Minneapolis Community & Technical College [MCTC]
reviews and complaints

This is a complaint about the school's choice to hire Heidi Aldes as their Dean of Diversity. I read the complaints on here, and I can confirm that as someone who had a bad experience with her, they reflect her character accurately. She is and does those things.

When she was the director of the LGBT Resources in SCSU, I was sexually assaulted by one of her employees. This was in early 2009. This happened in the bathroom near the organization. Heidi knew about this but did nothing. I tried to reach out to her on how I go about filing a report (I told her what happened). She ignored me. She also didn't return any of my phone messages. She later told me to go f*** off when I passed by her on campus. The one who sexually assaulted me got the glory, but I got the wrath? Really? Worse, she got all the other organization volunteers against me. I know this because the other volunteers gave me harassing looks when I passed them on campus. The worst of it was when the one who ran the drag shows threatened me when I passed by her on campus. I know Heidi knew about them too. My life was a downward spiral by then. Things were so bad that I had to drop out of school a month after the assault because I tried to kill myself. What my assaulter did was bad enough. What Heidi did was worse.

When this incident happened, I was one foot out the door already. I was harassed by other volunteers for having a learning disability. Heidi knew about this harassment too and encouraged them to do that. In some instances, she joined in. Like one of the other complaints said, I also witnessed racism, ableism, and transphobia from her.

The school's choice in hiring is obviously far different than what mine would be.

I am writing to you with regards to a recent email communication that I received from the Dean of Students at the Minneapolis Community, and Technical Colleges As per the Request of the Dean of Students I was instructed to cease my communications and inquires with the College, please find her email communication attached with this email for your review.

Nordin, Becky

Tue 2/15/2022 2:21 PM

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To:

• [protected]@msn.com

Cc:

• Cannon, Renee C;

• Ramos, Alan;

• Troup, Patrick;

• Aldes, Heidi T;

• Schmidt, Curt G

Dear Mr. Scott,

It has been brought to my attention that you may be inquiring about enrollment at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Following the review and recommendations of Honorable Raymond R. Krause, Chief Administrative Law Judge, regarding a Minnesota State Chapter 14 Hearing held May 19, 2006; College President, Phillip Davis upheld your expulsion from Minneapolis Community and Technical College. You were served this order on August 16, 2007, from the State of Minnesota Office of the Attorney General. You are not permitted to enroll at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. This decision was final and binding, there is no further right to appeal. You are directed to cease your communication and inquiries with the College.

Sincerely,

Becky Nordin

Dean of Students

1501 Hennepin Avenue | Minneapolis, MN 55403

becky.[protected]@minneapolis.edu

Office# [protected]

Fax# [protected]

At addressing the concern, I am bringing forth is the ability to access both the program of study along with and her denial of allowing me to access The Veterans Education Benefits Coordinators at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. I would like to discuss with you briefly the steps that I had taken prior to this email communication that I received from Dean of Students, I did reach out to the Minnesota Veterans Link Vet.

MyMilitaryEducation.org (linkvet.org)

MyMilitaryEducation.org - LinkVet

Regional Coordinator Locations. To find your Regional Coordinator please click the region on the interactive map below in which your college is located.

linkvet.org

In which case the Regional Coordinated listed from my region was on leave but was provided information as to reaching out to my form institution of learnings Veterans Coordinator at Rochester Community and Technical College Rochester, Minnesota. While in attend at this institution RCTC, I obtained my Associates of Applies Sciences Degree in 2014 form Rochester Community and Technical Colleges Health Information and Management and Technology, as this was very detailed plan, and was very fortune that I had completed prerequisite courses prior to entering the program and received education credits towards the program which then allowed me the opportunity to stick to the core course work of Both Health Information and The Medical Coding aspect of the field and program.

I did reach out the RCTC Veterans Coordinator for the School and was advised to whom to contact at the Minneapolis Community and Technical Colleges Veterans Coordinators who as well set up the ZOOM Discussion with the Program Director of the Pharmacy Technician Program and discussed my interest and my intentions as to why I was wanting to Return to MCTC to further my education endeavors with the Pharmacy Technician Program and Certificate. We discussed that there might be some considerations made as to my previous course work and if that would transfer into the program and the institution MCTC in this discussion I was advised as what Items I would need to complete going forth. Please find the list for your review attached within this email.

