Former University of Minnesota professor Tadd Johnson will become the first American Indian member of the U’s Board of Regents, Gov. Tim Walz announced Wednesday.
Johnson will fill the Eighth Congressional District vacancy created by the resignation of David McMillan, who left last month to pursue an interim appointment as chancellor of the Duluth campus. The board voted 9-2 on Wednesday to give McMillan that job.
Johnson’s term ends next year, as do the terms of Ken Powell, Steve Sviggum and Darrin Rosha. The Legislature will decide who gets those six-year, unpaid posts.
Walz said Johnson recently retired as the U’s senior director of American Indian tribal nations relations and serves as a senior advisor on government affairs for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. He is University of Minnesota Law School graduate and an enrolled member of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.