Minnesota’s top education official might not have ended up in the state at all if she hadn’t been the sort of person to dig in and do her homework when it came time to choose a college.
Heather Mueller ’97, who was appointed Edu- cation Commissioner by Gov. Tim Walz earlier this year, holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Minnesota State Mankato, where she also earned her specialist and K-12 administrative license. And she has a doctorate in education leadership from St. Mary’s University.
The journey to her leadership role today might be traced back to the mid-1990s, when she was living in her hometown of Yuma, Arizona, where she had completed a two-year degree at a community college, and looking for a place to continue her studies. Intent on becoming an educator, Mueller began researching teachers colleges, and in the pages of a guidebook found at the library, she discovered the school then known as Mankato State University. Soon she was heading north.
Having landed at the Twin Cities airport with Birkenstocks on her feet and without a winter jacket, she felt “stunned” by the reality of winter weather, but she endured, moving into McElroy Hall and beginning classes in January 1995. At the University, she felt at home in the College of Education, where the student-centered philosophy aligned with her own ideas and values.
“I loved my time at Minnesota State Mankato,” Mueller said in a recent in- terview. “I deeply appreciate having roots in a place that allowed me to grow into my profession.”
After receiving her bachelor’s degree in 1997, Mueller spent a decade teaching U.S. history at Mankato West High School, where Walz was a fellow faculty member. She later worked as a continuous improvement coach and as professional development coordinator for the Mankato district before becoming its director of teaching and learning. After Walz was elected, she joined the Minnesota Department of Education, serving first as assistant commissioner in the Office of Teaching and Learning and, beginning in January 2020, as deputy commissioner.
In response to the arrival of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, Mueller was tasked with leading the governor’s education and child care work group as part of an administration-wide response to the crisis. When she became commissioner in the spring of 2021, her department and schools across Minnesota were still dealing with many challenges posed by the pandemic.
Looking back, Mueller sees important lessons in the way state and local officials, teachers and others in education moved quickly to decide how they could do their work differently while maintaining high-quality instruction and doing the many other things that schools do on a daily basis, including feeding students and supporting their mental and physical health. Looking for- ward, she sees a reframed conversation around innovation and change in education.
“What we’ve often thought as educators—and I think it’s what people think across the board—is that innovation has to be big and it has to take time,” she said. “What we learned is that
innovation can happen much faster than we thought and small innovations can have huge impacts.”
When Mueller arrived at Minnesota State Mankato more than 25 years ago, she could, of course, never have imagined where her career would send her. One lesson she takes from her experiences in the classroom and in leadership at the district and state levels is the value of “openness and the willingness to try.” That’s something she would like to encourage in all students, including people following in her footsteps at the University.
“In the end, it’s not about training you for what you’re do- ing in the moment or in the next five years,” she said. “It’s prepping you for what you don’t even think you might be able to do.”
Speak Your Mind