I was very deeply saddened to hear this news and once again reached out to the VA Regional Coordinator and the spoke directly with the Minneapolis Regional Coordinator who advise me of my options going forth, filing a complaint with the Minnesota States Attorney General, File a complainant with the School MCTC regarding Dean of Students Email communication and to reach out to the Chancellors Office which I feel would be the best and possible first step in addressing this matter.

Meanwhile I made Application to the School and the paid the application fee as well as submitted all Transcripts which now reflect the transfers and credits. As well I have made both FAFSA Applications for both the [protected] year and the [protected] year and the school has received those results as well I received a link from the Veterans Coordinator's at the MCTC to apply for my Veterans Education Benefits and was approved.

While the Dean of Students email discusses the issue of an Expulsion and as the Dean of Student has failed to provide any official notice regarding my Application to MCTC and Warrants a complaint and requires attention on this matter. While I believe that the Dean of Students has violated my rights as both Veteran and has failed to provide me any information in reference to my rights if I disagree with her Actions and believe to be with Bias and disregard to protected Class of Veterans Status.

In Transferring Completed course work at RCTC there was no mention of the Expulsion on the MCTC Transcript when transferring course work into RCTC from MCTC, there supporting record of this with RCTC of no mention of the expulsion as it happened over 16 years ago. I would also reflect to you this was an issue that happened over 16 years ago and exercised my appeal rights to the fullest, the result the Expulsion was upheld. I do not reflect that I was branded or banded from pursing education opportunities elsewhere within the Minnesota State and Colleges University Systems. I see that recently the statement on my Education Transfer work at RCTC and the St. Catherine’s University have transferred in but on the transcript portion for MCTC the following line is listed Expulsion not eligible for re-instatement.

As to my intentions hear with this program the Pharmacy Technician Certificate as this would be the prerequisite course work required to become a Certified Registered Technician with the State of Minnesota, Minnesota Board of Pharmacy, in which case I have made application with the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy for a Technician Registration and issued registration number please fins attached for your review as this program is a state supported functions to become certified. The other issue there are limited programs such as Associates Degrees and course work available at West Community College. I think that the option at MCTC is better in line with the program offering as I have already received credits towards the program with regards to the Minnesota Health Care Core Curriculum and all that I would need to complete would be the Chemistry Portion and the Dosing Calculation Courses as these courses are the required course work to be complete in at taking the both Retail Pharmacy the Internship portions of the course work, I believe I have met the requirements for the Human Disease course as this transferred under the Minnesota Transfer Core Credits portion of Transferring. I have developed a plan as instructed by the Veterans Coordinators prior to the Veterans Early Registration for 02/21/2022 and all this would be dependent upon a review and approval to register for the Fall Term for 2022 thus that would be dependent if I successfully completed the All-On-Line Summer course work of Chemistry and Dosing Calculation as the which then would sequency me for the fall term. Unfittingly this had been disrupted via Dean of Students. As she has not even provided and notify me of my rights regarding her email and if I believe her actions are not warranted as the Minnesota State and University System dose allow for this an appeal in Transferring In circumstances and second chances such as this.

As discussed earlier I did reach out to the Veterans Regional Coordinators on this and was advised as to my options going forth and that they would work with me but discussed that the Dean of Students Email is both Unwarranted as she is not the sole authority on this matter nor has the right to block access to the Veterans Coordinators at the School and again, I have not received any official notification that my application was denied by MCTC again I have completed all required application process in the way of FAFAS and Minnesota Veteran Benefits.

My appeal to you is to both bring to you attention regarding this matter and to see if you can assist myself and the Veterans Educational Coordinators in this matter.

As this is all on-line as I have had success at RCTC as this program was all online and did very well.

I respectfully ask for you to please review this matter in its entirety as well as contacting the Minneapolis Regional Veterans Education Coordinator Duane Bauer as he made be able to shed some better light on what is going on with this matter, again the expulsion happened 16 years ago. I believe Duane Bauer can provided with the email communication I have with his department and the other Communication’s with his representative VA Regional Coordinator in this matter. as one coordinator is returning from a leave, I would like to note that I provided information to as to the request of an official Transcript from MCTC and was denied and notified that the request was denied by an administrator of MCTC's Electronic Request recently.

