, celebrating the location, history, and governance of Minnesota's 11 tribal nations; a Veterans Tribute, the Sanford Athletics Hall of Fame, and a home and rehearsal space for the Universioty of Minnesota Marching Band. All of these features involved extensive agreements and significant private contributions to achieve. The stadium was also awarded Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver Certification, the first college or professional football stadium to achieve LEED certification. 

Gains in academic performance, affordability, impact, and capital investment were made possible by specific cost-reduction and productivity decisions and strategic reinvestments across the University system. The University achieved historic gains even as its level of state support was rolled back to 2001 levels, to less than 20 percent of the University's overall budget. Thanks to careful, proactive planning, the University reduced its workforce largely through voluntary retirement incentive programs and normal attrition; reduced energy use despite growth in facilities; and cut millions of dollars annually from purchasing and procurement. As a result, the University demonstrated outstanding returns on state investment. An 2010 economic impact study commissioned by the University and conducted by Tripp-Umbach found that for every $1 invested in the U, more than $13 were returned to the state of Minnesota. All told, the University directly and indirectly supported nearly 80,000 jobs for Minnesota citizens and Minnesota’s economy; all of this, plus tax revemue and direct and indirect spending associated with the University brought the estimated statewide economic impact to $8.6 billion per year.

Bruininks served on numerous boards and received a number of special recognitions throughout his career. In 2007, he joined the NCAA Division I Board of Directors; in 2008 he served as chair of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU); in 2010 he served as the chair of the Big 10 presidents; and he was appointed by President George W. Bush to two three-year terms on the U.S. J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board from 2004 through 2009. Bruininks also strengthened the University’s ties with Minnesota business and industry, serving as a founding member of the Itasca Project and an invited member of the Minnesota Business Partnership. An advocate for investment, improvement, reform, and accountability in preK-12 education, Bruininks helped found and chaired the statewide P-20 Educational Partnership and supported the development of a new College Readiness Consortium and a leadership academy for preK-12 educators. This work was recognized by awards from the Center for Early Education and Development and the Elementary and Secondary Principals Association. 

 Bruininks was named Minnesotan of the Year by Minnesota Monthly in 2004 and Executive of the Year by the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal in 2009. He earned distinguished alumni awards from Western Michigan University and George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University; induction into the Academy of Community Engaged Scholarship in 2016; and Fellow status in four professional organizations: the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science.

View Dr. Bruininks's complete vitae (PDF).

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