Thank you for both your time and your considerations on this matter and possibly look forward in hearing from you and your office on this matter.

Respectfully,

Michael B. Scott

[protected]@msn.com

612.220.2916

Star ID's vn9939ri

Star ID's vj2885hr

This review is about Heidi Aldes, a staff member of MCTC. According to the other review on here about her, it looks like she's still up to her old habits.

When she was working at St. Cloud State University, she was the Interim Director of LGBT Resources. During which, she had a history of harassment and discrimination against some volunteers. She has a long history of racism, transphobia, ableism, and serophobia. She is okay with such people who are above her, but she will slaughter anyone who is below her.

There were several people of color who entered the office to express interest in volunteering. She harassed them continually to scare them away. There were also other volunteers who tried to team up with Multicultural Services to do events. She refused every time. She said many times that she had contacted them, but she lied.

Heidi also ridiculed an autistic individual who volunteered there. This individual had many years of experience as an activist and had done outstanding work, but that did not matter to Heidi. She constantly ignored this individual, treated him like he is incompetent, destroyed his reputation to other volunteers of LGBT Resources, and harassed him to the point of severing all ties with LGBT Resources.

Heidi also actively excluded transgender people from certain events. For example, she said that transgender people are not allowed to sit on stage on Guess the Straight Person (on-campus event often held at St. Cloud). She said it was because she did not want to confuse the audience members, but her overall mistreatment of transgender people says otherwise.

There was also a volunteer who had built coalitions between an on-campus HIV organization before Heidi was Interim Director. One of the first things she did upon being hired for that position was to sever the ties. One individual whom she perceived as HIV positive was harassed by Heidi. She refused to be anywhere near this individual in fear that she would catch HIV.

In addition, anybody who disagrees with Heidi Aldes on anything gets yelled at by her. The belief can be something as simple as red vs. orange. It got to the point to where people were afraid to speak their opinions to her. They also had to pretend to always agree with her. Anyone who ever disagreed with her would be screamed at and would start getting harassed by her often. This is not how to treat anybody!

I write this review because there are three volunteers from St. Cloud that I know of who had to seek professional therapy because of psychological damage done by Heidi. I hope that MCTC reads this review and remind themselves that tigers don't change their stripes.

Over the summer, I made two visits, one with my son and one by myself. He's starting to think about colleges for next year. There weren't good stops for me at all. After the first visit, I gave the school the benefit of the doubt by going back there by myself to see the campus from a more experienced point of view. The atmosphere and the people weren't at all impressive. Neither my son nor I felt welcome in the campus. It didn't give us the impressive that it would be positive for a further education. I'd never let my son apply there. I wouldn't want to either if I ever wanted to go back to college.

The staff wasn't helpful or welcoming. Worse is that some of them were rude to people, including me. When exploring the campus, I had to look a little closer than I normally would to see that this isn't great for a quality education. Students may be able to scrape by with an easy A in many of their classes, but easy A doesn't mean quality education. I sensed this by observing some of the classrooms and talking to some students. They confirmed the same.

The worst of this bad experience comes from an employee named Heidi Aldes. I did some digging on the campus website to find out more about her, and after I did, I discovered that she has a director position. During one visit, I overheard Heidi making fun of somebody with a mental disability. The things she said were so horrible that I won't repeat them on here. This is low! This is 2019! How are we still living with this crap? I tried to confront Heidi, but she ignored me and gave me a rude brush-off. Later that day, I ran in to the student who got harassed by Heidi. I talked to this student for a short time, and the student was extremely upset. She was so upset that she was crying.

I contacted campus to file a complaint about the incident, but I never heard back. I won't be back!

I have been in suspension and got withdrew from a class for the teacher stating i didn't keep in contact. I was assaulted and face looking like elephant man i did send her an e-mail as well as my advisor. But a get a b in my other class im so disappointed in this school i want to barf . I'm not the only african american that has fallen behind and put on probation. Suspension or whatever other academic bull-[censored] their talking about but i have been denied 3 times and im getting really irritated with this i guess going over the deans head is what im going to have to do wth do they mean explain my spring semester well they blocked me from my school account i wasent allowed access to check anything, then i was granted to pick classes then i wasent and they withdrew me from a class that they said i was able to do do then i had to do another petition. I'm livid and then another appeals